by Andrew Watts
It was what Chase’s trainers at the Farm would term a “less-than-ideal field-of-fire situation.”
Footsteps sounded from the exit where the crowd had been running. A lone woman, covered from head to toe in a flowing black robe and burka. She walked through the group, seemingly oblivious to the violence that had just taken place. But she wasn’t. A slit revealed eyes that Chase recognized, and they took in everything.
The five men all held their guns out now and were maneuvering. Pakvar and his men took slow steps to get a better angle on Chase. The woman in the black robe confused them and caused them to pause.
The nearest of Pakvar’s men yelled something at her that could be loosely translated as “Get out of here, you stupid bitch.”
She kept walking. They all watched her in curiosity as she walked up to the unsuspecting Iranian. When she was about ten feet away, she raised a Beretta and casually fired one round through the head of Pakvar’s first man.
Chase dropped to the ground, twisted, and fired at Pakvar’s second man behind him. Two rounds, center mass. He went down hard. No blood. Possibly wearing body armor. Chase fired another round and hit his temple.
Pakvar was open-mouthed in astonishment after witnessing the woman’s action. He quickly sidestepped and hid behind one of the large white posts that rose up through the floor and provided stability to the mall structure. The woman ran toward Chase and grabbed his hand. Waleed, Chase, and the woman turned and sprinted through the mall.
Chase looked back and saw that Pakvar was starting to follow them. He fired a few rounds in Pakvar’s direction and then took cover again. He turned to the woman. “Lisa, aim where I’m aiming.”
He raised his gun and fired at the location in the glass where the cracks and holes had formed from the MAC-10 rounds. Chase emptied his chamber and saw more cracks spreading through the giant glass fish tank. Lisa’s rounds finished the job. The pressure of the water forced the glass to shatter, and in excess of two million gallons of salt water thrust out from the shattered aquarium wall.
A violent wall of blue water surged from right to left. Chase watched Pakvar get swept away, then turned and followed his two companions as they ran through the aquarium tunnel and out to safety.
Chapter 10
Al Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates
Three Weeks Later
Elliot said, “So I’ve got good news and bad news. What do you want first?”
They sat in a small room connected to the Tactical Operations Center. Chase said, “I always like to go with the bad first.”
“I couldn’t get you the air support I thought I would be able to get you.”
“What was the air support you were going to get me?”
“I was trying to get you a helo insert. I thought I might be able to hook you up with the guys from the 160th and their stealth helos. The same ones that DEVGRU used for the Abbottabad raid.”
“Didn’t they crash one of those?”
Elliot frowned. “Yeah. Actually, now that you mention it, that’s the same objection that they had when I asked about it.”
“So then…this would seem like good news, not bad.”
Elliot pointed at him and said, “I really appreciate the positive outlook you have. So, when was your last HALO jump?”
HALO stood for High Altitude Low Opening, a specific method of parachute insertion. Chase had completed many of those jumps when he was with the SEAL Teams, but he was not current, and definitely not proficient enough for a night jump. It was a perishable skill, something one had to practice often to keep good at.
“It’s been a while.”
“Ever used a wingsuit?”
“Once. It was a cross-training exercise we did with the Army. They’re pretty high-speed.” Elliot was giving him a funny look. Chase said, “You want me to wear a wingsuit?”
“It’s the best way to stay far enough from Abu Musa so that we don’t raise any suspicion.”
“How far can I travel on one of those?”
“The world record is fifteen nautical miles.”
Chase said, “Assume I’m not the world-record holder.”
“I think you should be able to at least get ten miles out of it. But you should probably talk to the pilots about the winds and all that. Listen, you’re the Special Operations guy.”
“Minor details.”
“I got you a Cessna Caravan. An Air Force plane. They’ll be your insert. But the wingsuit isn’t what I’m excited about. The good news is actually my brilliant plan to get you extracted. I want you to know it was very challenging to get someone that was able to reliably transport you and our mystery passenger off of Abu Musa.”
Chase said, “I’m sure.”
“I mean, it was really challenging. Like, no contractors, government, or military guys were suitable for this. Too high a risk of getting caught. And in my opinion, a covert operation is like going to a crowded church on Christmas Eve. You always need a good exit strategy.”
Elliot was using his hands as he spoke. He was really trying to sell this one. Whatever the punch line was, Chase didn’t think he was going to like it.
“I’m sure you were able to come up with something…”
“Oh, I was. A crack team…well, more like an individual than a team…but he’s got a great reputation for delivering whenever we’ve needed to smuggle guys into or out of Iran.”
“Nice. So far, so good.”
Elliot looked like he had something more to say. Something that Chase might not like. Chase said, “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Well…about this guy…he’s a little…how should I put it…he’s a bit…junior…”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You know, like a bit less experienced than some of the internal Agency support that you might be accustomed to.”
“How junior?”
“Well, let’s look back at the positives. He’s been one hundred percent reliable in all of the work we’ve sent his way. All three times. And—”
“You’ve only used him three times?”
“And he came at quite a discount from the private sector guys.”
“So he was the lowest bidder? Is this really the mission that you’re trying to save money on?”
“Plus, if you guys get rolled up by the Iranians, he has no ties to us, so it will be easier to completely disavow all knowledge. Of course, you guys will be totally fucked. But I’ll come out squeaky clean. Brilliant, as far as I’m concerned.”
Chase smirked. “This sounds like some top-notch planning on your part. So what’s the downside?”
“He’s sixteen.”
“Sixteen?”
“Well, he’ll be sixteen next month. He told me his birthday was coming up.”
“Fifteen? You’re having me get picked up from an island that Iran uses as a military outpost with a fifteen-year-old kid?”
“No. No, Chase. It’s not like that. Well…sort of. Yes. But I’m starting to question your positive outlook.” Elliot smiled. “We’ll have a SOCOM Mark V boat pick you guys up once you’re out of the twelve-nautical-mile arc.”
Chase rolled his eyes. He stood up and looked at the nautical chart on the wall, the one that showed the Arabian Gulf. Abu Musa was only about fifty miles north of Dubai.
Elliot said, “Look, Chase, you are the one that convinced me that Waleed’s man Gorji is legit. I went out on a limb to make this happen. If this Iranian bitcoin-mining operation really has some bigger nefarious purpose, then we need proof. Just like you said. And if this Satoshi character can provide us with that proof, then we need to bust him out of there. If you’re not comfortable going, I could try to get some SOF guys pulled off their ISIS missions in Iraq and—”
“You know that won’t work. It’ll be too big of an op. It will take too long to plan and get authorization for. We’ll have to go through the president if we do that. Again. And you said that Langley barely convinced him this time. Plus, if we send a tea
m of SOF guys and people start shooting, it will get messy. It’s better to keep it just one or two people.”
“Exactly. I knew you’d come around.”
Chase snorted and rolled his eyes. Elliot was doing his best to use humor to his advantage.
“Fifteen. Jesus. Alright, tell me the details…”
Elliot smiled and opened his laptop. “Attaboy.”
*****
Chase sat in the back of the dark grey turboprop aircraft. The Cessna Caravan was holding short of the main runway at Minhad Air Base, twenty miles to the southeast of Dubai.
It was pitch black outside. There was supposedly a quarter moon, but the dust and haze had completely hidden it. Chase checked his watch. 1:30 a.m. He could see the blue runway lights and hear the powerful engine as the pilots ran up the RPMs, conducting their pre-takeoff checks.
The copilot yelled back, “You all set? The flight should be about twenty-five minutes. We have our clearance. You good?”
Chase gave a thumbs-up. The copilot said something into his lip microphone and the other pilot said something back. The engine picked up again and seconds later they were airborne.
Chase had triple-checked his gear. Helmet with a clear visor. No smudges. He wanted to be able to see everything clearly as he parachuted into the least inhabited part of the island. His helmet was strapped on tight. He had a knife in a sheath that slid into his boot. His altimeter was matched up with the aircraft’s barometric setting. Parachute. Quadruple-checked. AAD—automatic parachute activation device. Check. And one big, rubbery wingsuit.
He and the pilots were already breathing through oxygen masks. As a safety precaution, they’d pre-breathed oxygen for one hour prior to the flight in order to prevent oxygen sickness.
His backpack was filled with another twenty pounds of gear. A silenced pistol. A small amount of food and water. A few tightly packed medical supplies. A fully charged satellite phone and an extra battery. He had memorized the number to dial.
Phone calls. His jovial mood broke shortly after his prebrief with Elliot.
Chase had received a voice mail from his sister, informing him that his brother David was missing. In the weeks since the mall incident, Chase had still not contacted David. After learning that he was missing, he was kicking himself for following orders.
Two days after the shootout at the Mall of Dubai, Lisa had traveled to Langley. She was supposed to use her source at In-Q-Tel to check up on him. But Chase had not heard from her since she left. Chase and Lisa had to go through a series of debriefs and provide written statements concerning what had happened. But between Waleed and Elliot, their names and faces were kept out of the press. Officially, the Dubai Mall shooting had been reported as a terrorist attack. No mention of Iran was made.
Chase tried not to think of his brother. He had to push away his fears of what might have happened to him. Whatever this list was, it was Chase’s fault for not warning him. But before a mission like this, he couldn’t afford any distractions. He needed to block those thoughts out and save it for when he returned.
The aircraft took off and climbed rapidly. The pilots turned off all of the external lights and switched off their transponder once they were out over the Gulf. Fifteen minutes later, the copilot rose from his seat and gave Chase a thumbs-up.
The copilot opened up a plastic panel next to the door of the aircraft, revealing a dozen switches and circuit breakers. He flipped one switch, and a soft red glow light came on above them. The copilot looked Chase up and down, patting certain areas of his gear to make sure he was secure and double-checking his chute. He then clipped himself to a canvas belt that was attached to a steel link in the ceiling and reached for the door.
The copilot flipped another switch, and a yellow light lit up above it, illuminating the word READY. The pilot flying the aircraft saw this in his cockpit as well and started to slow down to 140 knots and fly into the wind. Chase could see the copilot flip another switch and then heard a hiss and felt the temperature rapidly drop. It would be well below zero up at this altitude, regardless of how hot it was on the desert surface below.
He checked his altimeter, which was strapped to his chest. The needle was spinning up to an altitude of twenty-two thousand feet.
Chase hoped that the aviators had placed him in the right spot. He had personally overseen the wind calculations when they were on the ground. He could angle the wingsuit and use aerodynamics to glide pretty far, but a lot depended on how high they were and what the winds were doing.
The READY light turned green.
The copilot placed his hand on the long metal door handle and then pulled it down and inward. A black void of hurricane-force winds opened up in front of him. Chase patted the copilot on the shoulder and stepped out, facing forward and crossing his arms tight over his chest.
Stepping into the wind, he felt like a linebacker had hit him as the relative wind pummeled him in the opposite direction. But that feeling was short-lived, as drag slowed him down and gravity took over. The acceleration vector shifted downward, and his stomach fluttered as he fell.
Then, as he spread his arms and legs and the airflow filled the sail of the wingsuit, he had the sensation of flying. Chase forced his limbs outward and angled himself so that he would glide toward the island below. Skydivers in free fall normally traveled downward at 120 miles per hour. Yet with the wingsuit, he was falling at a velocity of only forty miles per hour, and moving forward at over 140 miles per hour.
Abu Musa consisted of a smattering of village lights around the outside of the island, and an unlit runway in the middle. Intel reports said that the aircraft here almost never flew at night. Almost never. He hoped that it would remain empty for him to land on.
For the first minute of his fall, he was above the haze. Looking up, he could see the moon and stars. He felt like he was floating in outer space. Below, there were several formations of lights. They were likely commercial ships. Oil tankers, headed to and from the Straits of Hormuz, probably.
Three minutes into his descent, he decided that the pilots had done a good job placing him where he needed to be. He was almost over the island. Now he needed to tighten his limbs a bit to decrease his lift and ensure that he didn’t overshoot. As he did that, he began falling faster.
He checked his altimeter. Three thousand feet. Any second now, his AAD would deploy his chute. It was set for one thousand feet. If it didn’t go off, Chase would pull it manually.
He felt a little flutter as the chute deployed and then a jarring slam when it fully opened, arresting his descent. Chase flipped down his night vision goggles and examined the runway. No lights, and no sign of any movement. Chase looked underneath the goggles at his altimeter every few seconds, trying to gauge his altitude.
The hard part about landing while wearing night vision goggles was the disparity between what his eyes told him was real and actual reality. It was like watching a video of what’s in front of you and trying to walk up the stairs. Yes, you could see what was there, but it was very challenging to estimate the exact distance between your feet and the ground. The trick was to look out at the horizon.
Chase pulled on the chute’s maneuvering lines to line up with the runway centerline as he descended. With about one hundred feet to go, he began looking underneath his goggles, using the lights of the island and the faintest hint of a horizon to estimate how close he was to the surface.
The green image of the runway grew larger and larger as he tensed his body for impact. He pulled to start his flare, slowing his rate of descent at just the right moment to cushion his landing. He felt his boots hit the runway and began running and taking in the parachute as he came down.
Moments later, he had stuffed the chute back into its container and moved over to a spot about twenty yards to the north of the runway. He checked his watch. It had been thirty minutes since takeoff. He would have about four hours until the sun began to lighten the horizon. That meant three hours until his extraction.
He threw his backpack over his shoulder and began walking. He gripped a silenced Beretta and four extra magazines of ammo in a belt underneath his tunic. An eight-inch WK II Defense Dagger was tucked into its Kydex sheath, strapped to his boot.
Chase took his time making his way over the sand-and-rock terrain. If he kept on this heading, he would avoid alerting any of the island’s civilian population that might have trouble sleeping.
To his right, at the far end of the runway, he could see evidence of the Iranian military. A few jeeps and a fuel truck sat next to an old Soviet-era jet. If that thing ever flew in combat, he wondered what would be a greater danger to the pilot—the enemy, or his own aircraft.
Ahead, Chase spotted two large concrete structures. There was a row of large generators and HVAC units that fed into the first building. They made a lot of noise, which should help him stay undetected.
Chase crouched down and took out a heavy set of thermal imaging binoculars from his pack. Looking through them, he noted that the heat signature from the first building was very strong. They had what must have been a hundred rows of servers in there, but Chase couldn’t see any signs of people in the large building.
Each of those computers was speeding through a mathematical calculation that would help unlock the next block chain of bitcoins. The more computing power these guys had, the more bitcoins they could unlock.
But why do this here? If what Gorji had said was true, and this operation was funded by Jinshan, why did the mine have to be here? This had been the subject of much discussion between him and Elliot. Gorji suggested that there was some mysterious link to the submarine cables running through the Gulf. They were still missing information.