Special Access

by Mark A. Hewitt

  Lynche flicked Hunter’s red tie, as he bent over to get seated.

  “My pleasure. OK. ATIS info. Winds calm, your altimeter is set, and the tower freq is set. GPS is set via direct to Sierra Vista— 2500 miles. She’s full of gas. Questions?”

  After buckling into his seat, Hunter slid dark aviator sunglasses through his hair and onto the bridge of his nose. He arched his eyebrows several times before shaking his head in wonder and glancing at Lynche.

  Lynche's lips moved behind his microphone, as he looked over and said, “Your airplane.” Hunter smiled, looked forward over the yoke, and replied, “Our airplane, Sir.”

  The stunning, redand-white Gulfstream shot across America. What had once been the $40 million private coach of a Colombian drug lord was seized in Ft. Lauderdale by the DEA. It should have been sold at fair-market value. The funds would have been deposited into the Drug Forfeiture Fund to help pay for counterdrug efforts and similar programs. Seized assets were also provided to other government agencies that needed special equipment if something became available.

  Operated by a contractor out of Vienna, Virginia, a little-known US Quiet Unmanned Aircraft Research Laboratory had a longstanding request with the DEA for a Gulfstream GIV or GIVSP to be used in quiet-aircraft studies. It would be heavily modified with instruments and sensors to conduct classified and unclassified quiet aircraft research. When the informal network was activated with the news that the head of one of the biggest cartels in Colombia had his jet seized and confiscated, the head of the DEA had to get personally involved in the transfer of the jet, as every federal agency head wanted the plane for his organization.

  The paperwork the DEA held clearly demonstrated the document was awarded a very high priority to conduct research “up to top secret” and the lab had been on the “hi-pri” list for years. The DEA administrator called one of the points of contact listed on the Request for Forfeiture Funds form.

  When Greg Lynche answered the phone, the DEA administrator asked, after some formal introductions, “So, Greg, how is it you got a jet? Don’t tell me, but you owe me big time.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  0430 May 26, 2003

  Sierra Vista Municipal Airport, Sierra Vista, Arizona

  On the third night of flying the Wraith along the border, monitoring activity in and around Nogales, the radiation detector startled both pilots. They studied the caution light on the multifunction display, as a mild, “woop, woop, woop,” warbled in their headset. Then it stopped.

  “OK. We got a hit, but I can’t tell where it came from.”

  “What if I descend? Maybe we can pick it up again. I marked our position.”

  “Let’s. While you’re doing that, I’ll rewind the tape and see what we missed while we were shooting the shit.”

  “I’ll call Art.” Hunter depressed buttons on the display.

  “Roger.”

  Duncan selected the Fox Mike frequency, pulled the trigger switch past the interphone detent to transmit. “Redbull, Jaguar.”

  “Talk to me, Jaguar.”

  “Roger, Redbull. Got a single hit at 31-20-25 point 08 November and 110-56-21 point 07 Whiskey. Dash Two is looking at the tape to see if we missed any activity when the sniffer started barking.”

  “10-4. Confirm a single hit at 20-25 decimal 08 and 56-21 decimal 07.”

  “Read back correct. I’m orbiting the mark, but no more joy.” From the back seat, Lynche flipped a selector switch and said, “Bingo. Redbull, we got a truck and the house on the dark side. We had a hit. A hot box was moved from a bread truck to a one-story ranch. There are several houses in the area with thick, probably concrete, walls. If you have your friends ready to move, I can paint the location.”

  “10-4. Monitor the house and surrounding area. I’ll be right back after I contact the friendlies. Also, check for activity on the other side. They may move it immediately. We think it might take them awhile to get it to the other side.”

  “Roger, Redbull. Standing by.”

  Art Yoder turned to the Tucson Sector Chief Patrol Agent, the FBI regional director, and the worried little man from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “It’s show time, Gentlemen.”

  The information from Ali Akmanni was right on target. He was ten for ten. Ali was picked up in Pakistan when he opened his cell phone on the outskirts of Peshawar. Thirty seconds later, a Predator launched a Hellfire into the building of men, women, and children.

  A slight miss enabled al-Qaeda’s chief of intelligence to crawl from the rubble and the body parts of his friends into the arms of two SEALs augmenting the CIA’s Special Activities Division. The man’s shattered left arm and compound-fractured leg required immediate attention.

  The SEALs positively identified Ali Akmanni, removed their individual “blowout” medical kits, and tended the man’s injuries while the CIA officer called for a medevac helicopter.

  One hour later, Ali was pronounced dead for the press pool in Kabul, but he was very much alive in the Army field hospital in Bagram. His condition stabilized after three days. Under cover of darkness, he was transferred to Jordan in a CIA cargo aircraft, where he was to be subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques.

  After having his life saved and given the promise that no harm would come to his family, all the fight went out of Ali. He became a fountain of information and provided actionable intelligence. He gave them the location of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. He knew the last-known location where the Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar was hiding, as well as Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri safe houses in Pakistan and Iran.

  He also provided information about a large quantity of radioactive Cesium-137 that al-Zawahiri wanted to smuggle into the US and release into the air in major cities or deposit into drinking water supplies. Iran had an overabundance of Cesium-137, one of the more well-known fission products after splitting uranium and plutonium atoms from their secret nuclear power projects.

  Ali knew enough of the Iranian operation to move Cesium-137 into America that Ayman al-Zawahiri stayed along the border and continued to conduct al-Qaeda operations from Iran. Two shipments of Cesium-137 would be moved by ship from Bandar Abbas, the main base of the Iranian Navy and home to several shipping companies on the narrow Straits of Hormuz.

  The first attempt to move twenty-five pounds of Cesium-137 was mysteriously lost when the small freighter began taking on water near Djibouti. The crew abandoned ship and were rescued by a French Navy frigate. Very few people knew that SEAL Delivery Team 1, from a US attack sub, boarded the Liberian-based freighter at night in semi-rough seas, located the radioactive slug, and scuttled the ship with several magnesium thermite strips which quickly ate holes in the hull. Still undetected, the six men of SEAL Delivery Team 1 slipped back over the freighter’s side as it sank.

  The next shipment was scheduled to be smuggled across the US border. In collaboration with a high-ranking member of Iranian Intelligence and a Mexican drug cartel warlord infatuated with pretty young Iranian girls, he offered to move whatever his friend wanted “one at a time” if they would keep a supply of fourteen-year-old Iranian girls coming to his casa. The load would be delivered to a parking lot outside a tiny mosque in Tucson.

  The operation was briefed by the Director of Central Intelligence and approved for interdiction on US soil by the National Security Council. Confidence in Ali’s information was high, and the interdiction strategy required an almost immediate response and oversight capabilities of a special group of patriots with Special Access operating a quiet aircraft with special sensors optimized for low-altitude operations. Derived from sensors developed for space applications, the YO-3A’s wings were modified to integrate several cascading strips of an ultrasensitive, delicate, aerogel-backed, optically stimulated luminescence detectors.

  Department of Energy specialists postulated that the radioactive material to be smuggled across the border would be easily read by overhead sensors at all US ports of entry. A small pa
ckage of lead-lined radioactive material couldn’t be totally shielded, so a minute level of radiation could be detected under the right circumstances.

  The Wraith detected something hot at the proposed transfer location, as described by the recovering and increasingly well-cared-for Ali Akmanni. US Border Patrol intelligence officers, frequently operating on either side of the US border, were alerted by cell phone from their chief.

  Encrypted text messages were exchanged via BlackBerry. The six-man interdiction crew donned personal-protective gear and bullet-resistant vests and moved to their vehicles. Interdiction forces in Nogales were on high alert.

  Two hours later, the Wraith picked up the load to US Nogales. The FBI wanted to interdict the receivers of the materials in the US, and several agents were vectored to the right house and vehicle by the Wraith’s IR laser designator.

  Thirty agents from FBI, DEA, and Department of Energy took down the houses on both sides of the border and caught the vehicle with the radioactive load. The US transfer point was over 1,000 feet from the Mexican border, a distance unheard of in law-enforcement circles.

  Lynche recorded the takedown of the house.

  When it was clear that the job was complete, Yoder spoke into his radio. “Mission complete. RTB.”

  *

  Mexican newspapers reported the takedown of a tunnel by the Mexican Army under the byline, Drug Cartel HighTech Tunnel Falls to Ejercito Mexicano.

  BOOK FOUR

  CHAP TER ONE

  0630 July 29, 2004

  Deputy Chief Near East Division Office CIA Headquarters

  The previous night, Nick Dolan sat in his recliner. Newspapers and magazines were piled high on either side of the worn-out corduroy Easy Boy. A bottle of Heineken rested on a coaster, while a half-eaten bag of popcorn lay in his lap. Had his ex-wife seen him like that, she would’ve been furious.

  A lifelong Republican who practiced his politics in the voting booth and living room, his curiosity got the better of him, and he turned to the Democratic National Convention on his big screen.

  “Are they really going to nominate that guy? He was a misfit when he was in uniform. He’s been a complete fuck-up as a senator, and he’s running as a war hero? Reporting for duty? You’re totally unfit for duty! Give me a break!” he yelled at the TV.

  He drank beer and popped a few fluffy kernels into his mouth, as the keynote speaker was introduced. Taking a deep breath, he sighed.

  “Why are Democratic women so homely?” Shaking his head and looking into his lap, so he didn’t have to look at the Hollywood woman behind the lectern, he listened to her speak in her halting, breathless voice.

  Dolan heard the keynote speaker was a Michigan state senator and a US Senate candidate. Music and applause in the background increased in volume and intensity, drowning out the keynote speaker’s name. He looked up, expecting to see another homely woman take the podium. When he read the title bar at the bottom of the screen, introducing the keynote speaker, he was shocked.

  His jaw fell open, and his brain tried to reconcile what he saw and what was in one of several hundred files in a safe at work. After his beer-tinged synapses resolved the problem, fitting all the pieces of the puzzle in his brain in a dozen milliseconds, he shot from his chair, sending popcorn and beer flying.

  “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over!” he shouted at the big screen television, poised like a sumo wrestler ready to attack.

  Dolan slept fitfully after listening to the neatly dressed senator and the sycophantic interviews that followed. His thoughts were on the unusual name on the file in his old office safe and his reaction to that information. In the morning, all the way to the office, Dolan debated what to do and who to talk to. Who else knew of that file? Probably not a high crime or a misdemeanor, most of the material in that file was interesting at best. Some of it could be detrimental to an up-and-coming US senator. Most people would simply ignore the comment in the context of the euphoria surrounding the convention spirit.

  After the rousing keynote speech and the questions posed by the lickspittle press regarding his presidential ambitions, one of the senator’s remarks perturbed Dolan enough to keep him awake all night. One of the secret code phrases of al-Qaeda was uttered on national television by a charismatic politician, who spent time in Pakistan in a terrorist training camp under a British passport.

  Without disrupting his daily routine, Nick Dolan greeted his secretary, read the dispatch board, and settled behind his desk with hands surrounded the large mug filled to the brim with black coffee. He drained the mug, which advertised his Marine Corps roots, and headed out of the office for the offices and cubicles that made up the Near East Division.

  He decided to ask the new employee to get the file from the archives, to have someone else’s name on the chain-of-custody document to deflect any scrutiny as to why the deputy was interested in the file of a US citizen that should have been turned over to the FBI or NCTC a long time ago.

  He found the cubicle at the end of the aisle. Unlike the work spaces of his other direct reports, this one was neat, sterile, and gray. Stopping at the doorway, he was greeted with bright platinum-green eyes, offering a script with several names.

  “Good morning, Ms. Cunningham,” Dolan said. “Could you please retrieve these files from the archives and bring them to my office?”

  He wanted to watch her and her skirt walk to the vault of archived paper files at the end of the office, but he knew he would soon be treated with her presence and slow departure from his room. He almost ran back in anticipation of the shapely Ms. Cunningham and the file.

  When she knocked on the door, he barked, “Enter!” one of his favorite holdovers from his days in the Marine Corps. A Navy SEAL entered, offered a stack of files, and began discussing the findings and analysis of their newest analyst.

  “Have a seat, Danny. I was expecting Ms. Cunningham to bring these.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Nick. I know I’m not as good-looking as Nazy, but I ran into her in the vault and offered to bring these to you.”

  Everyone on the floor, including the women, stopped and stared whenever Ms. Cunningham left her cube or returned to it. The deputy was especially smitten, even though she rebuffed his suggestions of going out for drinks after his recent divorce.

  “No factor. Thanks for the files. What do you have?”

  “I know you’re new to this position. I didn’t know how much you knew of what we were doing, or what we’ve been doing.”

  “Only what I get from the weekly report. After that, not much.”

  “OK. For starters, Ms. Cunningham’s been working with us for the last year. She’s provided analysis and perspective on three of our projects. Suddenly, all have yielded amazing results.”

  “I know her first job was to help interrogate some high-value al-Qaeda. I understand she’d walk into the room, and the little goatfuckers never saw anything like her. She ripped them a new asshole in Arabic, and they spilled their guts. Then she discovered what happened to the Iraqi general who did all Saddam’s purchasing.”

  “That’s when I was assigned upstairs. I remember during our first meeting, she said Saddam had to have had a trusted agent to purchase materials and equipment for the production of WMD—biological, chemical, and nuclear. She targeted his ID from thousands of documents and hundreds of files brought back from the initial push into Baghdad. Nazy ascertained a certain Iraqi major general traveled frequently to Moscow and Paris, and his travel preceded significant weapons and equipment deliveries to Baghdad.

  “But we still didn’t have a name. Then she had the idea to monitor the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to see if they’d help identify the general, thinking they’d actively seek him out for his crimes against the Iranian people. All of Saddam’s general officers were targeted, but we didn’t know all their names. Anyway, those two pieces were a stroke of genius. She was able to ID him and was able to triangulate his location in Kuwait. The little shit ran to Kuwait City, right to a
compound where his family lived for years.”

  “That’s outstanding. Clearly top-block analysis.”

  “She said he’d probably be amenable to helping us and would want something for his work. Somehow, she knew that the man kept documents on everything he bought for Saddam— receipts, contracts, shipping and receiving papers—copies going back over twenty years. They were insurance of some sort. And, she was right. We sent a team to talk to him and convinced him to give us copies of the contracts, equipment and materials lists, delivery orders, and receipts of payments—usually in millions of gallons of oil.”

  “Food for oil, my eye.” Dolan felt a little jealous when Cox spoke of how closely he worked with Nazy.

  “We knew that was a sham. What I’m here to tell you is that the intel on WMD in Iraq was actually greater than previous estimates. Nazy pored over those documents but couldn’t find where the materials and equipment was moved. Everything—what, when, and how—was there, but not the location. She asked if the analysis team asked where it was, but no one did.

  “Two weeks ago, we went back and convinced the general to disclose where the materials and equipment went before US forces rolled into Baghdad. Last week, Team Six verified where the WMD went and where the equipment to manufacture biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons were stored until Saddam could retrieve them.

  “What I want to tell you before you hear it from anyone else is that an hour ago, a flight of six Navy F/A-18s crossed the Syrian border and deposited twenty-four canisters of napalm on top of twenty-four GBU-18 bombs that were placed atop two warehouses twenty miles outside Aleppo. It’s now true that there are no large caches of WMD in Iraq or anywhere else.”

  Dolan isolated the file he wanted, flipped it open, and scanned it while listening to the SEAL. “Oohrah! That’s amazing.”

  “She’s amazing in more than one way.”