by Jack Mars
“What if you could control the weather?” Trudy said.
“Every day would be like Hawaii,” Swann said absently.
Just then, a new message appeared on Trudy’s tablet. She had done some basic research on Paul Dunn, but then had farmed out some deeper digging to a contact she had who worked an overnight shift at NSA. The stuff Trudy found on Dunn had been interesting, even mildly troubling, but nothing that suggested a deal breaker.
He was, for example, exactly who he said he was. Paul Samson Dunn, from Stockton, California. He had been considered highly intelligent and athletic as a young person. He was raised by a single mom, and his home life was turbulent. He lived in ten different homes by the time he was in high school. He dropped out of school at seventeen, obtained his GED, and joined the Marine Corps. Model soldier, with one infantry tour in Iraq, and a deployment to the Philippines. Reenlisted at twenty-one, and either transferred to, or was recruited by, Naval Intelligence. Joined the Navy SEALs at twenty-three, deployments to Afghanistan and Syria, and at least one classified deployment.
Trudy opened the new file on Dunn from the NSA. She scanned it.
“Oh boy,” she said.
“What’s new?” Swann said.
“I just got some follow-up information on Dunn,” she said.
“Well, let’s hear it.”
“Uh, where to start?”
“Go straight to the juicy stuff,” Swann said.
“I almost feel like I should call Luke right away.”
Swann shrugged. “That could be awkward, since he’s in the field with Dunn at this moment. Why don’t you try it out on me first?”
“His tenure in the Navy SEALs ended with a classified deployment to Somalia,” Trudy said. “He was wounded in action, and returned to the United States.”
“That sounds okay,” Swann said.
“Three psychiatric stays at VA hospitals in the following two years,” Trudy said.
Swann winced. “Less good.”
“Wanted for questioning by the Mexican federal police in connection with the death of a vacationing American citizen during a bar fight in Cabo San Lucas.”
Swann started to say something.
“Wait, let me finish,” Trudy said. “Dunn disappeared after that. Evidence suggests that he was hired by the Russian private military contracting firm the Wagner Group, and was deployed to Syria. That would have been his second deployment to Syria, but this time he would have been fighting on the side of the Assad regime.”
“Maybe against ISIS,” Swann said. “But maybe against American-backed rebels, as well.”
“Possibly even against American troops,” Trudy said. “It’s not out of the question. From there, he was hired by the South African private military contractor Executive Outcomes, and was deployed to Nigeria, just as he described. He is currently wanted by the Lagos police in connection with a series of armed robberies there. He’s also wanted for questioning by the Nigerian military in connection with the murder of a city councilor in the city of Maiduguri.”
Swann shook his head and smiled. “So let me get this straight. At least three psych commitments, allegations of robbery, manslaughter, and murder in two different countries, as well as possibly treasonous military action on behalf of our enemies. He sounds like Stone’s kind of guy.”
Trudy shook her head. “I better call Luke.”
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
9:50 a.m. Eastern Standard Time
The Oval Office
The White House, Washington, DC
“Okay, Kurt,” Susan said. “Let me have it.”
Susan sat in a high-backed linen chair in the sitting area of the Oval Office. Beneath her feet was the Seal of the President of the United States. Just across from her was Kurt Kimball, sitting in an identical chair. His size made him seem a bit uncomfortable, too broad for the confines of the chair.
An aide had just brought her another cup of coffee. She sipped it; it was good. They always served good coffee here—Susan demanded it. In some ways, the coffee was the best thing about this job. Maybe it would get her going again. The day had barely started, and already she was slipping.
Man, she was tired.
Outside the tall windows, it was a bright winter day, the morning sun reflecting off the snow that had fallen yesterday in the Rose Garden. Susan was wearing casual attire—tan slacks, a white dress shirt, and a blue jacket. She had pulled her hair back into a ponytail.
She and Kurt were mercifully alone. The big TV screen on the wall was off—no smiling generals or vice presidents could ruin her mood. Although, come to think of it, her mood was bad enough.
Kurt had cut the meeting short in the Situation Room after Stone had disobeyed orders and then hung up the telephone. It was a shocking display of arrogance and insubordination on Stone’s part. But it was hardly the first time this kind of thing had happened with him. It was just that things were different now. Stone was her… boyfriend?
She sighed, sat back in her chair, and placed her hands on top of her head. She stared up at the ceiling. The ceiling was a deep rotunda, and she sometimes felt she could lose herself in its spiral design. Luke Stone was a difficult person, and always had been.
He was intelligent. He was uncompromising. He was exasperating. He was unpredictable. He was about as brave as a human being could be. They had worked closely for years before they had tumbled into bed together. He was her go-to agent long before any of the recent developments had happened.
Susan watched Kurt sip the coffee the aide had brought him. It had taken Kurt so long to respond that it seemed like he wasn’t going to answer her at all.
“How’s your coffee, Kurt?”
He shrugged his big shoulders.
“You already know what I’m going to say.”
“That it’s the best, or close to the best coffee you’ve ever had?” Susan said.
He took another slow sip and shook his head. “Not about the coffee, Susan. It’s good. It’s always good. It’s top-notch coffee, but that’s not why we’re in here, is it? It’s about Stone. He’s gone beyond the pale with what he did today. It looks bad to disobey a direct order from the President of the United States in front of a room full of advisors, some of whom consider themselves rivals of Stone. It looks bad, but he’s done it before.”
Kurt raised a large hand. “But what will be very bad is if he crosses into Nigeria with the intention of carrying our reprisals against Boko Haram. He cannot do it. It could cause a diplomatic disaster that would take years to heal. The situation there is much more complicated than any of us would like to admit, and frankly, more complicated than Stone seems to have the wherewithal to understand.”
Susan gasped and then caught herself. “Kurt…”
Kurt’s hand hadn’t moved. It just stayed there, a big ol’ STOP sign halting traffic. “Susan, I’m no fool. I have eyes. I know what’s going on here, as do several other key people. I’ve taken steps to protect you and do my best to make sure inside information about your relationship doesn’t reach the public. But I think you’ve become blinded to Stone’s limitations.
“Yes, he has been an excellent covert operator for us, many times. Does that mean he should be elevated to running his own agency? Debatable, and a question for another time. Does it mean he should be permitted to run amok in sensitive regions of the world? Or be allowed to flout the authority of the people he supposedly reports to?”
Kurt let the question hang there, then answered it himself.
“Absolutely not.”
Susan found herself momentarily speechless. It was the first time Kurt had openly acknowledged he knew something about her relationship with Stone. Of course, she had suspected that he might know. Not only did he know, he was taking steps to keep the whole thing hidden.
“Yikes,” she said finally.
Kurt nodded. “Yes. It’s a complicated arrangement, I get that. What you do in your private time is your business, but you can’t let your private re
lationships get in the way of, or otherwise harm, the very public business of running the country. Some of the people in that room think you have some kind of crush on Luke Stone. Why else would you let him get away with this sort of thing? If they knew the real reason…”
Kurt rolled his eyes dramatically. It was a gesture so out of character for him that Susan almost laughed. For an instant, he had resembled an oversized Sesame Street character.
“Stone is intelligent, I don’t doubt that. But he sees things in stark black and white terms. I imagine that’s very helpful to a soldier trying to survive and carry out successful missions in a war zone. But this isn’t technically a war zone. It’s a complex region, with vastly complicated tribal interrelationships, facing security issues that have driven hundreds of thousands of displaced persons from a violent country into a country that barely exists.”
Susan took a deep breath. She was just about ready to throw herself at Kurt’s mercy. She felt weirdly ashamed. She was supposed to be a married woman, the President of the United States, on top of her game and the chess master in control of all the pieces. Now here was Kurt, telling her she was transparently favoring her lover and letting him stomp all over the rule book.
“What should we do?” she said.
“After you left, Frank Loomis suggested we arrest Stone before he leaves Niger. Stone, Ed Newsam, and their guide should all be arrested and at least brought back to the camp at Agadez. From there, we can make arrangements for their repatriation, if necessary. Haley Lawrence was with us on that conversation, and he agreed. And to be honest, I tend to agree. It’s the fastest way to put a stop to this, and it sends a message to your advisors that you aren’t Stone’s puppet.”
Susan chewed on that one for a long moment. Kurt was suggesting to her—and really, he was telling her—that she should give the order to arrest her boyfriend. The most amazing thing about it was it made total sense. Stone had brought this upon himself. When he came home, she was also going to have to discipline him in some way. Even remaining in charge of the SRT could be tricky…
“They’re still at the forward operating base, as far as we know,” Kurt said. “That’s a Special Forces base, with military police onsite. If we act quickly, we can avoid a diplomatic crisis, and in all likelihood, a bloodbath.”
“Why the guide, too?” Susan said.
Kurt shook his head. “The guide is another story for a later date. I’m not sure what happened there, but I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”
“What does that mean?” To Susan’s mind, this day was getting weirder and weirder.
“The guide is a private military contractor out of California. He is a former Navy SEAL, highly decorated. But he wasn’t properly vetted. Earlier this morning, Stone’s intel officer, Trudy Wellington—”
“Obviously, I know who Trudy Wellington is,” Susan said.
“She requested a deep vetting of the man because of some concerns Stone had upon meeting him. An analyst at NSA put the dossier together overnight, a copy of which was leaked to my office.”
Susan shook her head. Of course Kurt intercepted the dossier. He hardly slept, so he had time for all this. Kurt had his little tentacles in everywhere. It was part of what made him so good at his job.
“Do I even want to know?” she said.
Kurt nodded. “I think you do. The man’s name is Paul Dunn. Since his honorable discharge from the Navy, he has a history of PTSD-related psychiatric hospitalizations. He is wanted for questioning in a manslaughter case in Mexico. He may have been a Russian operative in Syria. And he is a suspect in at least one capital murder case of a public official in Nigeria. When I heard that, I had a couple of my own people open some back channel communications. The Nigerians want this man Dunn very badly. Although he’s only officially wanted for one murder, authorities there believe he’s been involved in many killings, at least some of which are extra-judicial murders of people associated with Boko Haram.”
“So he’s a vigilante,” Susan said.
“The Nigerians are calling him a serial killer.”
Susan sat still. She felt the energy oozing out of her body and onto the floor. She took another sip of her coffee. It was going cold.
“How did we end up hiring him?” she said.
Kurt shook his head. “It’s an interesting question, and I’m going to call for a full and thorough investigation. If we’re lucky, it was a simple oversight combined with dishonesty on Dunn’s part. He has apparently been altering and covering up his record for the past three years in order to secure employment. But if we’re not lucky, then we may have people at the highest levels of JSOC or the Africa Command who deliberately sabotaged an operation by hiring a murder suspect with serious mental health issues, and then putting him in the field.”
“Loomis?” Susan said. “Wellesley? Why would they do that?”
But she didn’t have to ask the question. She already knew.
Stone. Loomis didn’t like Stone. Loomis didn’t like putting forward plans that included his own men, only to have Stone’s plans be implemented again and again.
“It’s all speculation at the moment,” Kurt said. “In the meantime, for his own protection, and to ensure that he receives fair treatment while these criminal allegations are investigated, we need to arrest Paul Dunn, repatriate him, and detain him in a military prison. If the Nigerians catch him, they’ll probably just execute him without a trial.”
Susan nodded. There was really no decision to make. It had all been made for her. Circumstances demanded it. She could explain her reasoning to Stone after they dragged him in here in handcuffs and dumped him on the carpet.
“Okay,” she said. “Bring them in. Arrest Stone and his team. Get them out of there.”
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
4:15 p.m. West Africa Time (10:15 a.m. Eastern Standard Time)
Forward Operating Base (FOB) Desert Lion
Diffa, Niger
“How soon?” Luke said.
Dunn shrugged. “Ninety more minutes. Give or take a few.”
It was almost time to go. The days were short this time of year, and the shadows were starting to grow longer. They would cross the border as soon as the sun was gone.
Ed, Luke, and Dunn were armoring up. The Special Forces guys knew where they were going and were sympathetic—they had handed over an arsenal.
Luke had an MP5, loaded, with ten extra loaded magazines salted in the pockets of his new, dark green and black camo pants and vest. He had a six-inch hunting knife with serrated blade. He had a tiny Derringer .45 strapped to one calf, and second knife, a four-inch switchblade, strapped to his other calf. He had four grenades.
He also had a small daypack with condensed meals, water, and a combat flashlight. They were going light on supplies, heavy on weapons.
His face, hands, and arms were blacked with camouflage paint.
He glanced at Ed and Paul Dunn. They were similarly outfitted. In addition to an M-15 rifle, Ed had scared up an M79 from somewhere—his beloved M79. He had three boxes of grenades for it, four in a box, and was just looking for places to put them all. Ed had showed Luke a pair of brass knuckles with sharp, jagged points on each knuckle. Ed’s fists were bad enough on their own. If it came to that, those knucks were going to make a mess of someone.
Trudy had called him three times in the past fifteen minutes from the airbase at Agadez. It was beginning to annoy him. Yes, he understood—she had a piece of information for him, something important. And he was going to call her back as soon as he had everything ready. He wasn’t ignoring her.
Didn’t she know that by now?
As they geared up, the young captain in charge of the forward operating base appeared out of the warren of sandbagging. He was tall and slim, probably late twenties. He was followed by two middle-aged guys wearing tan-colored safari outfits. One of the men was bearded. Both were tan and fit for their ages. Still, they looked horribly out of place.
“Agent Stone?” th
e kid said.
“Captain Wallace?”
The kid almost half-smiled, then became serious again. “I don’t have any idea what you’re doing or intend to do. And I don’t want to know. But you asked me to bring you strategic decision-makers from the international aid community. So I want to introduce you to these men, and then take my leave.”
He indicated the man with the heavy beard. “This is Dr. Garcin, with Medecins Sans Frontieres.”
The man extended a hand. “Doctors Without Borders,” he said. His accent suggested he was French.
“Of course,” Luke said, shaking his hand. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“And this,” the young captain said, “is Dr. Walsh of the Red Cross.”
“Call me Richard,” the man said in a London accent.
“Gentlemen,” Luke said. “Thank you for coming.”
He glanced at Captain Wallace.
Wallace raised his hands as if to say, Don’t shoot. “As I indicated, I have no idea what’s going on here.” He took a few steps back, then turned and walked away in the direction he had come.
As soon as the captain was out of earshot, Luke spoke.
“Gentlemen, I’m about to take a very large risk with you both. I’m going to tell you something, and by doing so, I’m going to risk my life, and the lives of these two men with me. I ask that you keep what I say in confidence.”
The two men stared at him. They didn’t offer any response.
“Agents Newsam, Dunn, and I are going into Sambisa Forest tonight,” Luke said. “We’re on a classified mission, and I’m afraid I can’t reveal any of the details. Suffice to say that if all goes according to plan, there are going to be a pile of dead Boko Haram by morning, and the girls who were taken last week are going to be free.”
The English guy from the Red Cross was shaking his head.
“If you go in there and you find those girls, you’re not going to be able to bring them out,” he said. “There are over a hundred of them. They’re going to need medical treatment, in all likelihood, along with a certain amount of gentle handling. Some will probably be too weak to walk. And even if you clear that village of Boko Haram, others will lie in wait for you. With a group of basically helpless civilians that big, you’ll be sitting ducks for a counterattack on your way out.”