by Mack Maloney
He regaled her with tales of the team’s exploits not just at Hormuz but in the Philippines, too—those heroic days before they wound up hiding in the attic of her house. He spoke sincerely of how the twin foundations of the team were its patriotism and the shared loss of loved ones. He told her how cool it was that the team was not affiliated with any of the country’s military services, that they served the people of the United States directly, and that despite his career in the Air Force he wouldn’t have it any other way now.
On these subjects, Li mostly listened, enthralled and, strangely, a bit envious. She had helped the Ghosts immensely in ending the threat of the Al Qaeda missile teams inside the United States—and she had done so at great personal risk. But it was obvious that she still didn’t consider herself a member of the team. Not yet anyway. . . .
They wound up talking about many things, except the upcoming mission and Murphy’s plan to assault the impregnable fortress of Casa Diablo. It was all pleasant and comfortable and exciting. And so,so different for him.
During all this, they were consciously inching closer to each other. At times Li would tap his knee to make a point. His body would reverberate at her touch. Ryder felt like he was back in high school, on a date with the most beautiful girl in math class. Again, this was a monumental step for him. His heart still felt like a stone, the same cruel weight he’d carried around since the day his wife died. But now, with this gorgeous girl so close, it was like he was in another place, on another world, where the gravity wasn’t so bad. When a particularly huge wave of spray came up over the bow, she went right up against him to escape getting doused—and this time, she stayed.
“I had something else I wanted to ask you,” she said, her hand suddenly touching his.
Ryder went numb, but in a good way. “Sure, anything,” he blurted out.
She opened her mouth—she was about to say the words—when suddenly every bell and whistle—and Klaxon and siren—on the ship went off at once.
Captain Bingo’s deep voice came over the intercom. “Condition Blue. All hands to battle stations. Unidentified aircraft incoming. . . .”
Ryder and Li were stunned.
“Battle stations?” she gasped. “Where the heck is my battle station?”
It was a helicopter. It popped up on the Combat Room’s air defense screen at exactly 0200 hours. Just 20 miles out, it was flying low and fast, coming out of the northeast and heading right for the ship.
This was very strange. At the moment, the Ocean Voyager was almost in the mid-Atlantic. The nearest land, in either direction, was hundreds of miles away. So where had this helicopter come from? It had to be from another ship. But it didn’t seem lost. To the contrary, on first spotting the blip Bingham had altered the ship’s course, going to a due south heading—and the incoming aircraft adjusted its flight path as well. There was little doubt that whatever this thing was, it was intent on coming right at them.
So the bigger question was: How did anyone know the Ocean Voyager was even out here?
Within a minute of the alarm being sounded, the top deck of the containership was crawling with armed crewmen. They’d drilled for such things in the past. Each man was carrying either an M16 rifle or an M-60 machine gun. The members of the primary strike team—the Delta guys, the SDS, and the SEALs—took up key positions around the ship, including the helipad and at the highest part of the wheelhouse. The ship’s crew, the sailors who actually made the vessel run, then scattered themselves among the jungle of containers on the open cargo deck. They, too, were armed with M16s.
But their weapons were mere popguns compared to what the Ocean Voyager was really packing.
There were two red containers on the port side of the ship, two more along starboard. Another was located up on the bow, a sixth down at the stern. These containers were specially built to drop their sides at the touch of a button. Inside each were two CIWS guns—high-tech Gatling guns that were able to spit out an incredible six hundred rounds a second. Their function was to fill the sky with thousands of lead projectiles on the idea that at least some of them would hit anything coming in at the ship. To get caught in the barrage of one of these guns was to face a nasty death by perforation.
And the crew had been through this sort of thing before. During the ship’s first cruise, a helicopter suddenly appeared, landed on the ship—and the people onboard took Murphy away, in handcuffs, under arrest, throwing the team into chaos. Just how their diminutive leader was able to get out of that tight jam he never told them. But the Ghosts really didn’t want it to happen again. Nor did they want this helicopter to be an attack helicopter, as some were known to carry very deadly long-range antiship missiles. It wouldn’t take more than one or two of this type to put the Ocean Voyager on the bottom, with all hands going down with it.
So everyone involved was very anxious as they hunkered down at their positions, weapons ready, waiting. A few tense minutes went by—then, suddenly, another announcement was made over the ship’s PA system. This one was as surprising as the first. In his deep booming tones, Bingham told the crew that the helicopter had contacted the ship and that it was displaying no hostile intent.
In fact, the people in the ship’s Combat Room had picked up the copter’s IFF signal and from it determined that not only did the copter not belong to a potential enemy, but it was actually a part of the Servizio Pontificio Aereo—the Vatican City’s Papal Air Service.
This news went through the ship like wildfire.
The Pope was coming to see Murphy. . . .
The copter came in a few minutes later, and much to the disappointment of the ship’s crew, it was not Il Papa dropping in to hear confession. The copter was an all-black Bell Textron, a military version, with no visible national markings, and certainly too sinister for anyone from Vatican City to be flying in.
The copter’s IFF signal had been a clever fake to get close to the ship without being blown out of the sky. This could mean only one thing: The aircraft’s true owner was the CIA.
It set down on the rickety helipad hanging off the ass end of the ship. Two men in civilian clothes climbed out, leaving the pilot with the motor running.
Murphy was on the landing platform, waiting for them. Having already had a brief radio conversation with them, he knew who they were. There were no handshakes, though. Murphy simply gave Bingham a signal up on the bridge and the ship’s whistle was blown three times. The dozens of armed men hidden around the upper decks showed themselves and were told to stand easy at their stations. Again, while not friends exactly, the visitors weren’t enemies. Not typical ones, anyway.
Murphy wordlessly escorted the pair up toward the Captain’s Room. No one who saw him pass liked the look on his face.
Faster than the speed of light, another rumor went through the ship: These people were here either to stop the rescue mission or to take Murphy away.
Or both.
Murphy fought to stay cordial. It was hard to do.
He led the two men into the Captain’s Room and invited them to sit at the big table. One agent was older, midfifties, red faced, with coal-black eyes, a real veteran of the Agency. The other was midtwenties, moussed hair, wide-rim glasses. An egghead.
Murphy offered them coffee, beer, or a drink of something stronger. They declined. Taking a beer himself, Murphy settled into a chair across from them. The big room suddenly seemed empty with just the three of them in it.
The two had a matter of importance to discuss with Murphy, they said. As a preamble, they tossed out various code words and names of high-placed CIA officials to convince Murphy they were who they said they were. There was no doubt, either, that they were well aware of the Ghost Team and what they had done in the past year. The two men were able to recite details of some of the team’s more famous exploits, spitting out information that only someone deep on the inside would know.
Still there was tension in the room. Murphy despised the CIA. Didn’t trust them, didn’t respect them. B
ecause of their ineffectiveness and bumbling in the days leading up to the attacks of 9/11, Murphy blamed them almost as much as he blamed Al Qaeda for what happened.
Furthermore, he was extremely pissed that the Agency found him way out here in the first place. But more out of curiosity than anything, he wanted to hear what they had to say.
“We know you guys are going after Delta Thunder,” the younger of the two agents began. “And we know that Delta Thunder is being held by guys loyal to the Diamond Prince.”
Murphy just sipped his beer. “Go on. . . .”
“And we see much wisdom in this,” the young agent continued. “But we’ve got another operation going—a parallel mission, if you like, only bigger. Smacking his guys around in Africa is one thing. But we want to go after the Diamond Prince himself. We know there’s no way he’s shacking up in that prison. We can’t imagine him ever dirtying himself by stepping foot for very long on the Dark Continent.
“In fact, at the moment, he’s in Brussels. And he will soon fly down to the Riviera. From there he is going to Cairo—and then he is going home, back to Saudi Arabia. He’s traveling with a small army of bodyguards right now—but when he gets back on his own turf, he lets down a bit. It will be a delicate operation. But we think there’s a good chance we can get him when this happens.”
Murphy was still doing his best to keep his temper in check. He smelled a rat here.
“Well, you boys seem to have all the bases covered,” he said in his thick drawl. “You know where he is. You know where he’s going. You know when he’ll get there. Why did you come all the way out here, in the middle of the night, just to tell me what you’ve been up to?”
“Because we need your help in corralling this guy,” Agent Mousse Hair said. “Your people can do special things. Things other people can’t or won’t do. We’d like to tap into that expertise.”
Murphy smiled darkly. “Oh? You want us to bomb his ass?” he asked them. “You want us to go in and tear his palace apart—and take him out piece by piece? Because that’s the sort of thing that we do. We are not subtle. We are not delicate. You’re smart guys—you’ve proved that. But you guys should know our methods of operation.”
The younger agent almost laughed. “When we say we need your help,” he replied, “we don’t mean that we need you and your entire little army. We just need someone who’s traveling with you, the perfect person to pull off what we have in mind.”
Murphy looked at them both. This was a curveball. He thought these guys were here to co-op the Ghost Team and incorporate them into their operation—leaving Delta Thunder to hang. But that didn’t seem to be the case.
“So, you’re not here to put the kibosh on our rescue mission?” he asked them.
“Not at all,” the young agent said. “Those Thunder guys are valuable people. And again, we’re all for bloodying the Diamond Prince’s nose and losing those assholes in that prison—if you can figure out a way to get in there and do it. But what we got in mind will take him out of the picture completely.”
Murphy couldn’t argue with their intentions. It was dealing with the Agency—the people who’d turned him down years before. That’s what was turning his stomach into knots.
“Sounds promising—but I’d rather keep my team together,” Murphy finally replied. It was his way of telling them no. “We’re pretty tight here. Don’t want to upset that chemistry. I hope you understand.”
Murphy then stood up, indicating the meeting was over. But both agents remained seated. The mood suddenly turned dark.
The older agent spoke for the first time. “We don’t have much time,” he began, his voice rough from years of cigarettes and booze. He was obviously the Bad Cop of the pair. “So I’ll put it to you this way: Either deal with us, or we blow the whistle on you. The rescue mission—and your whole little traveling circus.”
Murphy felt his face flush. “You guys must be misinformed,” he replied evenly. “I’ve got everything you see here signed off by everyone including the Joint Chiefs. Closed books. Carte blanche.”
The older agent began to growl. “You might have made a deal with the Pentagon to get your people released from their various incarcerations,” he said through gritted teeth. “But no such deal has been made with us. And you know how things are these days. Intelligence trumps the military brass. And that means all your asses could still be in the fire with one word from us.”
Murphy almost went over the table at them. “You flew a long way out here to threaten me,” he spit back at them.
The younger agent just removed his glasses and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Look, just make a deal with us,” he said.
To which the older guy boomed: “Or we blow the whistle on you—and you’re all back in jail. . . .”
Murphy was furious. But he was smart enough to keep his cool. He took a beat and calmed down. Maybe he was approaching this from the wrong direction.
He asked: “Who is it that you need?”
As he said this, Murphy was sure he knew the answer: These guys were here to ask for Ryder. His flying skills were well-known throughout the black ops community.
But the CIA agents had a surprise for him.
“The person we want,” the young agent said, “is Mary Li Cho.”
It was Bingo who told all this to Ryder. He found the fighter pilot still at his battle station, next to the portside CIWS container, part of a crew that would activate the awesome weapon should it be needed.
Bingo pulled Ryder aside, told him what the CIA guys wanted, and also told him that Murphy had passed the request on to Li. The bad news was, she’d agreed to go along with it.
Ryder was furious. He rushed back to where the CIA copter was still waiting. By this time, Li was already packed and on the helipad.
She was standing on the edge of the landing platform, the black helicopter’s downwash making her long hair flow wildly behind her. The noise from the copter was deafening. Murphy was at her side, in a very animated conversation with her. Fox and Ozzi, her two fellow DSA agents, were also there.
Ryder went right up to Murphy. “Please tell me what’s happening,” he shouted over the roar of the copter.
Murphy gave it to him straight. The agents’ request—and their threat to fold up the strike team if they didn’t play along.
“I thought they wanted you,” Murphy told the pilot. “When they asked for Li, I was sure we’d be able to wiggle our way out of it. They might want her, but they could never take her against her will. They would sleep with the fishes if they did.”
“So what happened then?” Ryder demanded to know.
Murphy just shook his head. “She wants to go. They won’t tell us what their plan is exactly, but she feels it’s her duty to help them. Plus, she knows it will preserve the team. And no one can talk her out of it.”
But that didn’t mean Ryder wasn’t going to try.
Fox and Ozzi saw him coming and backed off the helipad, hoping Ryder could succeed where they had obviously failed.
Now it was just Ryder and Li on the helipad, yelling over the noise of the helicopter.
“This is a very bad idea,” Ryder said to her while the two CIA agents waited anxiously inside the copter. “This Diamond Prince guy is dangerous. He controls a lot of armed people. He has access to lots of weapons and deals with his enemies without mercy.”
“I know all that,” she replied.
“And these guys?” Ryder said, pointing to the pair of waiting CIA agents. “They’re as bad as the mooks. Murphy doesn’t trust them. I don’t trust them. No one trusts them.”
Li just shook her head. “I know that, too,” she said. “And everything about it seems wrong. But how can I say no? This is my job, as a citizen of my country. I can neutralize one of the big fish of Al Qaeda. One of the people who was instrumental in pulling off 9/11. Plus the team will be allowed to stay together. Isn’t that what we were just talking about? How important all this is?”
Ryde
r couldn’t believe this was happening. It was like a bad dream come true. Not an hour ago, they’d been sitting on the nose of the ship, getting wet and falling for each other. Now she was standing here, bags packed, getting ready to leave him.
He looked deep into her eyes and she was looking right back at him. Tears were forming. “Besides,” she said. “This way I can earn my stripes. To get my uniform. My patch.”
She reached over and touched the side of his face for a moment. Her hand was cold and trembling.
Then she climbed aboard the copter and it took off, just like that.
The last Ryder saw of her, she was looking out the side window, waving good-bye.
Chapter 4
Loki Soto, West Africa
The prison ran on gasoline. Two generators, powered by a pair of old Ford truck engines, provided electricity for the old fort. These engines ran 24 hours a day and were notoriously inefficient. Spark plugs were always fouling, gaskets blowing, oil leaking. Two prison guards were assigned around-the-clock just to keep them going. The surrounding city of Loki Soto had no infrastructure, no power grid. Without the engines turning, there would be no electricity to light the lights, warm the ovens, or run the torture devices.
The Ford engines were incredible gas-guzzlers. They had to have their fuel tanks refilled every two days. This meant four hundred gallons of gasoline had to be delivered to the prison, by tank truck, every 48 hours.
This was a downside for the terrorist named Shaheen Faheeb. He was the commandant of the prison, a close associate of the Diamond Prince, and an experienced jihadist. Osama bin Laden himself had approved Faheeb for the prison job.
Born poor in Saudi Arabia and just 30 years old, Faheeb was one of Al Qaeda’s top operatives in West Africa. No surprise, he was a ruthless, sadistic individual, someone who had directed suicide bombings in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and post-Saddam Iraq and had gleefully blown up women and children on his own, all in the name of Allah, of course. Faheeb was also an expert at security, with an eye to perception. He knew that this prison ran as much on its reputation for being impregnable as it did on its 12-foot-thick walls. Impossible to break into. Impossible to break out of. Impossible to bomb. It was his job to maintain that reputation.