All Lines Black

by Dalton Fury

  Mason’s face twisted into a snarl at the mere thought of Raynor. Despite all his fuck-ups, Kolt Raynor was now a Delta squadron commander, frocked as a lieutenant colonel. Fortunately, Mason had not only survived the shit storm caused by Raynor’s rogue ops, but come out of it smelling like a rose. The only downside, at least as far as Mason was concerned, was that Raynor had, too.

  Mason’s successes had prompted the president to give him one more promotion. While Tungsten had saved the day, the restless American electorate needed someone to blame for the intelligence failures that had made the nation vulnerable in the first place, particularly with a contentious election looming on the horizon and the president’s desired successor banking on the outgoing administration’s high approval ratings as a way to grease the skids on election day. So with less than twelve months left in his term, the president had decided to shake things up by replacing the entire upper echelon of his intelligence, military, and diplomatic machine. The cuts started at the top, with the ouster of several cabinet-level officials. Admiral Bill Mason had been tapped to fill the vacancy at the top of the State Department.

  He had no illusions about this being anything but political theater. Even if the president’s candidate won the election—and that was by no means a foregone conclusion—there was little chance that Mason would survive long past the transition. But just as he had done all throughout his military career, Mason was going to flash his gaudy Naval Academy ring around and turn this apparent dead end into a path to even greater things.

  * * *

  A week ago, the Speaker of the House of Representatives had reached out to Mason with an audacious proposal.

  “I don’t have to tell you that our nation is in some deep shit with this election,” the Speaker said.

  Mason didn’t need to ask him to elucidate. Both of the candidates nominated to head the major party tickets were deeply flawed.

  “They’re both toxic. People always talk about having to choose the lesser of two evils, but this time . . . There is no lesser evil. We cannot allow either of them to win the White House.”

  Mason shared the sentiment, but didn’t see a way to prevent it from happening.

  “So, we’re going to give the American people an alternative,” the Speaker finished.

  “A third-party candidate?”

  This was technically incorrect. Although most Americans did not realize it, there were several active political parties in the United States—Libertarian, Green, Constitutional, just to name a few—and each put a candidate on the ballot in the general election. In practical terms, however, the parties represented fringe ideologies, and the handful of votes those candidates netted were generally seen as protest votes. Alt-party candidates could sometimes swing an election one way or the other by siphoning off votes from the mainstream candidates, just as Ross Perot had done in 1992 and Ralph Nader in 2000, but outright victory was never in the cards.

  “That’s a waste of time,” Mason went on. “No matter how bad the party candidates are, the voters simply don’t take third-party candidates seriously. Not enough for them to win at any rate.”

  “An independent,” the Speaker clarified. “Nonpartisan. Someone handpicked. And our candidate doesn’t need to win electoral votes or even a majority of the popular vote.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “Are you familiar with the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution?”

  Mason thought he was. “It refined the electoral college system.”

  “The amendment states that in the event that no candidate wins a majority of available electoral votes . . . two hundred and seventy is the magic number . . . it falls to the congress to choose the next president from the top three candidates. It’s happened before. In 1824, Andrew Jackson trounced his opponents in the election, but because he won less than half of the electoral votes, it went to Congress, and they chose John Quincy Adams to be president.”

  Now Mason understood. The Speaker was planning an end run.

  Despite his populist appeal, the candidate representing the majority party in Congress was loathed by members of the political establishment. If party moderates were given an alternative—not just a protest candidate, but an actual viable third option—it just might be enough to send the election to Congress. And if that third candidate was handpicked by the majority party . . .

  “We’re already working to put former Speaker Gerald Noonan on the ballot in all fifty states,” the Speaker continued.

  Mason had deflated a little. “Oh. I thought you meant—”

  “And you are on the short list for the second seat.”

  That perked Mason right up.

  “With your military record, and now heading State, you would bring a lot to the ticket. And since you were chosen by the president himself, you’ll come with a certain amount of bipartisan appeal. We’ll play it as a unity ticket.” The Speaker paused to let that sink in. “Nothing is set in stone of course. It will be a week or two before we’re ready to make our final decision, but if it were up to me . . .”

  He let the sentence hang, but Mason didn’t need to hear more. His tenure at the State Department was going to be short indeed.

  * * *

  He couldn’t tell anyone, not yet, which meant it was business as usual in Foggy Bottom. Not that there was much to do anyway. Despite everything going on in the world, particularly in the Middle East, where Islamic extremism was spreading like a metastasizing tumor, infecting Europe and Africa, the standing orders from the White House were to play it safe.

  Normally, that would have been fine with Mason. Playing it safe was his SOP. But as he moved deeper into Edward J. Kelly Park, it occurred to him that perhaps he had done too good a job of keeping a low profile.

  Maybe a few reporters on his six wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

  But not today. The man who had asked for this meeting had strongly emphasized the need for discretion.

  Mason sat down on a shaded bench that looked across the path at the “public” tennis court—maintained and used almost exclusively by senior employees of the Federal Reserve—and waited for the other man to show. The protection detail melted into the background, giving him space and the illusion of privacy.

  He had only been waiting a few minutes when a shadow fell over him. He glanced up, squinting into the sun, and gave a nod of recognition. “Admiral.”

  “Admiral,” answered the other man, who, like Mason, was in fact a recently retired flag officer and another post-purge appointment, currently serving as the director of national intelligence, responsible for coordinating the alphabet soup of military and governmental intelligence and counter-terrorism organizations.

  Although both men had reached the upper tiers of the US Naval hierarchy, they had taken very different paths. The DNI had followed the traditional career track—driving ships, commanding a battle group, and then a naval base. Mason had opted for the less conventional, and therefore less traveled road to Naval Special Warfare Command, a route that many old school flag officers—men like the DNI—scorned as a “shortcut.”

  They were not enemies, but they certainly weren’t friends. Mason could feel disdain radiating from the other man.

  The exchange of formalities pushed the limits of Mason’s patience. “What’s with all the cloak and dagger crap? There’s this new thing, e-mail. Maybe you’ve heard of it.”

  The DNI smiled patiently. “Didn’t your predecessors warn you about the dangers of e-mail?”

  Mason just grunted. “So this is something off the record.”

  “I’m just passing along some intel. What happens after is not my problem, but when you hear what I have to say, I think you’ll agree that keeping this on the QT is the right call.”

  “Go on.”

  “Twelve hours ago, one of our military advisory teams in Iraq was contacted by a man claiming to be Abu Hamam al-Suri.”

  Mason didn’t recognize the name.

  “He’s the leader of Jaysh al-J
ihad, a splinter group that broke away from the al-Nusra Front to support ISIS. He wants to negotiate.”

  “A terrorist,” Mason said, dismissively. “I believe it’s the official position of the administration that we don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

  “When they flip, we call them freedom fighters. Abu Hamam the Syrian would rather go back to fighting Bashar al-Assad than continue fighting the losing battle with ISIS. Jaysh al-Jihad is small but influential. ISIS is already on the ropes. If Abu Hamam pulls out of ISIS, turns on them, the dominos will start falling.”

  “As wonderful as that sounds, flipping terrorists and organizing ‘freedom fighters’ is your job. Why bring this to me?”

  “Because Abu Hamam wants something that only you can give him. Two things, actually.” The DNI paused a beat, just long enough to check his watch. “First, he wants a role in the post-Assad Syrian government.”

  That cleared things up a little. If the Assad regime fell, the State Department would be under the gun to fill the power vacuum with a friendly, pro-Western, anti-Islamist provisional government. Mason’s predecessors had learned just how impossible that task was. It definitely wasn’t a quagmire he wanted to wade into, not with the election looming on the horizon.

  Still, a vague nonbinding promise to a terrorist seemed a small price to pay for the destruction of a threat like the Islamic State, and that would be something worth bragging about on the campaign trail. “A role? That’s all? Sure. Promise him whatever it takes. Again, you didn’t need me for that.”

  The DNI stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. “It’s actually the second thing that’s going to be a little stickier, and it really has more to do with your former area of operations.”

  Before he could elaborate on that cryptic comment, an irritating electronic chirping sound filled the air.

  The director of national intelligence reached into a pocket and took out an older model mobile phone. He held it out to Mason. “It’s him.”

  Mason recoiled. “I’m not talking to him.”

  The DNI shrugged and placed the still-ringing phone on the bench beside Mason. “I don’t care whether you do or not. I’ve already forgotten about it.” Then he turned and walked away.

  Mason regarded the ringing phone warily, as if merely touching it might somehow poison him. He knew it was an irrational reaction. The actual risk was low, practically nil. The potential reward on the other hand was not something he could lightly dismiss. If the DNI was not exaggerating Abu Hamam’s influence, then simply by taking a phone call, Mason might score an incredible foreign policy victory.

  He could be the man who took down the Islamic State.

  He picked up the phone.

  THREE

  Over Northern Syria

  As a boy, Kolt “Racer” Raynor had dreamed of leading elite warriors into battle against the enemies of freedom and humanity. That the dream had come true, first as an Airborne Ranger, now as a Delta Force squadron commander about to lead a group of elite commandos on a high-risk night raid into enemy territory, was still a source of amazement to him.

  He wasn’t the strongest or smartest guy to strap on kit, and he had made more than his share of bad calls along the way, but somehow, through nothing more than bloody-minded persistence—Raynor’s mates considered him the living embodiment of the credo “effort takes no talent”—he had made it happen.

  Raynor had a career like no other. He had racked up valor awards by second-guessing command directives, calling audibles, and tempting his maker on numerous occasions as a Delta troop commander before crashing and burning. . . .

  No, that was too glib. He had fucked up, and men had died. His teammates, men with families and futures, had been killed because of his recklessness, and that was something that he would carry with him the rest of his days.

  He’d been cashiered out of the Unit, and for a while, had lost himself in a bottle. But then he had been given a chance at redemption. He had fought his way back into Delta’s ranks, overcoming injuries, debilitating self-pity and the low expectations of the men who had once declared him persona non grata, to ultimately grasp an impossible prize: command of a Delta Force sabre squadron.

  Although technically still an operational member of the Unit, pinning on the silver oak leaves of a senior field-grade officer had its drawbacks. The biggest suck about being handed a Zero One call sign patch was that opportunities to literally lead men into battle were now few and far between, so he should have been ecstatic at this chance to take a troop of Delta operators back into ISIS-controlled Syria to bag a high value individual.

  He wasn’t, and he wasn’t the only one.

  “This is fucked up, boss,” opined Sergeant Major Jason “Slapshot” Holcomb, as they waited for the MC-130H Combat Talon II to get to cruising altitude. It was not the first time he had made that observation.

  “Save it for the hotwash,” Kolt said. He dug a pouch of Red Man tobacco leaf from his pocket and stuffed a wad into his cheek, then faced the rest of the troop.

  “You’re not buying it either, Kolt,” Slapshot said. “Actions speak, brother.”

  * * *

  Slapshot was the sergeant major of Noble squadron—the squadron Raynor had inherited two years ago from Lieutenant Colonel Rick “Gangster” Mahoney—and as such, it was his job to make sure that Kolt didn’t step on his own crank. They had been running buddies in Mike squadron for many difficult years, and as much of an ass wound as it was, Slapshot had managed to keep Kolt from dicking the dog on a global scale, which was surprisingly easy to do given Delta’s wide footprint since the start of the War on Terror.

  When Colonel Jeremy Webber, the commander of Delta Force, had brought him the news eighteen hours earlier, Raynor’s reaction had been about the same as his sergeant major’s. And by Slap’s last comment Kolt realized he wasn’t hiding his disagreement with this short-notice mission very well.

  “Look, you know I tried to push this hit to both Mike and Osage squadron.”

  “Recalling the boys from Jackson Hole and Key West?” Slapshot said. “Webber knows the guys needed the break. That’s just wrong.”

  Kolt responded with a quick look into Slapshot’s eyes. He knew Slapshot was right. His men did need the downtime. Officially, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were all but over for American ground troops. Normal troops maybe, but Delta hadn’t slowed the operational tempo since 9/11, particularly with the not-so-secret wars ongoing in Syria, Yemen, and Africa.

  “And what was all that crap about POTUS wanting you leading this specific mission?”

  “C’mon Slap, that’s bullshit. Not me. It’s the squadron.”

  Slapshot shook his head. “For some reason, POTUS still thinks you’re the shit. Saving his ass a couple years back is still paying off.”

  “Jason.” He rarely used Slapshot’s given name, and hoped the added familiarity would serve to emphasize just how much he wanted his friend to back off. “We. Noble squadron. It’s our rep. We smoked Marzban Tehrani in Syria. We stopped that shit in North Korea.”

  “Yeah, whatever, man.”

  With an effort, Kolt bit back a profane reply. “You were in Webber’s office. You heard him say he fought it as much as he could.”

  “Must have missed that part.”

  “Fuck you, Slap.”

  Kolt knew Colonel Webber had felt the same way he did back in his office just eighteen hours ago. There was no question that the president had the authority to send Delta out at a moment’s notice. By design, the Unit’s mission was fluid and Delta operators had to be flexible, but still, there was a smart way to do things, and both Kolt and Slapshot knew this definitely wasn’t it.

  “This is the shit we’ve been given,” Kolt had told him in his best “don’t fuck with me” growl. “Let’s get this rock drill going, put out the contingencies again, and then you can get the bread and start making sandwiches.”

  Slapshot, who was typically always ready with a joke no matter how serious the
situation, just scowled and turned away. Kolt knew that would not be the end of it. Every operator in the Unit would have a major case of the ass about this, and some of that ire, maybe a lot it, would smack Kolt right in the chest. None of them would believe that POTUS had ordered him to lead the mission personally; they would accuse him of grandstanding, being Webber’s boy, being an adrenaline junkie . . . or a psychopath.

  He definitely did not need this shit.

  * * *

  As Kolt rolled out a poster-sized satellite aerial of Deir Ezzor, squadron communicator JoJo placed full thirty-round mags on the four corners to keep it flat on the metal deck. Slapshot and the others gathered closely, taking a knee in the soft light of the cabin, ensuring they could hear Kolt’s comments over the four turboprop engines powering them deeper into Syria.

  There had been no time to rehearse, but once they were on the objective, the hit would be routine. Normal warrior shit that every Delta operator had run hundreds of times in the real world by now. Still, that didn’t make what they would have to do any prettier.

  “Bottom line, the intel is sketchy and our window of opportunity to grab al-Baghdadi is unbelievably small,” Kolt said. “One cycle of darkness.”

  For one night only, Abu Sayyaf al-Baghdadi, the man believed to hold the purse strings of the Islamic State, would be in the embattled Syrian city of Deir Ezzor on the west bank of the Euphrates River, with a suitcase full of cash—payday for the ISIS fighters battling the Syrian army for control of the region.