Eventually, the gunfire stopped entirely. Sara was exhausted from the stress, sitting back to back with Saed, each leaning against the other, with him facing the stairs and Sara facing a wall. Neither spoke. Seconds ticked away, then minutes that seeped into hours.
“I don’t hear anything. I think they’ve left,” Saed whispered.
“What do we do now?” asked Sara
“We should go up and get help,” Saed said.
“Can’t you call someone from here?” asked Sara.
“I don’t have my phone. When the attack started, I only had time to get my pistol and then I went for you.”
“Are we going back to the Villa?” asked Sara.
“Only if it looks clear.”
Saed stood in the darkness and held Sara by the arm helping her up. With the pistol in his left hand and using his right hand as a guide against the wall, he made his way toward the stairs.
As they approached the top of the stairs, they could see sunlight. Sara followed behind Saed with her hand pressed against his lower back as he stepped into the sunlight at the top of the stairs.
The crack of three shots echoed in the stairwell. Sara felt her companion’s body jerk and then she felt the big man fall backward. Saed’s falling knocked her off balance and the two tumbled backward down the stairs. Her head crashed against the basement floor and she lost consciousness.
She awoke in the back of an open truck and could feel a corrugated metal surface beneath her. She imagined it was a pickup truck. Her hands and feet were tied, and she had a gag in her mouth that tasted like motor oil. It was dark, hot, and difficult to breathe under the heavy tarpaulin draped over her; her head was pounding, and her mouth hurt from the tightness of the gag. She could hear traces of a conversation over the road noise. The language came as a surprise; it was Turkish.
After a what seemed like hours, the truck came to a halt. Sara was dragged out of the truck by her feet. Once her body cleared the truck bed, her back and head fell flat against a dirt surface and then someone grabbed her by the arms and, along with the person holding her feet, they lifted her and carried her into a building. She was taken into a room and then dropped hard onto the floor. Her feet and hands were untied. The two men left without speaking.
Sara removed the gag and then picked herself up off the ground. The room had an overhead light, but no windows. The only furniture was a bed. Adjacent to the bedroom was a small bathroom. She went inside and drank from the faucet and then washed her face with water. She tested the bedroom door, but it was locked. Sara sat on the edge of the bed and began to sob.
Chapter 5
Gozo Island, Malta
I propel myself with long, slow kicks through the cobalt-blue water, entering the oval-shaped cave opening with room to spare on either side of me. The filtered sunlight gradually fades to darkness until the only illumination that remains comes from the beam of my flashlight. The limestone walls close in around me as I advance until only a foot of space remains on either side. The dive computer on my wrist indicates a depth of 77 feet. The walls around me are a reddish brown, the water cool. I make a right turn and then have to angle my body to fit through a narrower opening. Beneath me is only two inches of water, and above, I can feel my air tank scrape the top of the cave when I kick. I move forward with my arms fully extended, holding a flashlight to guide my way and using my fins to propel me. I’m committed to the position because the tunnel is too narrow to return my arms to my side. I’m using short kicks because the narrow tube I’m swimming through is too confining for a proper leg kick.
The cave twists to the left, this time opening into a large, sphere-shaped chamber. I take advantage of the opportunity to stretch before continuing through a triangle-shaped entryway on the far side. The cave is not nearly as tight as before. The absence of light eliminates any possibility of plant life, although there is some black and orange discoloration on the rocks from whatever kind of micro-organisms exist in this environment. I check my pressure gauge and confirm that I still have enough air to continue. The cave drops sharply, and I angle my body into an L and swim straight down until it levels. A boulder is blocking my path. I survey the far side of the narrow opening with my flashlight and then I stow the flashlight. In complete darkness, I unclip and remove my buoyancy compensator and air tank and slip the vest-shaped rig through the small hole and follow behind it. I squeeze my body through; even though it’s dark, I can sense I’m in an open area because I can feel a current. I don my BCD and tank by swinging them over my head and clip the straps together. I retrieve my flashlight from where it’s been clipped to the BCD and turn it on. The chamber is huge; in the guidebook it was described as cathedral-sized and that wasn’t an exaggeration. My flashlight beam isn’t even powerful enough to illuminate the far wall or the bottom. I drift in an upright position in the cavern and turn to look back to where I entered. A flashlight blinds me, and then from behind the light, a neon-yellow wetsuit emerges from the underwater tunnel. The figure is small enough that the person is able to emerge from the tiny opening with equipment intact. The black vest and mask with yellow wetsuit remind me of a bumblebee. The lithe, hooded bumblebee diver swims to me, and in the underwater darkness, we show each other our air levels. It’s time to turn back.
The route back is as cramped and claustrophobic as the route in. When I finally see the bright blue water on the other side of the cave exit, I quietly celebrate with a fist pump. With my air running low, I’m anxious to surface. Once the bumblebee catches up, I give the thumbs-up sign and we surface together. A school of sardines briefly surrounds us; it’s a mini silver storm for a moment and then it’s gone. Unlike the inside of the cave, we’re surrounded by a kaleidoscope of color and sea life. Fish, eels, jellyfish, seagrass, and plants are everywhere. It’s beautiful. After a brief safety stop, we break the surface and swim to my boat, the Sam Houston.
I toss my fins onto the hydraulic ramp and climb the ladder. Cheryl hands me her fins and air tank with BCD attached. We hose each other off with fresh water while still on the ramp. Cheryl turns her back to me and I help her unzip her wetsuit. She sheds her bumblebee suit and my heart stops. Cheryl turns and smiles. It’s a dazzling flash of white, and she knows the effect she has on me. I stay back and clean and stow the equipment while Cheryl showers.
When I’m done with the equipment, I climb the stairs to the fly deck and move into my favorite perch with an ice-cold bottle of Heineken that I snag out of the small fridge on my way to the couch. Cheryl appears in a bathrobe, sunglasses, and a floppy sun hat the size of a large pizza. She climbs onto the couch and gives me a hug.
“That was awesome; what did you think?” she asks.
“Traveling in tight spaces, moving blindly in the dark, never knowing when you’re going to get stuck or lost, use up all of your air and drown. What’s not to like about cave diving?”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“Yeah, it kind of was.”
“Next time, you choose the venue.”
“I want to go to that place with the big underwater Jesus Statue.”
“They put that in when the Pope visited. It’s called, Christ of the Sailors, and it isn’t far from here; it’s midway between the two islands. If we go, there’s a shipwreck nearby we can dive at the same time.”
“We’ll do that tomorrow; open water I enjoy. Caves, not so much.”
On the table, my cell phone starts ringing. I look at the caller ID. It’s Mike, so I pick up.
“I’ve been trying to get you for the past hour.”
“Hi, Mike, how’ve you been?”
“No time for that. Where are you?”
“Gozo Island, Malta. I’m on the boat.”
“I need your help with something.”
“Ok, send it.”
“We have an American college professor missing, possibly kidnapped in Syria.”
“What’s a professor doing in Syria?”
“Her name is Doctor Sara Salam, and sh
e teaches Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania. She was working with an NGO that was operating out of Homs with the approval of the Syrian Government.”
“Homs is solidly under government control. Did Assad’s people take her?”
“We don’t know. There was an attack, and every member of her organization was killed. The bodies were found two days ago; hers was the only one not accounted for.”
“How long ago was the attack?”
“Three days, tops. We don’t have any assets in place. The information we have is coming from Shirin International, a Swiss-based NGO that’s working to preserve Syrian Antiquities that are getting lost and destroyed because of the Civil War.”
“Dying to save clay pots seems a bit silly, even for an Ivy League college professor. Why’s the CIA involved? The only organization that should care about this one is the selection committee for next year’s Darwin awards.”
“She’s not just a Professor; she’s also Assistant Director of Middle Eastern Antiquities at the University of Pennsylvania Cultural Heritage Center. They have some clout. One of the board members of the Heritage Center is a big-time political donor and he’s pressuring the White House.”
“You’ve been working on this for two days. Have you found anything?”
“Not much. I’ll send you what we have.”
“Sounds good. I’ll get the guys at Clearwater engaged. Can you provide ISR?”
“Satellite only; we don’t have anyone on the ground, and all the UAV assets are committed.”
“That’ll give Dave something to work with.”
“He never seems to need much. Some of our folks are starting to think Clearwater’s capabilities rival our own.”
“I think they may be better. I read an article yesterday in Fortune that said four hundred Google employees resigned because they wanted out of the same business Clearwater is in, which is combining artificial intelligence with intel sensor feeds. They even outed the black project, code name, ‘Project Maven’, being loyal San Francisco patriots and all.”
“That’s a Department of Defense project. Dave Forrest is way ahead of them, but he’s not ahead of everyone.”
“Send me what you have, and I’ll start the search. I probably won’t be able to go in- country for another day or two.”
“Ok.”
“Will we get any cooperation from the regime? Will they grant us entry?”
“No, they’ll kill you if they find you.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“Do the best you can. I need to report some progress.”
“Vacation’s over,” I said to Cheryl.
“I was eavesdropping. Forward me what you get from Mike.”
“We’ll head back to the main island and put you on an airplane to Paphos. It’ll take me a day to get back with the boat. Hopefully, by then you’ll have enough to give me something to work with.”
Chapter 6
Paphos, Cyprus
I ran the Sam Houston at twenty-eight knots and covered the nine-hundred-plus nautical mile trip in a day and a half of nonstop sailing. It was late in the afternoon when I arrived at Paphos, Cyprus. Cheryl said they needed more time to analyze the situation, and because I hadn’t slept, I was grateful for the delay. We scheduled an intel update the next morning. After I got done tying down and hooking up the yacht, I checked in with customs and walked over to the Moorings Restaurant for a late lunch. Paphos Harbor is very picturesque, with a medieval castle guarding entry to the harbor, and a big selection of quaint, locally owned restaurants and shops located along the waterfront.
The next morning, I was the last to arrive at the Clearwater conference room. Clearwater is a joint venture between GSS, a Scottish Company run by David Forrest, and Trident, my company. The Clearwater office is inside the Trident Hangar which can be found at Paphos International Airport. David Forrest runs Clearwater, and he’s also a professor at the University of Edinburgh, a math genius, and a computer savant. Clearwater makes most of its money tracking down ships that fall off the grid for insurance companies and shippers. It also occasionally puts its unique artificial intelligence software to use for Trident’s purposes.
I sat at the head of the table. Seated to my left was Migos, my wingman, in what we had begun to call Alpha Team. To my right was McDonald, my deputy. Next to Migos was Burnia, and seated beside McDonald was Jankowski. Burnia and Jankowski are on Bravo Team; Migos refers to them as the Bam Bam Brothers. Burnia and Jankowski are a pair of former CAG operators who are still very much in their prime. Migos is former Army Special Forces, and while I have the same background as Burnia and Jankowski, I’m definitely no longer in my prime. In the center of the table was a box of doughnuts; I helped myself to a powdered jelly. Cheryl handed me a cup of coffee and used a napkin to gently dab away my sugar mustache. The group was assembled.
Cheryl gave the briefing. It lasted for ninety minutes and provided details and photos of the Shirin International personnel who were killed in Homs. Shirin had been cooperative with the US government. They provided detailed information on the recent activities of the team, including their last trip to the St. Simeon Monastery. The briefing ended with the last known communications from Doctor Sara Salam.
“She called her Mother on the night of the attack. She said she was coming home because she didn’t feel safe. Something happened on the trip back from St. Simeon that rattled her,” Cheryl said.
“What about the local security they hired? What do we know about them?” I asked.
“The information we have on the Shirin personnel is from the governments of Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Norway. No information has been provided on the Syrian citizens.”
“We don’t know how many of the locals were killed?” I asked.
“No, we don’t,” Cheryl replied.
“Do we know who they are? Has Shirin provided payroll information?”
“We have a list, but we don’t know who was on duty.”
“Is that everything? No imagery of the attack or movements to and from the Shirin Compound?”
“We don’t have anything else.”
“Migos and I will go in and check out the Shirin Compound and see what we can find. Any suggestions on how we get in?”
“I thought you were going to say that. The best option is to fly commercial from here to Beirut. Syria has normalized relations with South Africa, and we’ve already taken the liberty of obtaining the visas and documents for both of you. The border crossing to Beirut is open. You can drive across with a flash of your South African passport. Homs is a two-hour drive from Beirut,” Cheryl added.
“What about weapons?”
“We’ll deliver them to you in-country,” McDonald replied this time.
“How?”
“We’ll fly them in on the VBAT and drop them to you.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, Homs is less than a hundred and fifty miles from here. We’ll put that boat of yours outside of Syrian waters and use it as a forward command center. If we need to get you, we can launch a RIB. We can range you with the VBAT UAV from the boat and if things get dicey we have the C-130s and the unmanned AH-6 and MH-6 that can reach you from this location in less than an hour.”
“So far, the only part of this op that I like is that it’s close to home,” I said.
“What about us?” said Jankowski.
“You and Burnia will go with McDonald on the Sam Houston. Tow the RIB behind the yacht. If Migos and I need support, you can insert along the coastline and link up with us. Bring fuel in case we need to create a refuel point for the Little Birds.”
“Will do.”
“We have no idea how this is going to play out. Migos and I will poke around and find out what we can. When’s the next flight to Beirut?”
“There’s a forty-minute direct flight leaving from Larnaca in two hours.”
“OK, get us to Larnaca and find a spot where you can drop us a couple of pistols by noon.”
Homs, Syria
I navigated with a portable GPS while Migos drove the rented Toyota Landcruiser. We stopped outside the gate of the Shirin International Compound. The streets were empty. Most of the villas and buildings in this part of the city are destroyed; the roads are littered with bricks, building debris, and burned-out vehicles. I stepped out of the SUV and felt a blast of desert heat. It was late in the afternoon and the sun was high and oppressive. It was eerily quiet; the only noise was from the occasional gust of wind as it whistled through the gaping holes in the surrounding structures. Migos opened the steel gate leading into the compound and I followed him inside.
“This place looks like a scene from one of those post-apocalypse movies,” Migos said.
“It does have a Mad Max feel to it, doesn’t it? Let’s start with the building on the left.”
The bodies were gone, but the signs of the slaughter were everywhere. Dried blood and expended shell casings littered the floor. We did a walk-through of every room.
“It looks like they caught them late at night or early morning. Most were shot in their bedrooms,” Migos said. Only one of the bedrooms had girl clothes in it. I guessed it must have belonged to Sara. There were no electronics or jewelry; items of value must have already been looted. There was no shell casing on the floor of Sara’s bedroom, which was a good sign. In the first villa, the clothing brands were all western, in the second, the clothes included some local.
“This must have been where the staff lived,” Migos offered as we inspected the second villa.
“Probably. We need to find someone we can talk to. This is getting us nowhere.”
“How?” Migos asked.
“I’m sure there are people living in this neighborhood. I don’t imagine anyone can survive a civil war unless they know how to keep a low profile. Once the sun goes down, I’ll bet we find some life.”
“Let’s move the vehicle inside the compound and wait,” Migos suggested.
“Sounds like a plan.”
We moved the vehicle through the gate and inside the walled area of the compound and spent the remaining daylight hours searching the first villa more thoroughly. The bullet casings were NATO caliber, which was different from what I’d expected. NATO casings meant they used M4s or M16s, which are rare in Syria as compared to the ubiquitous AKs that dominate the region. The first villa had a bedroom that was made into a makeshift lab. Surprisingly, the lab equipment had not been looted. It took a few phone calls back to Dave Forrest and Cheryl to figure out what the lab equipment was used for. The machine used for carbon dating was still turned on when we found it. The display was showing a reading of 1,386. There were no samples to be found anywhere of antiquities, or the find Sara had mentioned in the call she made to her mother.
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