by Dalton Fury
“Not yet. They are digging through old message traffic. Looking into all the bad actors. But while that’s going on, you are going back to work.”
Kolt’s eyebrows rose in surprise.
Webber said, “Racer, I need you to lead an Advance Force Operations cell in Cairo. The CIA guy you helped out in Tripoli, Myron Curtis, is there, and he’s got a line on an organization of ex-JSO men who, he thinks, have been brokering the sale of the Libyan SA-24s.”
“Are we deploying with execute authority?”
Webber shook his head. “Negative. Not yet, anyway. You will help with determining atmospherics, building the target folder for a potential hit. He will likely want you to do some clandestine recce, but you’ll need to get approval for that from me. Curtis and his team have been in Cairo for a few days, and they’re having trouble getting the personnel from the local CIA station. They are pretty busy with political and social events in Egypt these days.”
Kolt had done this sort of thing before. Recce, surveillance, watching, and waiting. Using a high-powered telephoto lens instead of a high-powered rifle.
“This case officer, Curtis? I figured I’d be the last guy he would ask for.”
“He didn’t ask for you. He and others at CIA were pissed about how it went down in Tripoli. It’s gotten all the way up to the White House that the JSOC team that came to help with the evacuation of Tripwire had itchy trigger fingers, and only the deft work of CIA kept it from turning into an international incident between us and the new government in Libya.”
Kolt just gritted his teeth. Assholes. Then he asked, “Then why are you sending me to Cairo?”
“Because Curtis wants an AFO cell. You are on alert status, so you go. I am satisfied with the work you did in Tripoli, and am not about to change the batting order around here because some case officer thought you didn’t show enough restraint in dealing with a street full of assassins.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Webber remained stone-faced. “Thank me by not fucking up in Cairo. Curtis is running the show on this, and he doesn’t like you, so be on your best behavior and mind your manners. You remember the talk we had before you completed Relook?”
Kolt knew Webber was referring to the conversation in which Webber told Kolt that he would be judged twice as hard as he had during his first time in Delta.
“I think about it every day,” Kolt said softly. He didn’t like Curtis much, but he did not have to like him to work with him.
“Good. You leave tomorrow night on covered air.”
“Yes, sir. I’m taking Digger and Slapshot?”
“Yes. And one more. You know Hawk from training cell?”
“No, sir.” Kolt hated admitting he didn’t know someone in the Unit, but since his return he’d been all but overwhelmed with training and executing his ops. “Commo guy?”
“Hawk has some language and other assets that might be beneficial for the recce in Cairo. You could do worse.”
“Sounds perfect.”
Webber then moved on to other matters. There would be a full briefing later in the afternoon for Kolt and a couple of guys from Intel about the situation in Cairo, and then the four Unit members would assemble gear and fly out the next evening on a CIA Gulfstream.
* * *
That evening, after the briefing and a couple hours of assembling their gear for the Cairo operation, Kolt and Peter “Digger” Chambliss drove together off base for dinner at Huske Hardware House Brewery in downtown Fayetteville. It would be their last American meal for a while, which was not as much of an issue for Kolt as it was for Digger, who, at twenty-seven, was the youngest operator in the squadron. He bemoaned the fact that he wouldn’t get a decent burger and fries in Egypt.
Huske’s was all but packed. It was a favorite joint for both 82nd troopers and Green Berets from nearby Fort Bragg, so the century-old multifloor brick building wasn’t exactly known as the place to cradle a grudge. It was owned and operated by the Collinses, a husband-and-wife team who always met their patrons with a welcoming smile. Josh Collins was somewhat of a local celebrity himself. As a former Army boxer and Army Ranger who saw plenty of combat action in his day, he could tell by the looks on the faces of his patrons which guys had come back from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And Collins was well read in to Kolt’s reputation.
Kolt sipped his beer and looked across the table at Sergeant Chambliss. Digger was six feet tall and had nearly shoulder-length wavy blond hair. He looked a bit like a California surfer, though he hailed from Ohio. Even though Digger was young, Kolt recognized the incredible hunger in the man that Raynor himself was known for when he joined the Unit.
Four years earlier, when Peter Chambliss had been a member of 5th Special Forces Group, his Humvee had detonated a land mine on a rocky Afghanistan road in Kunar Province. The vehicle flipped in the explosion, tossing Sergeant Chambliss like a rag doll inside. After the dust settled he checked his wounds, and the twenty-three-year-old Green Beret found his left leg below the knee held on only by the torn fabric of his BDUs.
He was medevaced out and shipped to Ramstein and then to D.C. and then home to Ohio for surgery and rehab. It was a life-threatening injury that he survived, and it was a life-changing injury that he was determined to overcome.
One year to the week after losing his leg in Afghanistan he was redeployed to Afghanistan, back with 5th Group and now the proud owner of a state-of-the-art prosthetic limb.
And two years after returning to 5th Group, he became a member of Delta, the first amputee ever assessed and selected.
Digger had stuck an ARMY STRONG bumper sticker on the poly-fiber shinbone of the device, and he never passed up an opportunity to make light of his situation.
Digger may have had some optional after-market parts installed on his body, but Kolt Raynor knew this kid had the heart of a lion and the never-surrender mind-set of a Delta operator.
Parachuting down toward the hijacked American Airlines flight in New Delhi, Kolt had momentarily questioned Digger’s capabilities, and then, in the next ten minutes, Digger had gone on to execute his role flawlessly during the interdiction.
Kolt would never question the man, or his artificial limb, again, although he would make Digger wear his “old-school” artificial leg in Cairo for OPSEC reasons. This second prosthetic had been purchased from a clinic in Iraq and it was made with the equipment and materials one would find in the Middle East, and Digger donned it from time to time when it fit his cover status.
In some locations where Delta operated in a clandestine fashion, the ARMY STRONG bumper sticker just wouldn’t do.
Between bites of his dinner Digger began telling Kolt a story about his first combat jump as a Ranger. Kolt had heard the tale four or five times in the two and a half months he’d known Sergeant Chambliss, so his eyes drifted off the sergeant and onto a young woman who came through the door. She was nice-looking, mid-twenties, with dark hair and eyes, and a body that made it clear she knew her way around the gym. She was also unescorted, though she appeared to be looking around the bar for a friend.
Although Kolt considered her more pretty than drop-dead gorgeous, the girl fascinated him. He thought he saw a hint of Asian ancestry in her dark shoulder-length hair and slight facial features, and he found her searching, intelligent eyes hard to look away from.
“Boss? You with me?”
“What?” Kolt looked back to Digger. “Sorry.”
“You gonna finish those fries?”
“Be my guest,” Raynor said, and he dumped them on Digger’s plate. He looked back toward the entrance for the girl, but instead he found her standing at his table, looking directly at him.
Kolt raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Hi.”
“Major Raynor?”
Any fleeting thoughts Kolt may have had that his rugged good looks had caused this attractive young lady to pick him out of the crowd evaporated in an instant.
“Never heard of him.”
The girl’s almond eyes widened now, and she turned her attention to Digger. It was clear she knew she had just committed a violation of operational security. Kolt was a major in the U.S. Army, but in Huske’s, or any other civilian establishment, he was anything but a soldier.
Digger took the edge off. “Boss, she’s with us.”
She put out a hand. “Cindy Bird.”
He shook it. “Hello, Cindy Bird.” He kept looking at her, careful to keep his eyes locked on her eyes, lest they wander south to her body. Even with Digger’s heads-up, he had no idea who this girl was or what she wanted with him. “This seat’s yours,” Digger said as he leaned over and pulled a stool back from the table.
“I look forward to working with you, sir,” she said as she sat down, still addressing Kolt.
“Working with me on what?”
She leaned forward toward Kolt now to speak in a softer, more secure tone. “I’m very sorry. Colonel Webber didn’t tell you?”
Kolt figured it out, but more slowly than he would have liked. His mouth curved into a slight smile before he said, “You must be Hawk.”
“Yes, sir. Is there a problem?”
“None at all, Sergeant. I’m just surprised.”
“Surprised at what, sir?”
Kolt did not want to say he was surprised that the training cell sergeant he was taking to Cairo in his AFO cell was female, and a good-looking female, at that.
So he just said, “I’m surprised Colonel Webber has a sense of humor.”
Bird got it. “He didn’t tell you that your cover in Cairo included a wife, did he?”
“That must have slipped his mind.” He looked at Digger now as if to say, You son of a bitch … you knew all along.
“Swear to God, boss. I had no idea you didn’t know her already.”
Kolt noticed now, by the way she plopped down in the booth next to Digger, that she was not quite as ladylike as he had first imagined. He could see the tomboy and the youth in her actions.
“How old are you, Hawk?”
“I’ll be twenty-five in September, sir.”
“And what month is it now?”
“Umm … July.”
“So then that makes you twenty-four.”
“Yes.”
Kolt smiled, shook his head. “Sorry about my initial reaction. I don’t want you to get the impression that I don’t respect the program. We should have seen the potential a long time ago. We’re lucky to have the few of you that make it. On top of that, Colonel Webber speaks highly of your talents.”
Cindy Bird smiled broadly. Kolt thought back to what Webber had said about Hawk’s assets. He tried not to roll his eyes, and he also had to force himself not to look at some of those assets now.
He then remembered something else Webber had said. “You have some language?”
“Yes. Egyptian Arabic. Not fluent yet, but I’m taking night classes at Methodist. I’m somewhat conversational. Not sure if that will help.”
“It sure as hell won’t hurt,” Kolt said. “Okay, Hawk. I have somewhere to be first thing in the morning, but we’ll dig into this at 0900. Meet us in the SCIF.”
“Looking forward to it, sir.”
Kolt reached for his wallet to pay the check. “First thing, stop calling me ‘sir.’ It’s Racer, or boss. Second, why did you feel the need to come find me off post?”
“Oh, sorry, sir. I mean boss. I’m here to meet my boyfriend. He’s in Fifth Group. Apparently he’s running late. SOP for most Green Berets.” She winked at Digger, who was an ex — Green Beret. To Kolt she said, “I just recognized your face from pictures I’ve seen around the squadron lounge. Those are some great shots from the old days. Spear Runner and Gauge Front must have been incredible experiences. I love checking out the history of the Unit.”
Digger laughed. “The old days.”
Kolt groaned. “Hope you didn’t miss the one of me and Teddy when we took San Juan Hill?”
Hawk looked confused for a moment. “I don’t think I saw that. San Juan Hill? I’m not familiar with that…”
Then it dawned on her, and she smiled. “Teddy Roosevelt, sir?”
Kolt nodded.
“So that makes you, what, about a hundred and thirty-five? You don’t look it.”
“Not a day over one-twenty,” Digger said as he finished his beer.
TWELVE
Immediately after returning to the Middle East on the heels of their successful test-fire in Greece, al-Amriki and Miguel went to Sana’a, the capital of Yemen. Here they lay low in a safe house belonging to a local cell of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. They remained inside the walled building, behind closed doors and shuttered windows, and they hunkered down in case any track-backs from the Greek shoot-down led investigators in their direction.
They stayed in communication with their confederates and associates by using a runner from the local cell, sending the man out to various Internet café’s throughout the city with messages to pass on to other cutouts who, in turn, communicated with members of Aref Saleh’s trading network in Cairo and AQ banks in Dubai, ensuring that the money was received by the smugglers and the “product” was on its way and well cared for while under sail.
The SAMs would travel to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and there an agent would divide them into four shipments of fifteen crates each. They would then travel independently via air cargo to Paris, where an agent would arrange for them to continue on to their final destination.
The man in Dubai and the man in Paris were agents of al Qaeda, but the receiving agent at the final destination was a member of another organization. He was the weak link in the chain, but he had been tested with some dummy cargos and had handled everything in an acceptable fashion.
This had all been arranged in advance by Daoud al-Amriki himself, after months of planning and using dozens of cutouts.
Amriki’s operation was being funded out of an al Qaeda account kept flush with cash by benefactors in the Gulf States. The operation that he was undertaking had been one of the last wishes of Anwar al-Awlaki, the former regional commander of AQ in Yemen. Awlaki had been killed by a U.S. drone shortly after giving the order that al-Amriki should get whatever resources he required for his secret mission, no questions asked. This green light had resulted in al-Amriki gaining access to tens of millions of dollars to buy weapons and secure training, as well as a look at data on a thumb drive: dossiers on AQ operatives around the globe who were available for his mission.
The thumb drive came to Daoud with six men, al Qaeda security enforcers who were ordered never to let the data out of their sight. David used a laptop computer to view the information over a number of days. He went through the dossiers, picked his operatives, found his support cells, and developed his plan of action.
Then the thumb drive, the six men, and the laptop Daoud had used to view the data all left.
Al-Amriki picked the best men available for his mission, beginning with the operative here in the Sana’a safe house with him. Miguel was not his partner’s real name. No, Amriki’s partner was Waleed Nayef, a thirty-four year-old Kuwaiti and the son of an executive of NBK, the National Bank of Kuwait.
Nayef had been born in Kuwait City, and he lived a childhood typical of a wealthy family in the oil-rich state. But at the age of twelve he had been traveling with his family on vacation in New York when Saddam Hussein invaded his homeland from the north. His family was allowed to remain in the United States, living with friends in New York’s Upper West Side, until the crisis passed.
Due in part to contacts made in the city while his nation was under occupation by Iraq, Waleed’s father took a job as director of the NBK branch in New York after the war. Young Nayef lived in Manhattan until he was seventeen, learning English along the way, and then his father was transferred back home.
Waleed attended the University of Kuwait and it was there he watched al Jazeera television with rapt attention as the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001. A
round the same time he became radicalized at a mosque in Kuwait City by an influential Iraqi cleric. When this imam returned home and was then killed during the invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003, Waleed Nayef and several other young Kuwaitis immediately headed north to Baghdad to join the resistance there.
Nayef was smart and hardworking and incredibly motivated, so it was no time at all before he became a member of al Qaeda in Iraq, then led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Zarqawi was killed by American Forces in 2006 and Nayef was injured weeks later. He returned to Kuwait to recover, and here his influential father realized for the first time that his son had become an Islamist fighter, though he had no idea that Waleed was an up-and-coming operative in a branch of Osama bin Laden’s organization.
After Waleed’s recovery his father arranged for him to return to the United States, hoping this would somehow cure him of his radical thoughts. Waleed agreed to go, promising his father he had no further intentions of warring against the country where he had spent much of his youth. In fact, Nayef only agreed to the journey because he knew it would make him more valuable to al Qaeda.
As soon as he had fully recovered from his wounds, he traveled to North Carolina to attend graduate school at Duke University.
During the three years he lived in North Carolina, Waleed was immersed in American life and culture and language. At the same time, through contacts on the Internet, he once again became involved with al Qaeda, this time allying himself with Anwar al-Awlaki, the New Mexican — born operational commander of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. For these three years Waleed did nothing more than post anti-American invective on Web sites and message boards, while attending school to obtain his master’s degree in civil engineering. But his secret life and not his academic life was his true priority — the young man knew that his future was in the Middle East, not in the United States.
In 2009 thirty-one-year-old Waleed Nayef traveled to Yemen and joined al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the most powerful branch of the al Qaeda organization. He became a key operative within months, traveling to his home country of Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Europe. He worked high-level operations in the banking sector, transferring money between accounts and meeting with high-profile and high-income supporters of his organization to appeal for donations and sponsorship of projects AQAP was overseeing around the globe. The work was difficult but not dangerous, as he did not operate with a gun in his hand or plant bombs in the roadside against Western forces, as he had done in Iraq. But his operational activity meant that he had to employ intricate espionage tradecraft in all of his dealings. He worked undercover, using a great number of legends and falsified documents, remaining on the lookout for surveillance teams on his trail, and he took intricate measures to avoid electronic eavesdropping of his telephone or e-mails.