Oath of Honor

by Matthew Betley

———

  Logan entered the station chief’s conference room, and the tension from the day was forgotten at the sight of his closest friend.

  Logan West and John Quick had been through more combat together than either cared to recall. They’d seen their Marines die brutally at the hands of insurgents in Iraq, where they’d been indoctrinated into the real horrors of war and the crushing emotional and psychological toll it took. Yet they both had escaped—one spiraling out of control inside a bottle; the other trying to lose himself in the isolation of the Montana wilderness. But fate had other plans for them, and they’d been thrown together again when Cain Frost had launched a personal vendetta against the Iranian government, only to be thwarted by Logan and John at the last minute. Each would lay down his life for the other, and John had displayed that type of love one brother has for another in the cemetery by trying to buy time for Logan and Cole to make their escape. He’d been willing to sacrifice himself, and the bond they shared was closer than any familial bond either knew. Logan felt the full weight of it when he saw his friend, his brother, for the first time since his capture.

  John was studying a laptop screen at the large cherrywood table, and when he saw Logan, followed immediately by Cole and the CIA case officers, he stood up and walked over to meet them.

  When Logan reached John, he stopped in front of him, appraising him from head to toe. “Am I ever glad to see your ugly mug,” Logan said, his voice thick. “Looks like you’re still in one piece. I’m just glad you were the one who got away.” He grasped John by the arms, unflinching in his affection, green eyes blazing into his friend’s battle-hardened face, and said, “What you tried to do for us in the cemetery, that was as selfless as anything I’ve ever seen.” He paused, his voice steady but raw with emotion. “You know I’d do the same for you, without hesitation.”

  John Quick, normally fast to respond with a razor-edged comment, just nodded, the display of affection suppressing his sarcastic impulses. “I know, brother. I know.”

  Logan embraced him. “You know I love you, right?”

  John smiled and pulled back slightly. “I love you too,” he said and then added, “Just don’t get any ideas.”

  “You’re not my type,” Logan said, and released him, eyeing the newcomer. “So who’s your new friend?” he asked, assessing the stunningly beautiful woman who stood silently before him. She possessed gorgeous pale-blue eyes and an African ethnic background Logan couldn’t identify. He sensed an inner strength concealed beneath her athletic physique. He realized what it was a moment later. After spending a lifetime around trained killers with extremely strong moral compasses, it was impossible to miss, She’s an operator. Not the Special Forces kind but some other.

  “Logan, allow me to introduce you to Ms. Amira Cerone, this embassy’s LEGION operative. She’s the reason I made it out of the cemetery. And Logan—this I swear—she’s as lethal as you. God’s honest truth,” John said.

  Amira scowled at John for the uninvited praise. “Flattery will get you nowhere.” She looked at Logan and said, “He’s just being nice.”

  Logan’s curious expression had turned to one of respect at the mention of the clandestine program. He offered his hand. “I highly doubt that. John’s a lot of things, but prone to exaggeration, he’s not. Regardless, it’s a pleasure and an honor to meet you. Thank you for helping him. I won’t forget it.”

  Amira only nodded, unaccustomed to the open appreciation. Due to the level of secrecy her work required, the only thanks she ever received was an occasional innocuous email from one of the deputy directors and the regular GS14 paycheck that was deposited into a bank in Falls Church. Ironically, since she was out of the country so much, she was hardly home enough to enjoy the substantial savings she’d accumulated.

  Logan released her hand and looked around the room, his eyes stopping at the black Pelican case on the table. He looked back at John and asked, “Is that what I think it is?”

  “It is,” John said. “While you were away at Spa Sudan—which you’ll have to tell me all about later—we recovered the ONERING. Oh, and we took out all the Chinese mercenaries, or whatever the hell they were.”

  “Chinese Special Forces and intelligence operatives,” Amira injected. “These guys weren’t your run-of-the-mill covert unit. They were elite. We just happened to be tactically smarter and caught them off guard, which can happen to even the best.”

  “Yes. It can,” Logan said, vividly recalling the ambush at the insurgent compound in Fallujah in 2004. “But as for getting them all, you’re wrong on that count.”

  “How so?” John asked.

  “At the cemetery, there was a guy with short, black hair. Only in his midtwenties, he was the one coordinating the entire thing. I saw him. The way he acted, I have no doubt he was in charge. I’ll tell you about him later, but—”

  “We may not have to wait until later,” Amira said. “We captured one of his team alive at the cemetery. We interrogated him after you two were captured. We were in the process of breaking him, but then we got word from DC they had your location, as well as the ONERING’s. So we never followed up. He’s recovering in the medical wing from surgery. I have no doubt he’ll talk.”

  “Surgery?” Logan asked. “What did you do to him?”

  “I cut off one of his fingers,” Amira said flatly.

  Logan studied her slack-jawed for a moment, his admiration increasing. John’s comment about her lethality echoed in his head.

  “Good,” Logan finally responded. “As for the cemetery team’s leader, we had a run-in with a Hind helicopter during our exfil with the SEALs, and if he’s the one calling the shots, I’m betting he was on it. So he’s still out there, but God knows where.”

  “We might be able to help with that too,” Amira said. “I recovered a phone from one of the dead guys. We’ve transferred its contents to Langley for digital forensic analysis, including call chaining and geospatial metadata analysis, and I’m willing to bet your guy’s cell comes up. It just depends on how quickly Langley gets back to us.”

  “That’s excellent work, Ms. Cerone,” Logan said. “Now I’d like to give Mike a call in Vegas to check in and see how he’s progressing on his end.”

  There was a pause in the room, and Logan felt a shift in the air as John let out a rush of breath.

  “What is it, John?” Logan asked. “Spit it out. You know bad news doesn’t get better with time.”

  “There’s been an attack at the MGM Grand Casino. Several dozen casualties. The bad guys are dressed in battle fatigues, black masks, and maroon scarves, almost like Islamic extremists, but who knows who they really are with everything else going on,” John said.

  “Why? These guys would be happy to massacre Americans anywhere they can,” Logan said.

  “I find it almost impossible to believe that the Chinese or the Russians—especially the Russians, with all of their problems in Chechnya fighting Islamic extremism—would be working with a cell of radical terrorists.”

  “You’re probably right. Makes sense,” Logan said.

  “Occasionally, I do,” John shot back. “My guess is it’s a professional crew who’s been paid to make it look like a terrorist attack, which leads me to my next point—it has to be part of the larger picture, which we still can’t see.”

  Logan shook his head in disgust. “These bastards have been ahead of us at every turn. We need to start hitting back—and hard.”

  “At least in Vegas, the FBI HRT—Lance Foster’s crew—is on scene. Last we heard on the news was that they were holed up with hostages in a theater that runs one of those Cirque du Soleil shows.”

  “Wait a second—so where’s Mike?” Logan asked.

  “I tried to call him earlier. There was no answer on his phone. So I called DC,” John said. “They put me through to the director’s office.”

  “You talked to his uncle?” Logan asked.

  “No. One of his senior executive assistants. Jake wasn’t in the
office. But his assistant was instructed to let us know that Mike was investigating a separate lead outside Vegas at a place called American Elemental, a rare earth elements mine.”

  “Rare earth elements? What the hell does all this have to do with rare earth elements?” Logan asked.

  “It gets worse,” John said. “You never asked how we located the ONERING. After you were captured, the Chinese activated it, hijacked some supersecret US space-based weapon, and attacked a Chinese oil exploration site near the South Sudan border.”

  “What?” Logan asked incredulously.

  “And guess who’s getting the blame?” John asked with utter disdain. “The Chinese have requested an emergency UN Security Council meeting to request sanctions against us. It’s a sham, but we’re the only ones who know it, unless we can somehow use the data on the ONERING to prove otherwise.”

  “I don’t even want to touch that thing,” Logan said. “It’s brought nothing but death and misery to us and our country today. Tolkien would be furious. ‘One ring to rule them all,’ my ass. More like ‘One ring to set off a global calamity.’ What a fucking mess. We just need to get it back to DARPA in one piece. Let them analyze it.”

  “So what now?” Wendell Sharp asked. He’d remained silent during the impromptu debriefing, but he needed to know how they wanted to proceed so he could plan accordingly, especially if the truth required a cover story.

  Logan considered for a moment before answering. He looked around the room at his friends and new allies, people willing to fight and sacrifice for the right ideals, the right principles.

  “The SEAL team has a C-17 under a State Department charter departing in the morning,” Logan said. “We accomplished what we came here to do. We take the ONERING and our prisoner and get back to the US, and then we let the State Department and DC deal with the political blowback. Our job is done.”

  The nods assured him he’d made the right decision. There’d been enough blood shed on Sudanese soil. It was time to go home.

  PART VI

  A MAGNIFICENT VIEW

  AMERICAN ELEMENTAL WILD HORSE MOUNTAIN FACILITY

  CHAPTER 43

  American Elemental, Wild Horse Mountain Facility

  Once the black Suburban had fought its way out of the Vegas city limits, the rest of the drive to the rare earth elements production facility had been a smooth ride. It was a thirty-mile straight shot northwest on US Route 95 to the exit that had been built specially for the sprawling complex.

  After the conversation he’d had with his uncle about the potential source of the intelligence leak—actually, a fucking traitor—Mike Benson had used the time to clear his head and focus his thoughts. The drive also afforded him the opportunity to contact the facility and check with security at Wild Horse. Unfortunately, all calls to the various numbers listed on the company’s website ended in the same automated message from the phone carrier—“We’re sorry, but your call cannot be completed at this time. Please try your call again later. Thank you and have a nice day.”

  It’d been a bad omen, but rather than assume the worst, Special Agent Marcus had reached the company’s CEO through the field office. He’d assured her that the loss of communications was actually a common occurrence since they’d begun construction of the facility. It was usually due to heavy equipment cutting one of the various large fiber-optic cables that snaked underground all over the facility and exited the premises through one large pipe that led to Indian Springs, thirty miles away.

  The CEO promised he’d call Matt Stillman, the head of his small security detail, just to ensure everything was okay. Less than five minutes later, he’d proven true to his word and called back to report nothing out of the ordinary at the facility. Security was aware of the communications outage, and they’d already been assured that a repair crew had been dispatched from Indian Springs and should arrive within the hour. He’d asked Matt to do another walk-through of the major production buildings and report back to him once he was finished.

  It all seemed copacetic, but Mike didn’t believe in coincidences, not with the attack on the MGM Grand.

  “Lance, I still don’t like this. I don’t care what the CEO says,” Mike said as he turned to face the head of the FBI’s HRT Red Team, which specialized in counterterrorism and in extremis hostage rescue operations. Lance Foster was an imposing figure, a midfortyish African American in phenomenal shape who wore a sharply defined goatee.

  “I know, sir,” Lance said, addressing Mike with the professional courtesy due his position, although they’d been close friends for years. “We’re still in khakis and you might look like a suit, but we both know we’re all ready to rock ’n’ roll at a moment’s notice,” Lance said, smiling.

  “Good. That’s exactly what I want to hear. Be prepared for anything,” Mike said.

  “Don’t worry, brother. Me and my gang,” he said, referring with a thumb over his shoulder to Special Agents Jason Champion, a former Navy SEAL and EOD technician, and Tommy Chaney, a former Delta operator and expert marksman, in the third row of the Suburban, “we’ve got your back.”

  The two lethal HRT members leaned in toward one another, smiled, and formally waved at the deputy director of the FBI as if they were queens of England.

  “I’m surrounded by children. No offense, Special Agent Marcus,” Mike said, and shook his head.

  “None taken, sir. They’re just like my big brothers,” Special Agent Marcus said, showing no intimidation at the playful display of immaturity, yet silently wondering how she’d ended up in the Suburban.

  The daughter of a pediatrician and a criminal defense attorney, she’d gravitated toward her father’s profession in law by the early age of nine. By the time she was in high school in the suburbs of Chicago, she knew she didn’t want to defend criminals; instead, she wanted to put them away, permanently. Her path had become tragically clear when a former associate of one of her father’s clients had shot and killed him as he’d left his office one evening. It’d been retribution for her father’s not being able to avoid the death penalty for his client, who’d ordered the murder of a Korean family, including two young children.

  Special Agent Marcus was driven by her anger—which she’d learned to harness—to earn a spot in the renowned Violent Criminal Apprehension Program. Her plan had been to excel at her field assignment in Las Vegas and then apply to ViCAP at the first opportunity.

  Yet now she found herself in an armored Suburban driving the deputy director, the chief of the FBI’s HRT Red Team, and two superbly trained shooters. Definitely didn’t see this one coming, she thought as the Suburban approached an open gate at the end of the dirt road.

  A newly constructed guard shack divided the entrance, and she noted the bulletproof glass. A rising arm traffic barrier was lowered across the road. She stopped the black SUV. Beyond the guardhouse lay the expansive sprawl of American Elemental’s Wild Horse Mountain Facility. The dirt road gradually sloped downward, affording them a bird’s-eye view of the layout.

  Several buildings of varying size and shapes, like giant Tetris pieces, stood in close proximity to one another. They resembled ordinary—albeit enormous—warehouses, but Special Agent Marcus recognized their true purposes as components of the rare earth element production process. Multiple exhaust pipes, ventilation systems, and aqueducts ran throughout the compound between buildings.

  A complex power station comprised of multiple buildings and towering exhaust stacks several stories tall occupied the center of the compound. Steel girders containing power lines jutted out in several directions, working their way in ninety-degree angles to all buildings in the complex.

  It’s like an enormous Erector Set, she thought, recalling a long-forgotten toy from her childhood.

  And just beyond it all was a vast hole in the earth at least a half mile wide—the ore deposit. Only the first forty feet were visible, exposing a layer of narrow roads carved into the sides of the enormous bowl. The dirt and rock roads spiraled downward
and dropped below their line of sight into the high-desert pit.

  “Wow,” Lance said from the backseat. “That’s quite a view, including plenty of potential targets for the bad guys to hit.”

  “No kidding,” Mike said as a young guard wearing a uniform and a Glock 9mm pistol exited the guardhouse and approached the vehicle.

  Special Agent Marcus rolled down her window, and the young guard leaned in to speak, only to be interrupted by Mike.

  “I’m FBI Deputy Director Mike Benson,” Mike said. The young man raised his eyes in surprise at the mention of his title. “I believe you’re expecting us. I was told by the CEO to find Matt Stillman, and he’d escort us through the facility.”

  Chirping from a cell phone erupted in the backseat.

  “Yes, sir. We’ve been waiting for you guys,” the college-age guard said. “Mr. Stillman’s not back yet, and I’ve been trying to reach him since I saw you driving down the road. He should’ve been back by now.”

  Mike and Special Agent Marcus exchanged glances as Lance Foster answered the call.

  “This is Special Agent Foster.” A pause as he listened to his second in command. “You’re secure, Danny. Go ahead.”

  “Son, what’s your name?” Mike asked.

  “It’s Eugene Wabash, sir,” the guard replied. “Why?” he asked cautiously.

  “Well, Eugene. We’re going to need your help. When was the last time you spoke to your boss?” Mike asked.

  From the back seat, Mike heard, “That’s absolutely fantastic, Danny. Outstanding job. I’ll let the deputy director know. I’m sure he’ll be as relieved as I am.”

  “About ten minutes ago, sir,” Eugene replied. “He’d checked all the main buildings and was proceeding to the power plant. He reported nothing unusual. We’ve only got a skeleton crew working. They’re finishing up production of the wastewater treatment facility. Otherwise, everything else is done. One more thing—landline external communications are still down. No ETA on when they’re supposed to be back up.”