Strike Force Alpha

by Mack Maloney

  With all of their hot-shit computers disconnected long ago, the Spooks were forced to decipher the long line of letters the old-fashioned way. Bates knew that three words, or, more likely, a three-word phrase, would be needed to open up the second level of the CD-ROM, this because three blank fields had appeared at the end of the first level. He had his guys write each pinpointed Arabic letter on a large sheet of paper, along with its closest English equivalent. They strung a thin piece of rope across the room and these sheets were hung from it by paper clips. When done, they had a line of 30 movable letters in front of them. Now they had to make coherent words from these letters.

  They began sliding the letters back and forth, arranging and rearranging them, trying to find which groupings formed actual words. It took a while, as the Arabic to English character translations were not exact, but they finally hit upon the words “many won’t believe,” which Bates recognized as part of a line from the Koran that went: “All will see the sign, but many won’t believe.” When he typed these three words into the three corresponding fields, the next level of the CD-ROM began to open immediately.

  A cheer went up in the damp, darkened room. There were high fives all round. But one look at the new screen and suddenly the Spooks weren’t feeling so good anymore. To their dismay, the second level didn’t have any photos, pop-in videos, or elementary special effects. What it contained instead was thousands of lines of Arabic text. Reams of it, totaling more than 700 pages in all.

  And the text did not spell out targets or time lines or meeting places and such. Instead, it contained nothing more than a set of maddeningly generic guidelines to be used by the jihad operatives who were about to carry out the big mission. Things like what an operative should pack when stowing away on a fishing boat, where to carry his money, and why he should neglect personal hygiene so as “not to raise suspicions.” There were hundreds of instructions on what to do, who to talk to, and when and how. At first, the text seemed to go on forever, with no beginning, no middle, no end. It was saturated with slang and misspellings and had no punctuation marks. In other words, a nightmare of Islamic jabberwocky.

  In the intelligence business, this was known as “backfill,” information that was either outdated or irrelevant or both. Maybe the text contained secrets that would have been valuable to the American team days or weeks ago. But with the Next Big Thing just hours away, it was useless now. And the Spooks certainly didn’t have time to plow through all 700 pages, just on the slim hope that a kernel of secondary intelligence might be found within. To them, it was all crap.

  But Bates did notice something unusual: after a quick scan of the text he discovered it was not really one long document but actually a group of documents, 22 in total, one for each of the 22 martyrs-to-be. For some reason, the documents had all run together, making it look like endless boilerplate. Buried at the end of each document, however, there was also a list of what not to do. It consisted of things that each jihad operative should avoid: the local police, any military officials, anyone not Muslim, and so on. It also instructed the operatives to avoid big cities, such as Riyadh and Damascus, as much as possible. It told them not to eat in open-air cafés, as their faces might be recognized. It told them not to use any cell phone more than once, as they could be tracked by satellite that way. But while each individual document differed slightly from the rest, each had the same last entry on it, indeed, the very same last sentence. Roughly translated, it told the terrorists “that in order to keep our operation pure, at all costs, avoid having any contact, conversations, business dealings, or other interactions with individuals connected to the Royal Dubai.”

  What the hell did this mean? The Spooks gathered around Bates’s station to discuss it. There seemed to be only one explanation at first: the operatives were being told to avoid contact with anyone connected to the Royal Family of the UAE state of Dubai.

  But Bates was not so sure. “The real Arabic term for the Dubai royalty would go on for a paragraph of its own,” he told his men. “And the mooks have no penchant for abbreviations.”

  “So what could it be then?” one of his men asked. “Some kind of establishment? A business, maybe?”

  “Or another bank?” a second Spook offered.

  “If it is a bank, the Delta guys will have to go in with pistols and masks this time,” Bates replied.

  Silence, for several long moments. The ship began rolling hard again; another squall had kicked up outside. Back when their equipment was still working, the Spooks could have pressed a few buttons and one of the most powerful supercomputers on earth would have done a Net search on this in a matter of nanoseconds. But that ultraconvenience was no more.

  “Maybe there’s another way we can find out,” Bates said suddenly. He popped open his dying cell phone and simply dialed ATT International Information. A short conversation in French confirmed there was no bank listed as the “Royal Dubai” anywhere in the Persian Gulf region. Nor was there a religious center, royal palace, or mosque under that name.

  However, there was another kind of establishment called the Royal Dubai in the area.

  It was a five-star hotel.

  Minutes later, Bates was standing in Bobby Murphy’s old stateroom, out of breath from his long dash up to the bridge house.

  Leaving the Spooks to their own devices, the combat team leaders were up here now, going over everything that Murphy had left behind in his sudden departure. They had all his papers and notebooks spread across the huge conference table, searching for any other clues he might have uncovered concerning the Next Big Thing.

  Bates interrupted this task with his report on the CD-ROM’s second level and the odd message about the Royal Dubai they’d found hidden in the miles of text.

  “So what you’re suggesting I do,” Martinez was saying to him now, “is send my guys to a place where the mooks were told not to go?”

  “I know it sounds crazy,” Bates replied. “And maybe it is. But whenever any big operation is about to go down, we know the bad guys are under strict orders not to attract any attention to themselves at the last minute. So, by telling everyone to stay away from this Royal Dubai place, they might actually be tipping their hand to us—in reverse.”

  “But it’s a luxury hotel,” Martinez said. “I didn’t think that was their style.”

  “It isn’t. Not normally. But remember, some of the hijackers were staying at five-star hotels in Boston in the days leading up to the Nine-Eleven attacks. And we’ve tracked others passing through the best resorts in Europe in the past. I mean, some things you just can’t do in a cave. And, hey, if you’re heading for paradise, why not run the bill up a bit?”

  “But what could they be hiding in this place?” Curry asked. “Weapons? Money?”

  Bates shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. There’s a chance it could be something really scary—like germs or gas—that they intend to pull out of their hat at the last minute, stuff they don’t want even their foot soldiers to know about. I just don’t know. But if the people who put the CD-ROM together don’t want their peons going near the place, there must be a good reason.”

  Martinez checked his watch. It was nearly 10:00 P.M. Hunn and his men had been on top of the hill in Saudi Arabia, freezing, for almost three hours.

  “How about the CD-ROM’s next level?” he asked Bates. “How soon can you get into it?”

  “We’re working on it,” the young Spook replied. “And now that we know the double-code key, we are hoping that deciphering the right phrase might not take much time. But figuring out what’s actually inside the next level and whether it’s helpful or not—well, that might be a different story. What appeared on the second level was a bit of a surprise, I must admit. It’s not like anything I’d seen before. So, the next level might not tell us how, or where, or when, or even what their target is, after all.”

  He paused and felt the greasy edges of his Hawaiian shirt. A huge nautical clock on Murphy’s wall was suddenly ticking very l
oudly.

  “I wish I could tell you more, Colonel,” Bates concluded. “But this ‘Royal Dubai’ thing might be as good as it gets for a while.”

  All eyes went back to Martinez. He was no fan of these extracurricular activities; that was obvious. And those were his guys out on that hill, risking exposure.

  It would have to be his call all the way.

  “Well, we’re already halfway into this thing,” he said finally. “So where the hell is this place?”

  Chapter 24

  Midnight

  The senior night maid at the Royal Dubai was sneaking a smoke in the lunchroom when the two monsters appeared.

  They were huge, wearing strange clothes and carrying bizarre, glowing weapons. Their faces were covered with silver glass and their heads had thin red halos around them. The maid froze in midpuff. They looked like something from a horror movie.

  But then she saw the monsters had a strange emblem stitched to their shoulders. It was filled with stars and stripes and had an outline of two tall buildings. The maid was not an Arab. She was Filipino. But like everyone else in the Persian Gulf region, she’d heard of the Crazy Americans and knew they were far worse than anything from a horror movie.

  They took one step toward her and raised their weapons. She dropped her cigarette, let out a cry, then fainted dead away.

  When the maid woke up again, she found herself on the roof of the hotel. It was very windy and there was a lot of commotion going on around her. The notion that she might be somehow stuck inside a horror movie did not completely dissipate up here. Now she was surrounded by more of the monstrous soldiers, and their weapons looked even more enormous and unreal. They were trying to talk to her in both English and Spanish. They were asking her if any strange people had been staying in the hotel lately.

  Finally she managed to catch her breath and reply: “Stranger than you?”

  Two minutes later, Hunn and five of his men were in the corridor outside the hotel’s penthouse door.

  Once the maid became convinced she wasn’t going to be eaten alive, she began gushing with details about the odd guests living in the tenth-floor luxury suite. Their peculiar spending habits, their unwillingness to show their faces, their gluttony, the weird noises they were making. Only six men were believed to be inside at the moment; the maid said the seventh man just seemed to come and go. She’d asked the Delta soldiers to explain the actions of these des locos, but Hunn and his guys had no good answer. They were as much in the dark about the men as she was. However, they seemed to be the only suspects that clicked with the information sent to Delta from the ship.

  Hunn had his men arrayed now in a standard forced-entry position. There was no time for them to do this stealthily; it was going to be loud and quick. Closest to the door on either side were two troopers carrying Mossberg shotguns. They were the Pumpers. Both had wide-dispersal shells locked and loaded; both were crouched nearly to the floor. Behind them, standing straight up, were two soldiers with flash grenades out and ready. They were the Firemen. Against the far wall was Corporal Zangrelli lugging the unit’s huge .50-caliber machine gun, complete with an extended ammo belt. Hunn was standing next to him, his M16A2-CAR-15 specialized assault rifle at his side. Each man had his face mask down and his body armor in place. Each also had light-enhancement goggles on and activated. In their full-battle gear they did look a little extraterrestrial.

  Each man was also pumping with adrenaline. According to the people back on the Ocean Voyager, this might not be the cakewalk that interrupting the el-Habini clan during dinner had been. There could be just about anything on the other side of the penthouse door. Hard-core Al Qaeda members. Heavy weaponry. Vials of anthrax. Smallpox. A nuke or two. The troopers had the unenviable task of finding out just what.

  Hunn did one last check of their position. His men were properly in place. The copter was secure up on the roof, at least for the time being. The surrounding exits were being covered by other Delta troops. The flight to Dubai had passed without incident; they’d landed atop the hotel unseen. But Hunn knew they only had about ten minutes before word leaked through the hotel that something was not right. Ten minutes to get business done. What happened after that was anyone’s guess.

  He checked his weapon’s magazine; it was full, of course. He checked his guys again. Everyone gave him a thumbs-up. That’s all he needed. He thought: OK, one more, for Sis….

  Then he sucked in a deep breath, let it out quickly, and made a running leap. He hit the door feetfirst.

  It disappeared in an explosion of cheap paint and splinters. The result of 252 pounds of sheer muscle hitting the sweet spot halfway up the frame. Hunn fell to the floor as soon as the door shattered. The Pumpers jammed their Mossbergs through the opening and fired. At the same time, the Firemen tossed in their flash grenades. The combined result was like a very large fireworks display inside a very small place. Though Hunn had his tinted face mask down, his eyes were still stung by this blizzard of pyrotechnics.

  Now Corporal Zangrelli rushed in, firing his gigantic weapon while expertly vaulting over Hunn. The grenade men and the shotgunners followed him through. They found themselves in a foyer; five larger rooms lay beyond. There were no lights on inside. Hunn jumped to his feet and sprayed the hallway with tracer fire, illuminating the murk. Two seconds of eerie phosphorus burned a snapshot onto his eyes. There was a man about ten feet to his right, pointing a gun at him. His face was terrified; his hand was trembling. And his weapon was not a Kalashnikov but a puny handgun. Hunn could even see a glint of light coming off the cheap plated pistol.

  The man never did pull the trigger. Hunn opened up again and a stream of tracer fire hit the man in the upper torso. His head and chest came apart simultaneously. The gun went flying off into the darkness.

  As this was happening, the two Pumpers fired over Hunn’s shoulder, striking another man hunched in the corner off to their left. He, too, had a small pistol in hand but never got the chance to fire it.

  With the sound of the two shotgun blasts, Hunn flattened himself against the wall. Zangrelli landed right beside him. The Firemen rolled across the foyer away from them. The shotgunners were two feet behind. There were six men suspected to be inside the suite; two of them—probably guards—were now dead. Not bad in the first five seconds. But the squad still had five huge rooms to clear.

  The Delta soldiers stayed in place and just listened. Ten seconds went by. Nothing. Hunn slowly crept down the hall and peered into the next room. It was dark, but he could see it was full of futuristic furniture and had many, many windows. He also detected piles of dirty dishes stacked in just about every corner. And computers. Laptops and PCs. There were at least two dozen of them set up on stands all around the room. On the floor, thousands of scraps of paper. All shapes, all sizes. What the hell is this about? Hunn thought. The place looked like the inside of a Wall Street stock exchange. Or a bookie joint.

  Beyond he could see a double bedroom. Beyond that a bathroom, another living room, and another bedroom.

  On his signal, the rest of the squad joined him at the far end of the hall. Once again, they remained still for several seconds. Then it came—just what they were waiting for. The sound of a short, troubled breath, a shoe against the floor, the clink of something metal. At least one person was in the next room. He was trying to slip away. And he was armed.

  Hunn gave a hand signal to Zangrelli. Four fingers straight up, his thumb moving back and forth. A flash grenade was needed here. Zangrelli nodded to one of the Firemen, who undid a flasher from his vest, pulled the pin, and tossed it into the next room.

  The result was blinding, as advertised. The Delta guys didn’t need to get the order from Hunn this time. They plunged into the room even before the last of the sizzling sparks died away.

  A figure bolted out from behind a couch. Zangrelli fired once but missed, tearing up a wall in the process. Hunn saw the man fly through the air; again, what appeared to be a small pistol was in his hand and
pointed in their direction. Hunn fired but missed as well. The man scurried across the floor, knocking over lamps and upsetting a huge glass table. Zangrelli fired again. This time he caught the man in the back of his head, blowing off the top of his skull. His body actually crawled for a few more steps but then collapsed to the floor.

  Again the Delta team froze. They could see through the next two rooms, into the master bedroom beyond. More shadows were moving in the bare light. Hunn signaled the Firemen to stay put; then he, Zangrelli, and the two Pumpers moved forward.

  They crept through the next room, a kind of lounge area with a sunken floor. It was nearly pitch-black within, but it, too, was thick with paper. Long white strips of it hanging on the walls. Wastebaskets overflowing with it. Thousands of crumpled sheets on the furniture and the floor. The troopers began moving very carefully through this sea of litter.

  Suddenly from outside came something they did not want to hear: the sound of sirens approaching. Again, this had not been a quiet ingress for Delta—there had been no time to plan for that. Hunn knew if this was the local police, they still had a few minutes to do their thing. If it was the military, though, that time might be cut in half.

  The four troopers reached the end of the paper room and stopped to listen again. Another whimper. Another sound of a knee unintentionally thumping the hardwood floor. Hunn turned to Zangrelli and held two fingers straight up, then pointed to his ear. He was asking his corporal if he heard two people in the next room. Zangrelli listened again—then replied with three fingers. He heard one more than Hunn. Hunn nodded, then put two fingers briefly across his eyes. Zangrelli got the message. He looked back at the Pumpers. Each man loaded two flachette rounds into his Mossberg.

  Again, all four moved forward. The next area was a huge bedroom three-quarters walled in with huge glass windows. They could see the lights of the city and the waters of the Gulf beyond. On Hunn’s signal, Zangrelli threw a small flash grenade to the middle of the room. It exploded—and in the glare they saw one man dive behind a couch while two others ran for the adjoining bathroom. Hunn fired his M16 at the floor in front of the couch, hitting the crouched man in the feet. He jumped up—and both Pumpers let go with a double blast. The flachette rounds exploded about halfway between the gun muzzle and the intended victim. The man was hit an instant later, essentially by a small cloud of supersonic shrapnel. The dual blasts went right through him—and vaporized the huge picture window beyond. The glass exploded like a small bomb. The sudden change in air pressure caused everything not tied down in the suite to be sucked up into a minitornado. Suddenly a tempest of paper was swirling all around them.