by Trevor Scott
“Yes.”
“And that Sirena is with Jake and others on their way to attempt a rescue of the medical workers?”
“You knew this, John.”
“Right, but I thought we might have a bit more of a heads up on the operational aspects of any mission.”
“Which is why I sent you the new GPS coordinates Jake discovered.”
Bradford sipped more coffee. “This is good.”
“Yes, it is,” Jenkins said. “Listen, our government is not willing to respond and help these hostages. You said you’d help behind the scenes. What’s your problem?”
Shaking his head, Bradford said, “This might be a one-way mission for Jake and his friends.”
Jenkins sat forward in his chair. “What do you mean?”
“We’ve had our satellite analysts reviewing that location for the past few hours. It’s in a remote area of the southern Atlas range.”
“I know,” Jenkins said. “I’ve got it up on my computer right now. It’s southeast of Marrakech.”
“Right. Well most of the Atlas range is run by the Berbers, with the exception of a strip of territory in the north, just south of Tangier. And recently an Al Qaeda affiliate group, an offshoot of Al Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb, has started picking up more territory. Morocco has been a lone voice in the wilderness, keeping Al Qaeda at bay. . .until now.”
“What are you saying?”
“This camp is massive, Kurt. I believe they’re using this as a staging ground for something big.”
“Shit! How bad is it?”
“We looked over some older images, now that we knew where to pinpoint, and there was almost nothing there just a couple months ago.”
“And it’s not like we can just call in an airstrike, if that’s where they’re holding the fifteen medical workers.”
“Exactly.”
“Would this change the opinion of the president, if you were to brief him on this?”
Bradford downed the last of his coffee and then shook his head. “Not likely. He doesn’t believe in Islamic terrorism. If he can’t see and define the problem, there’s no way in hell he’ll authorize an op to take care of the problem.”
Jenkins thought the same thing, which is why he had gotten involved with the Spanish billionaire in the first place. Just to be completely sure, he had not mentioned his affiliation with that man.
Bradford took it upon himself to get a new drink. He refilled his coffee cup and poured more for Kurt Jenkins. Then he sat down again.
“You look like you have more on your mind,” Jenkins said.
“I’m considering resigning, Kurt.”
“What? You’ve only been in the job a little less than two years.”
“I know. But I’d rather move out west somewhere and fly my private plane as much as possible. I’m a pilot, Kurt. That’s what I do. Other than my wife and kids, that’s my only true love.”
“You’re still holding back, John. Remember, my true love was working in the clandestine service. I was pretty good at reading people.”
“I guess so.” Bradford seemed to be considering his options. Finally, he said, “We’re hearing chatter about a private force being built to counter terrorists around the world.”
Jenkins said nothing. Instead, he sipped his coffee to formulate a response. He wasn’t sure he needed to let his successor know that he knew about this. “Is this a problem for the CIA?”
“How would you feel if you were in my position?” Bradford asked.
“I’d thank God that someone is doing something.”
“I hope you’re not putting me into that category, Kurt. Every time I suggest action to this president, I get shot down. He’s actually called me a damn warmonger in front of the Joint Chiefs. And, as you know, they’ve all been installed by this guy, so they’re in no position to stand up to him.”
“You knew what you were getting into working for that guy,” Jenkins said.
“I know. But I was a good airman. When the president comes calling, you say ‘yes, sir’ and take the damn job, hoping you can do something.”
“You can,” Jenkins assured his friend. “Keep this chatter to yourself, and make damn sure your people keep their mouths shut.”
“Don’t tell the president?”
“Don’t tell anyone anything. Let this be.”
“Congress has oversight.”
Jenkins laughed. “Especially keep those idiots in the dark.”
“And if it eventually comes out?” Bradford asked.
“Just say you had no solid intelligence. You think anyone will complain when a bunch of terrorists end up dead?”
“Let’s hope not.”
“What’s the worst that can happen?” Jenkins asked. “You get fired. You still get your Air Force retirement as a general officer.”
Bradford picked up his cup and reached across the desk until Jenkins smiled and tapped his coffee cup against his friend’s drink. They both probably wished they had something stronger in the cups.
They both drank down their coffee.
“Are you still in contact with Jake Adams?” Bradford asked. “He’ll need to be warned about that camp.”
“How many assholes in that terrorist camp?”
“At least fifty.”
“Shit!” Jenkins shook his head. “I’ll try to make contact and let him know ASAP.” He picked up his cell phone and typed in a quick message, telling Jake how many men were at that camp, and that it looked like the right location for the kidnappers and the hostages.
Jenkins escorted the Director of the CIA to the front door and they stood for a moment, both unsure what to say.
Eventually they just shook hands and Bradford slipped out into the darkness of early morning.
Then Jenkins went back to his study and sat down again, his phone in his hand. Besides warning Jake, he realized he needed to also contact General Graves to relay this information. This new location would be the perfect entry into the fight. Hopefully, this would be the beginning of the counter Caliphate. It was time to strike hard and fast. Take it to those bastards.
•
The terrorists came for Anna Grasso late in the afternoon, just after a crappy meal of some sort of grain soaked with goat’s milk into a nasty porridge, with the only protein source the occasional bug that had found its way into the large cooking pot.
All of the other hostages had given stories of their time in front of the camera giving a plea for their release to some unknown viewer. The last thing she wanted to do was impugn her integrity. But to be defiant would undoubtedly lead to a beating. She had seen the results of those who had at first refused to cooperate. She had helped patch up their bodies.
They dragged her into a large tent and she saw the black flag with white Arabic writing on it. In front of the flag was a metal folding chair like might be found at a church picnic.
Two men shoved her down into the chair roughly. Bright lights immediately clicked on and she covered her eyes against the harsh glare.
A camera sat on a tripod in front of her and a man with a long scraggly beard stood behind that. Since coming to this camp, they all started to name some of the familiar guards. But most of these were unknown to her. In fact, there were many new faces in camp each day. Their numbers had increased markedly, she thought. Also, the shooting at a nearby range had increased in intensity. This was a training camp, she surmised.
What could she do to defy these bastards? She’d been thinking about that since her friend Dr. Morgan Cassidy was first hauled away to make his video.
One of the terrorists handed Anna a piece of paper with a long statement. She read the phrases carefully, seeking a place to insert a defiant set of words.
“You want me to read this?” Anna asked. Then she laughed and said, “There’s no way anyone will pay you five hundred million for my release. Nobody cares about me.”
“Shut up,” one of her captors said, raising his hand to hit her.
She flinched b
ack in her chair. “All right. I’ll read it. Have a sense of humor once.”
Clearing her throat, she waited for the camera man to point at her. Then she saw a red light and knew the recording had started.
Anna did her best scared version, reading the words the terrorist had given her. Right in the middle of the diatribe she implanted the phrase “Tai yra melas” innocently after a sentence. She had gotten the phrase from her Lithuanian grandmother, who had said it all too often to Anna’s mother during her youth. It meant ‘This is a lie.’
For some reason, her captors had not flinched when she said the phrase. Perhaps they hadn’t even heard her, since it seemed like mumbling to those who didn’t understand Lithuanian.
When she was done, two men lifted her from the chair and hauled her back to their tent. They threw her to the ground and Dr. Morgan Cassidy was there to help her up. He pulled her back to the corner where they had their beds, away from the other medical workers.
“How did it go?” Morgan asked, his voice low.
“Same as the rest of you,” she answered. “Five hundred million. It’s such an absurd amount, they can’t possibly expect to get it.”
Morgan shook his head. “They don’t plan on ever letting us go, Anna.”
She moved in closer to him. “What do you mean?”
He let out an exhausted breath. “I think there are two possible reasons for us being here. First, they want us for propaganda. To show the world that nobody is safe from their wrath. And second, they need medical professionals to help heal their wounded.”
Since their capture, Anna had wondered why those who were taken were either doctors or nurses, when there were so many others aboard their ship. And now it was clear. Morgan had to be right.
“They’re going to war,” Anna said, “and they plan on sending us out with their fighters.”
Morgan nodded with agreement.
23
Sirena landed the helicopter at the Agadir-al Massira airport southeast of Agadir, Morocco a half hour ago, skillfully talking her way with her Arabic in by declaring a possible fuel emergency.
Once they landed, a couple of airport officials, along with an armed police officer, met Sirena on the tarmac. Jake could see her giving the three men deference for their superiority of genitalia. Then she suddenly came back to the helo with a disturbed look on her face.
Meanwhile, in the back of the chopper, Tucker, Jean Paul and the priest all had weapons available in case they needed to shoot their way out of there.
Sirena waved for Jake to come out. He did so, bringing a small satchel with him.
She whispered to Jake, “They want to talk with the man in charge.”
“Hell of an assumption,” Jake said. “Do they speak English?”
“I don’t know,” she said, trying her best to hold it together. “I was speaking Arabic.”
Jake walked back to the three men smiling. No need to piss off the locals, he thought. “Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” he asked.
The leader of the Moroccans, a slight man with a bald pate, shook his head.
“English?” Jake asked with a German accent.
“Yes,” the Moroccan said. “I speak English.”
“What is the problem?” Jake asked.
“You landed without authority,” the Moroccan said. “You have no flight plan.”
Jake looked confused. “There must be a mistake. We filed a plan weeks ago with your government.”
“What are you doing in Morocco? And where did you fly from?”
They had planned for this possibility. Jake said, “We came from the Canary Islands. We are anthropologists studying an ancient offshoot of the Berber tribes in the Atlas Mountains.”
Now the Moroccan was confused. “Who do you work for?”
“The Austrian government in conjunction with Innsbruck University,” Jake said with authority. He actually knew the president of that university, and could get him on the line to vouch for him if needed. He also knew a number of high-level Austrian government officials, including the former Federal President of Austria, who had conferred upon Jake the Great Golden Decoration with Star of Austria, the highest honor Austria bestowed upon any civilian.
“Do you have any papers to prove this?”
Jake opened his satchel and started pulling out green one hundred Euro notes. “Let me see,” he said, rummaging in the bag. “I have my passport here somewhere.” By now he had pulled out two thousand Euros and held them in his left hand. Finally, he found his Austrian passport with his favorite fake persona. He switched the passport into the hand with the Euros and held it out slightly. He didn’t want to be too blatant with the bribe, but based on the look he got from the Moroccan official, things were becoming clear.
With the manual dexterity of a slight of hand magician, the Moroccan quickly grasped the Euros and the passport from Jake, pocketed the bills, and gave his passport a quick view. Jake guessed the passport could have read Mickey Mouse at this point. Then the Moroccan smiled and handed back Jake’s passport.
“Everything looks good,” the Moroccan official said. “Your woman said you needed fuel.”
“Yes, we do.”
“I will arrange it.”
The three men turned and walked back toward an operations building.
Her hands on her hips, Sirena said, “So, now I’m just your woman. Wonderful.”
“Misogyny is alive and well in Muslim countries,” Jake assured her. “So, get back in the helo, woman.”
She stood firm with her hands on her hips.
A fuel truck drove up to the helicopter and stopped a short distance away.
“Okay, smarty pants,” she said. “How do you plan on paying for the fuel?”
Jake pulled out his wallet and found a card. “Visa.”
The two of them went to watch the man fuel the helicopter. He was a man in coveralls with close-cropped black hair speckled with gray.
The Moroccan man said something in Arabic.
Sirena said something to the man and he nodded.
“I said, I just fueled this helicopter about a week ago,” the man said. “Where is the Spanish pilot?”
“On vacation,” Sirena said.
“You have a lighter load this time,” the man said, pointing to the tires.
The Moroccan pulled the hose out and attached it to the helicopter’s fuel receptacle. Then he sauntered back to his truck and started the fueling process.
Jake drifted over toward the helicopter and pulled out his phone. He had missed a text. When he saw the message from his old friend, Kurt Jenkins, he shook his head and then deleted the text.
When the fueling was done, Jake got his Visa back from the Moroccan fuel man, along with a receipt for the purchase. He thanked the man and watched as the fuel attendant drove off. Jake would have to make sure to get reimbursed for the fuel by the Spanish billionaire.
Coming together again, Jake said to Sirena, “We’ve got a problem.”
“What do you mean?” she asked. “We’re on the right path. The kidnappers came through here to refuel.”
“I know. But it’s not that. Kurt Jenkins has verified with the Agency that we’re going to the right camp.”
“That’s good news,” she assured Jake.
“Yeah. But there’s at least fifty terrorists in that camp. There’s no way in hell we can deal with a force that big.”
She shook her head. “Not without air support. But there’s something else you need to know about the camp.”
He waited for her to tell him more bad news.
Sirena continued. “This chopper has a ceiling to perhaps eight or nine thousand feet.”
“Is that the absolute ceiling?” he asked.
“Afraid so. Of course some of this depends on our weight and atmospheric conditions.”
“But the Spaniard had a much heavier load,” Jake said.
“I’m just telling you that the Choctaw doesn’t have a really high ceiling. The GPS location of the
camp is at about eight thousand feet.”
“Then we should be good to go,” Jake said.
“I hope so. But they’ll hear us coming from miles away.”
She was right. It wasn’t like they could just fly in there and make the terrorists release the prisoners. Especially now that Jenkins had told them their strength. They needed an actual plan.
“We’ll need to hike in the last few miles,” Jake said.
Sirena shook her head. “That gets you in there. Then what? Even if you can secure their release, you have to hike down the mountain with them. Some of them might be injured or otherwise unable to hike.”
“There’s no other way,” he said, without trying to sound too defeated.
She pointed back at the helicopter. “You have a drunken retired MI-6 officer, a suspended French intelligence officer, and a priest. It’s one thing to go up against a force of five or ten, but not fifty or more. We need help, Jake. Otherwise this is a suicide mission.”
He knew she was right. “I know,” he agreed. “But what choice do we have? We can’t call in the Navy SEALS or even Agency tactical units. Our government doesn’t want to fight this battle.”
“I could make an appeal,” she said.
“No. The intel we have came from Bradford and the Agency. He might be trying to help, but he obviously doesn’t have the pull to change minds higher up the food chain. I say we get up there and get direct human insight and not just a satellite assessment. From there we can decide what to do. You and the priest can stay down the mountain with the helicopter. If anything happens to us, you get the hell out of there.”
“I’m hiking up that mountain with you,” she said defiantly.
“No, you’re not.”
“Because I’m a woman?”
“No. Because you’re our pilot and the only one who can get any survivors out. We can’t afford to lose you.”
Sirena looked at the ground and shuffled her feet, obviously not happy. But she had to know Jake was right.
“All right,” Jake said. “Let’s go.”
They climbed back up into the cockpit and Sirena prepped the helicopter for flight, started the engine, and got the rotors moving enough to start their taxi.