Fox Hunt

by James Phelan

  “It seems instead of making a weapon to shoot down ballistic missiles, they found that a similar weapon to a railgun—a coilgun—in space could fire a special projectile down to Earth with enough force to annihilate a mid-sized city.”

  Wallace watched as the news sank in.

  “How did Chechnya get their hands on this weapon?” Fox asked after a moment of disbelief.

  “Lachlan, have you ever wondered why Moscow wanted to hold onto the Chechen provinces so badly? Oil? A stop-gap to Middle East aggressors? Attempting to stop a domino effect of small states seeking independence? No.” Wallace leaned back in his chair. “The controls for the weapon lie in a secret location in Grozny, so secret it remains unknown to all but a few of the surviving Politburo members. Men whose directives were to cling to Chechnya as the battle played itself out—with either side’s forces ignorant of the true objective for well over the past decade.”

  “Why the hell wouldn’t the old Politburo have moved the controls of these weapons into Russian territory well before the break-up?”

  “Weapon, Lachlan, singular. That is the first piece of good news. Sergei Ivanovich, the man who ran the program, was the only surviving person to know the controls’ location. Ivanovich bided his time until Chechnya was close to gaining independence before assuming power.” Wallace paused. “Our other good piece of news is this: as it had to fit in the Soviet space rockets of the time, the size of the weapon was limited to carry only one projectile at a time.”

  “The pod we found had two spheres…” Fox said. He looked at the printout of the email he’d sent his contact. The attached photos were printed in colour and showed exterior shots of the pod, then of the inside. One sphere was the size of a basketball and a metallic grey. The other was the size of a grapefruit, in swirly shades of red and orange.

  “The smaller sphere is made from theterium,” Wallace said, “an element originally found only at a comet impact crater in Siberia. Indeed, due to this element originating from what is thought to be the tri-star system Theterion, it is comprehensively denser than anything found on Earth. The other, larger sphere would be a depleted uranium counterweight to be jettisoned from the opposite end of the coilgun when fired so as to keep the satellite in orbit—to balance the recoil.”

  “So apart from the sphere they now have, they can’t make any more?” Fox did not see how this could be a large-scale threat if the element was so rare. How could Ivanovich possibly hope to cause a serious threat with just one more projectile?

  “Lachlan, the attack on and pending invasion of Iran is not merely to seize land and oil and gain access to the Persian Gulf.”

  Wallace cleared his throat and let Fox hang for a second. As Wallace went to speak again, a light went on in Fox’s head and he made the connection. He knew what the next sentence would be before it was spoken, word for word.

  “More theterium has been found—in Iran.”

  15

  Popov and his trusted team of technicians had just completed their work. The makeshift lab sat on the deck of a Sicilian-registered twelve-thousand-tonne transporter with four modified shipping containers on the deck joining to form a large useable space. The captain and crew of the Scarpa were used to hiring out their vessel for large cash sums and had the innate ability not to ask questions or even bat an eyelid at their cargoes or destinations.

  The recovered spheres had been transferred into a shiny new pod, fifty of which had been stored in various secure locations since the mid-1980s, in the hope of finding more theterium to be machined into projectiles. After making sure all calibrations were correct for the loading procedure, Popov gave the theterium sphere a last look. The mirror-smooth finish of the crimson red and orange swirls looked positively spectacular, and he felt a little sad knowing such a magnificent specimen would disintegrate on impact in just a couple of days’ time. Indeed not just disintegrate, but turn into a white-hot fireball, leaving only death and destruction behind.

  He closed the pod by switching on a magnet at the rear end—the loading doors sealed together with a hydraulic hiss.

  That was all he had to do. For Popov it was now a waiting game for whatever came first: finding the other downed pod, or mining raw theterium from the site in Iran and machining more spheres. He was eagerly looking forward to the challenge of the latter.

  16

  From the airfield at the farmhouse, Gammaldi was led to a timber jetty where two speedboats were tied up. His captors were taking no chances this time: Gammaldi was bound, gagged, blindfolded, and a beefy hand clamped either arm.

  The boat ride was short and fast, no more than twenty minutes, and zigzagged in places. When the boat came to a stop and the party left the craft, Gammaldi smelled the pungent odours of a stagnant sea—a shoreline littered with dead sea life from a slow-moving tide.

  From the dock, he was led down a stone staircase, the steps the shortest in length he had ever negotiated. It was pitch dark and his bindings limited movement so he continually fell forwards onto the beefy kidnappers in front, only to be pushed back again to bump into the wall of unaccommodating men behind him.

  Gammaldi’s final destination proved to be a damp-smelling room. He was pushed inside and the heavy door slammed behind him. In the dim light he could see he was alone in the bare room. It was cold now. They had descended to what must be two or three levels below the sea. The only sounds he heard were trickling water in a distant corner and the squeaks of nesting rats that he had just intruded upon. The room smelled like rotten vegetation and excrement.

  At least my lodgings are improving, he thought.

  17

  The Mercedes ML 320 SUV roared over the Brooklyn Bridge at break-neck speed late in the evening. Fox sat in the passenger seat, getting to know the man next to him.

  “Sure beats working for the government,” Sefreid said.

  “What service?” Fox asked, pegging him as an army boy. The haircut, the bulk, the manner.

  “West Point 1980,” Sefreid said. “Eight years of airborne, then eleven in the rangers. I came on board as GSR’s security chief four years ago, after a brief stint in ’Stan working alongside some SAS boys huntin’ in the mountains. Mind you, when I started out in the private security sector, it wasn’t the popular choice it is now, what with Iraq and all. Man, there’s some hack cowboys over there. Way too much money and not nearly enough brains.”

  “I know what you’re talking about,” Fox said, recalling some of the jocks he’d served with. There was a cowboy in every squad, especially Special Forces.

  “Not that I’m complaining about the pay—it’s embarrassing, actually, to think what some of my friends still in the service are getting to put their necks on the line for their country.” Sefreid shifted the Mercedes down a gear as he crossed lanes and took the turnpike to JFK. “You’ll meet my team at the plane—an eclectic bunch. We’ll wait till we’re airborne to go over the mission and get you kitted up.”

  He honked his horn to get a cab to make way. “I think it was a damn fine job you did in Timor,” he added. “I experienced a similar thing in Mogadishu. Shit going down right in front of you and we, as UN personnel, were powerless to intervene unless fired upon. God knows, only a soldier understands what it’s like on the front line.”

  It didn’t surprise Fox that Sefreid knew his past, just as the other two GSR people had, and he found himself put at ease by the man’s understanding.

  He allowed himself a half smile. GSR was puzzling him. Yes, private soldiers were prolific in the days of globalisation and war on terror. More hot spots, more money to be made, more companies needing protection abroad for their executives. Considering what he knew about GSR’s clandestine operations—a private company with an armed force meddling in the affairs of other nations, albeit with seemingly ‘good’ intentions—he felt confident that the resources were good enough to find Gammaldi.

  “Thanks, mate,” was all he said to Sefreid though, a
nd they rode the rest of the way to the airport in silence.

  18

  VIESTE

  ITALY

  It was the last time Popov was to see the pod. He watched as it was carefully hoisted up to the tip of the Italian Legion VI rocket. Regarded as one of the best high-orbit deployment transports, the rocket’s sleek eighty-metre tall frame was a classically designed piece of Italian art. Three bulbous external rockets ran halfway up the sides, partially moulded into the main rocket for a more streamlined effect.

  Apart from aesthetics, the true reason the Legion VI rocket was so successful and popular was that it was very cheap. This was thanks to the recycle capacity of the components; the main rocket body on this occasion was to set a record—its thirteenth use.

  “God speed, comrade,” Popov called as he took his last close look at the Legion VI. He would spend the next three hours until launch in the mess area, bluffing his way through conversations with the Italian space technicians. He’d done a fine job so far and was actually beginning to enjoy the deception. No longer was he merely sitting in a room lit by flickering neon lights, dealing with technical data; he was practically an agent now.

  It had been surprisingly easy to switch the communications satellite his country had booked for launching with the Italian space agency with the far more lethal pod. Whilst the pod was smaller in size than the com satellite, it was over twice as heavy. This meant recalibrating the Legion VI’s rockets to burn at their maximum rate and hold a respective fuel payload—moves that were counteracted by the changed orbit conditions. The rocket was now destined to travel less than half the distance.

  In the mess, a small man with thick glasses met Popov at the espresso machine. He asked a question about the new weather satellite to be launched, seemingly fascinated by its total encapsulation.

  Popov took a deep breath and turned to the man, showing his crooked teeth in a smile before answering.

  19

  HIGH ABOVE THE ATLANTIC

  The mood aboard the Gulfstream X was electric. The jet flew through the starry night over the Atlantic at phenomenal speed, its flight crew thanking their lucky stars for the job they held. The hours were often erratic and they were seldom given advance notice about which destinations they travelled to, but it sure beat flying a 747 bus or being a Fed-Ex courier.

  Fox concluded this must be the other of the Gulfstream pair he had seen back at JFK airport. Inside, the plush leather seats and stylish interior furnishings had been removed to make way for a veritable mountain of assault gear. Fox got to know the seven-member GSR security detail and liked them all instantly. That and the thought that he was going to rescue his best friend filled him with a satisfaction he had not felt since his navy days, and—whilst he tried to deny it—it was a feeling he welcomed.

  “This is the coilgun,” Sefreid said, passing over a folder.

  “The Dragon,” Fox said dramatically. “This thing can wipe out cities? Looks like an ordinary satellite.”

  “I’d believe it,” Sefreid said. “I’ve seen a railgun in action at the Anchorage naval base. Looked like an ordinary destroyer gun battery, only instead of an eighteen-centimetre barrel, this thing had a long slender rail. Shot a titanium arrowhead through a metre of reinforced concrete.”

  “Jesus,” Fox said, flipping though the folder as he listened. “And if this element is as powerful as they say…”

  “And rare,” Sefreid added. “Rumour is there’s a second pod like the one you discovered somewhere in the sea off Christmas Island—they must think your mate Gammaldi knows where it is.”

  “Stubborn bugger won’t be helping them in a hurry,” Fox said, allowing himself a smile.

  “Military pilots are good at that,” Sefreid added to lighten the mood. He passed over another folder and turned serious. “This guy is one tough nut though,” he said.

  Fox looked at the photos of Sergei Ivanovich. The face could have belonged to any middle-aged Eastern European guy, but the eyes gave him away. They had the same expression as those of men seen on trial at The Hague.

  “And with all the troop activity along the Iran border, he’s going for broke,” Sefreid said. “The scariest thing with these nutters is their hair-trigger willingness to die.”

  “I know the kind,” Fox said, switching into gear. “Okay, how are we doing this?”

  “When we’re over the drop zone, we free fall for ten seconds exactly, then deploy our ’chutes,” Sefreid said happily. Fox could tell he was raring to get back into some action.

  “Now, here’s the target area.” Sefreid took the large map of Italy off the card table set up in the centre of the cabin and revealed a huge glossy photo of the Italian farmhouse.

  “Damn good resolution,” remarked Fox as he studied the black and white image. It was obviously zoomed in from a very high altitude, and showed a small cluster of buildings, a short dirt runway and a boundary fence. At the edges of the photograph were thick tree plantations, with only one road leading out. To the east were the muddy banks of an inlet with a small timber jetty.

  “It was taken from a Warfighter II sat—the latest used by the National Reconnaissance Office.” The explanation came from Ben Beasley, the team’s signals expert. He looked more like a librarian than a Special Forces team member, stooped over his notebook computer. “The old Keyhole sats could read newspapers, but these mean machines can tell you what ink was used to print them. Practically infinite pixels at any magnification. The Warfighters can pick the pigment differences between a tank hiding under camouflage netting and tree canopies, the difference between a crop of barley and wheat— nothing hides from those babies.”

  “What’s the NRO’s role in this?” Fox asked Sefreid, but Beasley answered immediately.

  “Well, so long as it’s not my brother in the JAG Corps asking … We have a couple of friends at Langley who help us out occasionally—they don’t care what we ask of them so long as it’s within range of one of the three Warfighters. Apparently retasking one of those things requires presidential approval. Hey, remember the time they sent us the shots of the Playboy Mansion? Man, those—”

  “Thanks, Ben.” Sefreid brought the young man with the sandy-coloured mop of hair back on track. “We’ll drop in two teams of four,” Sefreid continued, marking on the photo with a coloured pen where each team would land. “I’ll take team one: Goldsmith, Ridge and Pepper, you’ll be with me. We do the first drop by the road and come in through the front door.”

  Sefreid’s team all nodded, acknowledging the task at hand. “I always wanted to go to Italy,” Goldsmith commented.

  “Fox is going to head up team two, which will drop at the far end of the landing strip and secure the southern section of the compound. From there we’ll meet in the middle and take the main buildings from two sides.” Sefreid concluded with a description of how they were to enter the farmhouse.

  The two teams separated and went through their respective planning. Fox led his three team members to the rear of the cabin. They crouched down in a huddle and he laid out another photograph of the target area between them and transferred the drop zone coordinates with a coloured marker.

  “Okay. Gibbs and Beasley, when we hit the deck, you two flank out to the northeast to this transmission tower and provide cover fire.”

  Fox looked at Beasley. “And whilst you’re there, you might as well see if you can shut that tower down—quietly.”

  “No problemo,” replied Beasley, studying the small building with an assortment of antennae sprouting from the roof.

  Fox turned to the third member of the team and pointed at him with a strained look.

  “Eyal Geiger, sir, ex-Marine Force Recon.”

  “Sorry, Geiger, I’m shocking with names. You and I will head double-time to the hangar, under Gibbs’s cover fire.” Fox looked closely at the image. “From the hangar we’ll head straight for the guard box, and wait there for the assault on the main house. Whe
n we do, I want you—” Fox looked up from the photo to Beasley “—to take up our post at the guard box and cover Geiger and me. And mop up anything that gets past us.”

  “No problemo,” Beasley repeated with gusto. Fox knew it had been a few years since Beasley had left the FBI as a Special Agent in the Comms Division at their Baltimore office and he was clearly looking forward to the task at hand.

  “Any comments?” Fox asked of the three people dressed in black fatigues crouched alongside him. He was assuming his role as commander as though he had never left the profession.

  They all took in the photo and the coloured marker lines delineating their prescribed movements. They added up the tally of men to deal with, as calculated when the Warfighter sat had passed over in the dead hours of the morning before: zero estimated to be in the transmission tower; ditto in the hangar; two in the guard box; and zero again in the motorbike garage. Beyond that lay the main house, kennels, gatehouse and a small building, probably a toilet. These added up to another four men, with Gammaldi assumed to be held in the main house. Last but by no means least was the barracks-like structure, which at 4.30 a.m. local time they hoped would be filled with nine beefy figures all sleeping like babies.

  “Sounds good to me,” said Geiger with a grin, “so long as you can keep up with the marines’ record-holder over a hundred metres.”