“I’ll take the other half of the force and stay here. The base commander is now in the loop, so I’ll be able to get on-the-ground logistical support from him. But I want you to handpick your teams … yours will be the trickier job. Gettin’ in and out of the Turkish capital, with our ambassador, without the Turks knowin’ you’re even in the country. And I don’t anticipate a clean extraction. So hustle up and choose your teams while we offload the necessary weapons.”
Edwards looked his second-in-command in the eye.
“I’d be with you, Adam, if I could,” said Edwards. “But there’s five thousand Americans at risk here, plus all the people of Adana. And if there is anybody who can get our ambassador out of Ankara with his life, it’s you. God be with you.” He gave Traynor’s arm an imperceptible squeeze. “Now, let’s get you out of here.”
41
Incirlik Air Base, Adana
July 23, 4:12 p.m.
The unused airplane hangar was small, crowded … and hot. Closed up tight to keep their presence a secret, the base commander, Edwards, and Team Black’s third-in-command were hunched over a map stretched out across a metal table. The twenty-five other JSOC fighters were busy checking weapons, separating ammo and other material, and packing it into four “lockers”—secure areas enclosed by chain-link fence where each of the four squads would keep its supplies.
Everyone was perspiring heavily. And ready to get to work.
“We’ve doubled the guard and tightened the perimeter,” said the commander, “but I’ve got about eight miles of fence to patrol, a northwest corner bordered by a canal, a mini-suburb crowding right up against our southeast gate, and two major highways bracketing us north and south. We keep a tight fist on security, but in all honesty, this is not Fort Knox. If somebody really wanted to get in, there are a lot of places they could exploit.”
Edwards ran his finger around the base perimeter on the map. “And where are the B61 bunkers?”
The commander pointed to a cluster on the western flank of the base and another at the northernmost point. “Two sets, here and here, off the beaten path. Pretty much isolated from the rest of the base.”
“Good.” Edwards was nodding. “This helps.”
The commander, an air force colonel, looked up. “What’s your plan?”
“We’ve war-gamed this,” said Edwards, “and we believe the only feasible plan would be to release chemical weapons—wipe out everyone on the base and then steal the nukes. Which gives us a couple of advantages. One, they need to come to us. Two, they need a significant amount of chemical weapons to impact a three-thousand-acre base … they can’t carry it in a briefcase. Three, it’s gonna take a determined effort to properly deploy these weapons so they are effective. And then there is this wind.
“Honestly, I don’t think whoever they are can pull off the deployment without us bein’ all over them, especially now that we know they’re comin’. But—and this is a big but—I don’t want to wait that long. I don’t want to see chemical weapons anywhere near this base or the city that surrounds it. Chemical agents are too volatile and unpredictable. Too many things can go wrong. We could be right on top of these guys and they could still open enough canisters to kill off a lot of American children. I haven’t signed up for that.
“So we need to stop them before they get here,” said Edwards. “And that’s what we plan to do.”
While the base commander deployed beefed-up security units to surround both the western and northern cluster of B61 bunkers, Edwards tasked his JSOC units to do what they do best: intervene while unseen. Two Team Black members, spotters, were assigned to each of four helicopter crews. In defiance of the wind, at least three of the four choppers would be airborne at all times, providing constant surveillance from the sky, in concentric circles radiating out from Incirlik. Four other fighters occupied clandestine observation posts, five miles out in either direction on the major highways that bracketed the air base.
That was nearly half his force. Eight fighters Edwards kept in constant reserve, and the other six rotated in and out to give the guys on the surveillance teams a break.
The base commander had a half-dozen, action-ready Bradley Fighting Vehicles staged outside the hanger along with a quartet of unmarked vans. And off to the south of the hanger sat three Sikorsky UH-60 helicopters—the deadly Black Hawk—each with their rotors in a slow but constant spin.
They were ready. They just needed a target.
Güvercinlik Army Air Base, Ankara
July 23, 5:01 p.m.
“Güvercinlik Tower, this is NATO heavy on final approach, wheels down, we see your lights. Thanks for your help.”
The C-130J Super Hercules with the NATO call-sign descended through the flashes of late-day sun that stabbed through gathering clouds. Its wheels kissed the tarmac, and the big body settled onto the runway. The pilot taxied the jumbo cargo plane along taxiways that took it farther and farther to the right, away from the tower and the primary hangers.
Coming abreast of an isolated hanger near the northwest corner of the airport, the pilot swung the C-130 in a 180-degree arc, its nose pointing out to the rest of the airport, its tail and loading ramp in shadow.
Flashing his diplomatic credentials, Mullaney bypassed customs in the commercial aviation terminal at Ankara’s Güvercinlik Army Air Base, a convenient location for diplomatic traffic, just outside the city’s central district. Dressed in a suit and tie, Mullaney carried the heavy diplomatic pouch close to his right leg.
A quick scan of the small terminal’s lobby identified the restrooms adjacent to the tiny coffee shop. As Mullaney moved toward the men’s room, the other two DSS agents filtered into the terminal from opposite entrances, keeping their distance from Mullaney but their eyes on all those who were in his vicinity.
Mullaney crossed the lobby and paused at a newsstand as one of the agents moved closer to the men’s room door. It was a one-person restroom with a door that locked from the inside. A text flashed across the cell phone in his left hand. “Door’s locked. I’m waiting.”
Stuffing the cell phone in his pocket, Mullaney stepped to the men’s room door. He heard the slight click as the dead bolt was released from the inside. In an easy, relaxed motion, he pushed against the door and entered the restroom. As soon as he was inside, Mullaney pushed the door closed and snapped the lock back into place. He looked up.
Across the small room was a bull of a man in a loosely fitting jogging suit, his bald head a gleaming beacon of reflected light from the window above him. “Agent Mullaney,” he said in greeting. “Colonel Edwards sends his regards. He’s got … uh … other business.”
For the first time in hours, Mullaney drew in a deep breath and tried to calm his anxiety. “Captain Traynor … seeing you here makes me feel a little more secure,” said Mullaney. He crossed the small room to shake the captain’s hand, but without preamble, Traynor held a small, flat, flesh-colored triangular device toward Mullaney.
“Stick this on the skin below your left armpit, near your heart. It’s not only a tracker, but it will also monitor your body’s vital signs. And it’s got a transmitter so we can hear your conversations. It’s virtually undetectable.”
Mullaney loosened the buttons of his shirt and attached the device to the bare skin under his arm, adjacent to his heart, while keeping his eyes on Traynor. “How many men on your team?”
The captain smiled. “Enough. Most of them are already in position to move with you … and thanks to the tip from Colonel Levinson, some are in location down the hill from the citadel.”
Mullaney stiffened, a protest on his lips when the captain held up his hand.
“We’re invisible, Agent Mullaney,” said Traynor. “This is what we’ve trained for: in and out without being seen or detected. You get the ambassador. We’ll get you both out.”
“How …”
Traynor smiled once more and casually leaned back against the wall, his confidence trumping Mullaney’s question. “S
ir … we’ve got you covered,” he said. “We have multiple scenarios plotted out and multiple points of extraction available to us.” Traynor stood straighter. “We know your record, sir. You’ll be fine. Follow your instincts. Don’t give up the box until you have Cleveland in front of you, close at hand. Find a way to get out of the house alive, and we’ll have you and Cleveland out of Turkey in less than an hour. And if we believe the situation warrants, we’ll be inside that building faster than a flea farts.”
Crude, but it made Mullaney laugh. Which was a welcome respite. And so was Captain Traynor. This was an expert at his trade. Cleveland had shared with Mullaney stories of JSOC’s near-perfect effectiveness in seemingly impossible circumstances. Mullaney knew Captain Traynor’s lightheartedness was only a thin veneer masking his determination and devotion to duty. But he needed to be sure the captain understood the full parameters of the operation. Mullaney looked into Traynor’s eyes.
“Two things will happen in the next few hours,” he said, his voice soft but his authority sharpened to a point. “First, I will transfer what is in this bag to the man holding Cleveland hostage. Nothing—nothing!—happens until that transfer is complete. Understand?”
The smile was erased from Traynor’s features. “Yes, sir. Got it.”
“The second thing is that you and I will rescue the United States Ambassador to Israel from his abductor—a man who is responsible for the deaths of more than half-a-dozen federal agents, including my best friend. No matter how much I long for justice … revenge … for all those dead and buried, you and I will rescue the ambassador and get him back to Israel safely. That is our only purpose here tonight. Make the switch. Rescue Cleveland. Neither one of us can allow anything to interfere with either of those objectives. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Traynor held Mullaney’s gaze without a flinch. “But if Mr. Bad Guy happens to get in my way and takes a stray 9-millimeter slug to the brain, you won’t object?”
Mullaney empathized with Traynor’s deadly intent but shook his head. “Two objectives, Captain, and only two. And in that order. First the switch, then the rescue. Then we disappear.”
They were clones. Both dressed in black, head to foot, both bearded, both with the dead eyes of those who kill without fear or remorse. Mullaney had no doubt they were his reception party.
He walked from the airport terminal to the gleaming black Citroen with the smoked black windows. The two men stepped aside and opened the car’s back door. Without hesitation, Mullaney ducked into the back seat, placing the leather pouch on the floor between his feet. But his brain was cataloguing every detail.
No words were spoken as a third man in black emerged from the terminal building, gave a meaningful nod to the other two, circled the car, and got into the driver’s seat. One of the clones opened the far-side back door and his bulk rocked the car as he sat, his attention riveted on Mullaney. The second clone shut the back door on Mullaney, then got into the front passenger seat.
There was a distinctive thunk as the door locks snapped shut. The car pulled out into traffic. Mullaney mouthed a silent prayer as a heavy black hood was pulled over his head.
42
Alitas Street, Ankara
July 23, 6:09 p.m.
After winding through a myriad of streets, cresting and descending numerous hills, perhaps intentionally to throw off any sense of direction Mullaney might have, the car slowed, turned to the right, bumped over a curb, and entered a slow, downward curve to the left. Though he couldn’t see anything, Mullaney could almost feel the light leave the car.
He heard the sound of mechanical rollers—a garage door, an opening for the car.
The Citroen moved forward. With each rotation of the wheels, the temperature dropped. And the car drove lower.
The stop was sudden, unexpected. It sounded like all four doors opened at once. Mullaney was pulled out of the car. The hood was removed when he was standing on his feet. The space was black, without light, the only illumination coming from the dome light of the vehicle. Mullaney squeezed and blinked his eyes open. A hand moved past his face, pointing into the back seat of the car.
“Bring it.”
Mullaney reached in and hoisted the heavy leather bag from the floor of the back seat. When the doors were closed, darkness reigned. And the hood was put back over his head.
“Bring it.”
The voice came through his headset loud and clear. Captain Traynor gave a thumbs-up sign to his tech sergeant with the monitor.
They were seated on benches inside an unmarked, black panel van. Three other, nearly identical, black panel vans, delivered by the cavernous C-130, were scattered throughout the Old City in central Ankara—all of them downhill from the castle. Each van tightly harbored six JSOC fighters, redundant communications equipment, and a small but rigorously vetted weapons locker with all of the tools the assault team anticipated it might need in these circumstances.
“We have audio,” Traynor spoke into the mic that snaked in front of his mouth from the receiver in his right ear. A black balaclava was pulled snugly over his bald head. Each member of the team was blacked out: head-to-foot black, no flesh exposed, black body armor, black night-vision glasses that would cover their eyes and the openings in the balaclavas. The only thing they wore that was not black was JSOC emblazoned on their body armor, front and back, in ink that would only be visible through the night-vision units.
Each member was armed with a Colt M4A1 carbine, the weapon of choice for US special operations units. A rapid-fire weapon, the M4A1 was fed by a thirty-round, quick-change magazine, and each was equipped with an M68 Close Combat Optic red-dot sight. Two of the soldiers additionally had the M203 underslung forty-millimeter grenade launcher on their weapons. Each soldier also carried two hand grenades and two flash-bangs.
Captain Traynor looked at the circled blip on his handheld receiver. Mullaney’s signal had moved underground, but was still strong, about two hundred yards away.
Alitas Street was part of a warren of narrow, winding streets with limited access, a little pocket of low-rise, masonry-and-stucco houses sprawling over the craggy outcroppings along the flanks of the hill crowned by the citadel. The streets of the neighborhood, bounded by Evi Park on the west, a reservoir to the north, a sheer rock butte to the northeast, and the castle on the south, were often little more than glorified alleyways. It was tricky terrain for an assault force to maneuver.
Even though Traynor wanted his units closer to Mullaney’s position, they were probably in the best locations possible. One was outside the Ozkan Market and looked like a delivery van; one was farther down the hill, near the reservoir, parked in a little alcove near Tas Bebek Café; and the third was in reserve, tucked into the shadows under an arch of the Ankara Castle. Traynor’s unit was in the car park of a mosque to the south, at the foot of Alitas Street. But because Alitas and its adjoining streets were so narrow, with limited, solitary opportunities to park, they weren’t going anywhere at the moment.
“Hold your ground for my signal,” Traynor directed. Then he waited.
Each step in the dark tested Mullaney’s courage. Worse, he found that each step deeper into the clutches of his enemy assaulted his faith, assailed him with doubt. Was he doing the right thing? Was he really the right person for this responsibility? And how was he ever going to rescue Cleveland?
They were still descending a ramp, not stairs. Not only was the cold intensifying, but so was a sulfurous stench that brought heaves of bile out of Mullaney’s guts and into his throat. He gasped for clean air, and the cloth from the hood was sucked into his mouth.
A hand grabbed his shoulder and pulled him to a halt. The ramp had flattened out. He heard a clinking of metal—keys?—and the scrape of something against the stone floor. The hood was ripped from over his head. Mullaney was pushed forward. His left shoulder brushed against a corner. A door? He stumbled through the opening.
Into a web of terror. It felt as if silken strands of horrific pa
nic had molded themselves to Mullaney’s face, his neck, his hands. Everywhere they touched, frightening alarms raced through every cell of his being. Startled by the assault, fear engulfed Mullaney. He didn’t know how to fight, where to fight, what …
There, in front of him, boring through the dark and into his consciousness, two pulsing yellow eyes pierced the gloom.
The eyes tugged at his mind, drew on his heart, like life magnets pulling him out of himself. The eyes drew closer. They lured, enticed the life from his body.
While Mullaney rallied his spirit to withstand the attack, he also had no doubt about who he was facing. He was in the presence of pure evil—damnation personified. He stiffened his will against the force that was trying to consume him and reached out for hope.
“God, help me,” he whispered.
Cloaked in darkness, standing under an overhanging arch at the mouth of a tunnel in the cavern’s wall, the young commander strained his eyesight, trying to keep Mullaney in view. The scar across his face twitched with each beat of his heart.
The man who killed his father was once again within his reach. His master, the Turk, had ordered that Mullaney not be attacked until he had transferred this precious box into the Turk’s hands. But after?
The commander toyed with the five-inch-long stiletto in his right hand, narrow yet strong, both sides honed sharp enough to slice a whisper. After … his blood belongs on my blade.
43
Alitas Street, Ankara
July 23, 6:15 p.m.
Something stirred in him, a warrior’s strength. A warrior’s spirit. The Lord bless you, and keep you burst into his thoughts. The Lord make His face shine on you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance on you, and give you peace. Bayard’s voice?
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