“You think they still work? After sitting on the ocean floor for—how many years?”
“Plane went down in ’72. And yes. The cores are still intact and with a simple new arming device, they’d have all they need.”
Apo made a face. “If we knew where the plane was all this time, why didn’t we clean this up years ago?”
“Because we never had a plane carrying nuclear bombs in that part of world, so how could we lose one? This is top secret. We can’t do a search and recovery operation for something that never existed. It was only discovered by accident when all this reef building started. We’ve had a lot of submarines patrolling in the last two years. Our newest sub, the John Warner, has equipment like we’ve never had before. It detected the radiation, and that was cross-checked with old records of the plane’s projected location when it went down. They’re our nukes. No doubt about it.”
“How deep?”
“Not deep at all. The ocean floor around the Spratlys and Fiery Cross Reef is like a mountain range. The mountaintops make hundreds of tiny atolls and islands. The plane is sitting in maybe six hundred feet of water. Had it landed another forty yards south, it would have fallen another thousand feet. At six hundred feet, we can get to it. In fact, the SEALs from your last mission are being trained for deep-water recovery.”
Apo smiled. “So you’ve already started working on this. They were a good bunch.”
“Agreed. Some of the best. I’ll make spooks out of them yet.”
“So when do I start?”
“If you take the assignment, you start tomorrow. I have a new teammate for you to meet. He speaks Malay and Chinese.”
“Okay. What’s his name?”
Holstrum smiled. “We call him Batman.”
“Batman.”
“His name is Wang Wei. He uses the American name Bruce, which replaces his given name, Wei. So it’s now Bruce Wang.”
“Bruce Wang. Bruce Wayne. Batman,” mumbled Apo.
Holstrum shrugged. “Easier to remember, right?”
“He skip the mask and cape?”
“No. And you’ll have to dress up like Robin.”
“I don’t remember you usually being so funny. This is a suicide mission, isn’t it . . .”
“Most likely.”
Chapter 3
Special Operations Command Pacific—SOCPAC
Camp H. M. Smith, USMC
Aiea, Oahu, Hawaii
After almost two months of downtime, the team had been reassembled and flown to SOCPAC in Hawaii without much information. Director Holstrum had told the team’s commander, Master Chief Al “Moose” Carlogio, that they’d be getting advanced underwater training in Hawaii. That suited Moose just fine—all of his remaining special operations team were SEALs, except for one Marine sharpshooter. The original team had included CIA officers and US Army Rangers as well, but there had been casualties and retirements along the way.
When they arrived at Camp Smith on Oahu, the SEALs were ecstatic to get back underwater. The sniper, an Oklahoma boy named Eric Hodges who could hit an ant at a thousand meters, was just happy to be on a base that had “USMC” painted on the sign.
They were situated and given quarters by a chief warrant officer who ran “special projects”—a polite name for top secret operations. The same chief warrant officer, Layne Gautreau, escorted them to a meeting room for their first briefing. A Louisiana boy, Layne’s accent was somewhere between southern and Cajun, and the SEALs had to listen closely when he spoke. To Hodges, an Oklahoma boy, he sounded closer to “home” than anyone else on his team.
The team took seats in a classroom setting with a large screen at the front of the room. They expected someone else to come in and speak to them, but CWO Gautreau was not only their greeting committee but also their briefing officer and future instructor. When the men had taken their seats, CWO Gautreau walked to the front of the room and typed into a laptop on the front table. On the screen, an image of what resembled a space suit filled the screen. It was orange with a round helmet, the front of which was a thick clear acrylic. Although the joints were flexible, the suit itself was rigid enough to remain standing while empty. Standing there on the screen, it looked a lot like an orange Michelin Man.
Layne smiled and spoke in his slow Cajun style. “Welcome to SOCPAC, gentlemen. I’ve spoken with a couple of you, but for the rest of you, I’m Chief Warrant Officer Layne Gautreau. I’m one of six special operations deep-water salvage instructors here at SOCPAC, and I’ve been charged with preparing you for your next mission. My instructions did not come to me via the normal chain of command. I’ve been in the navy for eighteen years, and I’ve only spoken to the Director of Central Intelligence one time—which was two weeks ago when he personally explained to me what I was preparing you for. This will be interesting, to say the least.”
Gautreau turned his attention to the screen. “What you see here is the latest and greatest in deep-water diving.”
Eric Hodges smiled and said, “Thank God. I thought you were sending us to Mars in that thing.”
“Negative. Gunny Sergeant Hodges, have you done any diving at all? You’re my only land animal.”
“Negative, Chief. I just shoot bad guys.” He smiled and added dramatically, “From a place you will not see, comes a sound you will not hear . . .”
“Very well. You will be mostly observing your teammates’ training for diving, and use some of your downtime to hone your skills from a rolling deck. The rest of you SEALs will enjoy your time here. That Newtsuit is an ADS 2000. This Atmospheric Diving System can bring you to two thousand feet while keeping you comfortably at one atmosphere inside the suit.”
That got everyone’s attention.
Master Chief Vinny “Ripper” Colgan, the second in command after Moose, let out a low whistle. “Sweet ride.”
“Yes, sir. The ADS can keep you down working for almost eighty hours, and bring you straight up with zero decompression time.” CWO Gautreau looked at the lone Marine. “Normally, Gunny, divers can’t go to two thousand feet outside of a submarine. And even at a couple hundred feet, they’d need to decompress to avoid the bends—nitrogen bubbling out of their blood. You follow?”
“Yes, sir. I don’t dive like these fish, but I’ve been around these guys long enough to have the basics.”
“Good.” He changed the slide, and a US Navy single-seat turbojet appeared on the screen. “This, gentlemen, is a Douglas A4-E Skyhawk—a Vietnam-era attack aircraft capable of delivering as much conventional ordnance as a B-17 bomber. It was designed to be able to deliver two nuclear bombs to the Soviet Union or anyplace else on the globe the president decided to turn into a lunar surface.”
He changed slides again, this time showing a very grainy, somewhat blurry, black-and-white image of what looked like a wrecked Skyhawk, lying upside down. “This, gentlemen, is the remains of a Skyhawk that was lost while flying over the South China Sea in 1972. She disappeared three hours into a planned nine-hour flight. The picture was taken by our newest Virginia-class submarine, which has advanced imaging capabilities. That sub, the John Warner, detected the radiation and investigated, taking these images.”
He changed the slide to a map of the area, showing Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. There were many small islands notated in the open ocean between Brunei and Vietnam.
“This is the southern edge of the South China Sea, currently a very busy place. Brunei has decided to build an island here,” he said, pointing with a laser pen. “There’s two twenty-megaton bombs sitting in that plane right next to where they plan to do it.”
“How big is a twenty-megaton bomb?” asked Jon Cohen, one of the original SEALs from the team.
“One megaton can power your house for about a hundred thousand years. Nagasaki and Hiroshima were about three megatons combined,” said CWO Gautreau.
Moose interjected. “It’s a metric fuck-ton of explosives.”
“Thank you, Master Chief, for putting it into layman’s terms. Yes—an unintentional forty-megaton yield is a bit of a problem. Or worse yet, intentional, by a terrorist organization. Which brings us to why you gentlemen are here. I am going to train you to use the ADS 2000, and you are going to get those bombs.”
Moose made a face. “Don’t you have specially trained deep-water salvage guys that do this stuff?”
“Yes, we do. And that was my conversation with Director Holstrum. The problem is, our divers are just divers. Apparently, you all have other special skills, and you won’t be conducting this operation in the traditional manner. After I get done training you on the ADS, I have to give you a crash course in offshore oil rigs. That is, as soon as I get finished Googling that shit myself.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” said Moose.
“Yeah, well, this is going to be complicated. Welcome to SOCPAC . . .”
Chapter 4
Istana Nurul Iman
The sultan was in one of his studies. With 1,788 rooms, including 257 bathrooms, Sultan Alam had lots of options. The Istana Nural Iman, or “Light of Faith Palace,” was the largest single-family residence ever built. On this particular day, the sultan had an unusual meeting.
The massive double doors of his study opened slowly, as the hydraulic hinges silently swung open the twenty-foot-high bronze and ivory doors. One of his senior staff bowed and then announced their honored guests.
“Your Excellency, Sir Hassanal Alam, Sultan of Brunei, I present to you Mohammed bin Awad and his associate, Hamdi Fazil.” The sultan’s aid bowed again and backed out of the room in a bow, closing the massive doors behind him.
The two guests walked into the study and approached the giant desk, behind which sat the Sultan of Brunei. The ornately carved gold-and-black desk was almost twenty feet long.
“Your Excellency. As-salaam alaykum,” said Mohammed with a bow. Hamdi bowed as well.
“Wa’alaykumu s-salam. Come in.” The men spoke in a combination of English and common Arabic greetings. The Arabs didn’t speak Malay, and the sultan spoke only limited Arabic, but they all spoke English in varying amounts.
The two men sat down in chairs fit for royalty, which they were not. In fact, the two of them had grown up poor, and hadn’t done any traveling at all until after they had decided that international terrorism would be their careers.
Mohammed bin Awad was Syrian. He had spent his teen years back and forth between Syria and Iraq selling guns and ammunition with a few cousins. The Americans eventually caught up to his cousins and killed them all by drone strike on a trip he had missed due to illness. The food poisoning from some bad lamb had saved his life. Now, at thirty-eight years old, he was a rising star in ISIS. Mohammed looked much older than his thirty-eight years. Poor nutrition had led to dental issues, and years of living under the hot sun had weather-beaten his face. With his beard already pushing out some gray hairs, the man could pass for his late fifties.
While his “career” had started out more for financial reasons than ideological fervor, the death of his cousins created a strong hatred of the Americans who were responsible. When he realized he could combine his hatred with an opportunity to obtain power and even wealth, he joined with ISIS and quickly became a mid-level commander because of his connections for weapons and ammunition, something the jihad was always in need of obtaining. He impressed the top-tier commanders, who decided he was a rising star who could help them spread influence all over the world.
Hamdi Fazil was a Sunni Pakistani who had spent a little time in Afghanistan trying to kill infidels before ending up in Syria by way of Iraq. He had also managed to kill a few impure Muslims in Iraq along the way. For Hamdi, violence was not only a part of his Sharia view of the world, but it also satisfied his sociopathic brain, which had been perverted in the Pakistani madrasas since he was a very young boy.
The repeated rapes and beatings he suffered at the hands of the “Islamic scholars” had changed a normal young boy into quite a violent killer—a requirement for his current employer. His traumatic formative years led him to abusing anyone smaller than himself, and as he aged and grew into a large brute of a man, it meant that almost anyone became fair game. He left a trail of raped boys and girls and beaten or dead bodies wherever he went. At six foot four, 260 pounds, with a pockmarked face and black, unkempt beard, Hamdi was the stuff nightmares were made of.
The two of them glanced around the room nervously. They had never been inside a palace before, and the grandeur was overwhelming. They tried to be calm, but the room did what it was supposed to do to visitors—it awed and intimidated them.
Mohammed took a deep breath and spoke. “Your Excellency, thank you for inviting us to your beautiful country. I hope this visit will be the beginning of a new and powerful relationship. With the assistance of Brunei, our faithful servants can spread our influence to this part of the world and help bring Brunei and the region on to the path of the righteous. We are greatly expanding across the Middle East, and it is time to grow our legions here, as well.”
The sultan smiled. He had instituted Sharia law the previous year, and had never felt more powerful and at ease in his position as ruler of his small nation. By granting ISIS training facilities hidden in the jungles of his country, they could continue their attacks in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia while guaranteeing him peace inside his own borders. A deal with the devil wasn’t a bad thing if the devil’s agenda matched your own.
“Brunei has been set on the right course already, my brothers. What I want from you is assurances that Brunei’s sovereignty will never be challenged, and our small country will remain untouched by violence. While I cannot publicly condone training facilities or bases, there are areas in our remote regions where you’ll be safe.”
“Understood, Your Excellency,” said Mohammed. “I’ve been given authority to guarantee you that Brunei will be under the protection of the Islamic State. With our mutual cooperation, we can spread our influence, and gather needed resources and areas where we can train and grow our legions. Leadership understands that discretion will be needed, and Brunei will never attract the attention of foreign powers.”
The sultan nodded. “We have a multitude of problems. The Chinese continue to expand into our territorial waters. And while the Americans announce to the world that they oppose Chinese aggression, they do nothing. Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines now encroach into our territorial waters as well. Perhaps if China were to change its leadership, they would be less likely to build islands in our waters. Has the Islamic State had any success in China yet?”
“Small steps, so far. In the Xinxiang Uighur region, we are pushing for brothers to join the fight. We’re attempting operations in Hotan and Kashgar, but it’s taking some time.”
“Hotan and Kashgar—the ancient Silk Road? How appropriate. Increasing operations in the Chinese mainland will be vital to refocusing Chinese aggression internally, and away from the South China Sea.”
“There are over twenty million Muslims in China, Your Excellency. Given some time, we can build our presence there. The northwest region is fairly remote and easier to work in than other parts of China. We are confident that in another year, we will have enough followers to begin operations throughout the mainland.”
The sultan smiled. Brunei could never stand toe-to-toe with China. Even the Americans and Russians worried about the Chinese. But with a few million brothers in arms creating chaos in the mainland, the great Dragon would be weakened from within.
“You will deal with my minister of the interior. Abdul Ali is waiting for you in his office. This is the only time we will meet face-to-face. In the future, your dealings will be with Minister Ali only. This meeting never occurred, of course, and if there are ever attacks traced to Brunei, I wil
l publicly condemn them. In the meantime, you’ll have whatever you need.”
“Thank you, Your Excellency. Blessings upon you . . .”
The sultan called one of his secretaries in, who led the two men away to find the minister, who was the only one who knew the sultan’s plan. Fiercely loyal to the sultan, Abdul Ali was more than happy to assist foreign fighters who would weaken their enemies at no cost to Brunei.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend . . .”
Chapter 5
Office of the Secretary of State
“Madam Secretary, I have Mr. Sawaad on line two,” said Robert Clemmons, the secretary of state’s executive secretary. He stared at her and waited.
“Thanks, Bob.” She dismissed him with a flick of her hand and picked up the phone. Clemmons walked out without comment, straightening his tie in absent-minded aggravation. He hated when she called him Bob. He was Robert or Rob, and had told her that several times when she first hired him. She could give a crap.
He sat back at his desk and half listened to her whispers inside her adjoining office.
“What have you got for me?” she asked.
Pause.
“How much?”
Pause.
“Ali, you’re getting greedy.”
Pause.
“Yes, yes, I know. It’s dangerous for me, too, you idiot. Fine. Fine. Send it. Yes. The money will be transferred now.”
“Bob!”
He took a deep breath and walked back in. “Yes, Madam Secretary?”
“I need you to send another wire transfer to my contact in Beirut. Ali Sawaad. Two hundred thousand.”
Dangerous Ground: The Team Book Five Page 2