Dolphin Drone

by James Ottar Grundvig

  One guard scouted the darkness beyond the stern. He saw the silhouette of the rubber boat. He pointed into the night, trying to get a fix on the target, panning the water with a flashlight. Several guards moved to the stern and took aim with rifles.

  At the bow, a guard pounded on the cabin, alerting the captain about the intruder.

  From the RHIB, Merk and Azar watched the commotion of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards on the ship. A trio pulled a canvas off an inflatable boat with an outboard motor, dragged the craft to the gate, and pushed it into the sea.

  “They marked us,” Merk said, as Azar cranked on the engine. Merk looked at the open water behind them and knew that if they fled toward Oman the Iranian pursuit boat would catch them. He opened a box and handed a flare gun to Azar, and then took over the outboard motor and gunned it. Merk steered the RHIB not away, but toward the trawler. Azar didn’t like the risky move. The RHIB boomed across the sea at a speed that earned the SEAL nickname “boghammer.”

  The Iranian pursuit boat sped toward them. One guard opened fire; another unloaded a staccato burst.

  Azar ducked, while Merk stayed low with bullets zipping overhead. Azar released the safety latch on the flare gun, aimed with the RHIB zeroing in … Merk swept the boat in a wide arc … swerved out in an S-curve … and then cut back hard to intercept the path of the pursuit boat. He gunned the engine. Azar fired the flare—

  The hot green pellet shot in a comet trail and burst when it struck the gunwale, tumbling in a flash across the pursuit boat, ricocheting off the motorman into the sea. Blinded by the flare, the Iranians couldn’t relocate the RHIB … Merk bore down on them … and rammed the bow of the pursuit boat at an angle. The impact tossed a guard about as he fired wildly. A bullet struck Morgan Azar above the chest, knocking him off balance. He lurched to the side, tipping over …

  The collision dumped two Iranian guards into the sea. Clipped, the pursuit boat twisted, rising out of the water. Airborne, it careened, landing on top of the third guard, blasting him under the surface. The collision knocked the RHIB nose-up, lifting it on the side. With the hull rising, Merk gripped the outboard motor; Azar fell into the sea. The RHIB slammed the surface, bounding before correcting itself with Merk tilting the motor out of the water to slow down.

  He cut the engine and looked on board for the laptop, but couldn’t find it. It must have tumbled into the sea, Merk thought. He scanned the area where the laptop fell overboard, but didn’t see anything, then looked back at the wounded Azar, floating on the surface. Azar managed to turn on a rescue beacon on his vest and waved Merk to search for the dolphins.

  The trawler turned around and headed toward the RHIB. Without the laptop, Merk had no way to com with Tasi or Inapo. Seeing the trawler bear down on him, he started the motor, fishtailed the RHIB around, and raced away.

  * * *

  UNDERWATER, TASI SWAM below a sea-mine and grazed it without touching a protruding contact spike, releasing it from the anchor. The metal sphere rose like an overinflated balloon to the surface. The dolphin darted off, whistling for Inapo to clear the space.

  * * *

  ON THE SURFACE, the trawler opened up speed. Guards fired into the darkness in the area where Merk was fleeing after ramming the pursuit boat. As the captain pushed the engine, knowing the trawler’s heavy cargo had been offloaded, he gazed down at the fishfinder screen and saw a blurred image of a mine rise to the surface, right in front of the bow.

  The fishfinder flashed the ascending object at five meters … four meters … rising …

  About to hit the mine, the captain slammed the engine off. The trawler lunged in a jolt. The ship rocked hard, bouncing up and down. Holding on, the captain and first pilot peered out the cabin window trying to locate the mine—when it struck the bow and exploded.

  The blast blew apart the ship, tearing open the engine room and fuel tanks in an arcing fireball that toppled the boom cranes into the water. Secondary explosions hurled the guards overboard in jets of fire, their bodies flailing as they splashed into the sea.

  In the RHIB, Merk looked back with despair at the fiery wreck of the trawler. Having raced past Azar, he searched the sea, but couldn’t locate his wounded teammate’s green beacon. Merk turned the boat around and felt for the night-vision goggles or flare gun, but couldn’t find either device. So he took a chemlight from his vest, twisted it on, and tossed it into the sea.

  He guided the RHIB toward the chemlight, calling out Azar’s name. “Morgan … Morgan … Hey, Azar … Come back.” No response. A long moment passed.

  And then: Merk spotted Morgan Azar floating facedown in the water. He zoomed over to him, cut the engine, and hauled his teammate on board, flipping him over. Azar wasn’t breathing or coughing, not a wisp of life.

  Merk stretched out Azar’s limbs, unzipped his wetsuit and, with two hands, pushed down on the chest, compressing it, rapidly pumping thirty times. He then tilted the veterinarian’s head back, opened his mouth, stuck a finger inside to clear the air passage, and breathed two hard breaths into his lungs. Pump and blow. He resumed pumping Azar’s chest again and again, thirty times. Still nothing. So Merk pressed his lips to Azar’s mouth and blew two more deep shots of air into his lungs. A trace of air leaked out of the mouth, along with a faint echo of a heartbeat. Merk cocked his arm and punched Azar in the sternum. The jolt shocked the motionless body into a spasm, but then it stopped. He listened for a heartbeat, but the faint echo was gone.

  Merk searched the rubber boat, but didn’t find the first-aid kit where the shots of adrenaline were stored. Like the laptop and flare gun, the first aid kit must have fallen over. “Jesus, Azar, don’t die on me,” Merk said, surveying the burning debris field. He searched for signs of the dolphins. “Fuck …” he said, panning the surface. No sign of them.

  The sea was empty except for the wreckage, except for a few floating corpses, except for the smoldering debris. Now Azar was dead, lifeless, like everyone around Merk. He knew it was his fault that the veterinarian died, his fault for pushing the core mission of the dolphins from surveying an underwater pipeline to spying on the Iranians laying sea-mines in the strait. Now Merk had the problem of the two missing biologic systems. Did they escape the blast radius of the mine? Were Tasi and Inapo knocked out? Were they alive, injured, drowning, or dead?

  He started the motor and rode toward the trawler engulfed in flames with the remains of the hull listing, sinking, smoke spewing from the hot water. Merk called out, “Tasi … Inapo … Tasi … Inapo …” guiding the rubber boat back and forth like a farmer plowing a field.

  Merk drove over the body of a dead guard; he steered around the next smoky corpse, when Tasi breached off the port side, screeching a victory squeal. She leapt onto the gunwale, startling Merk. He embraced the dolphin and strapped her on the side of the boat.

  Inapo leapt onto the port gunwale. He, too, squealed a victory whistle. But all was not well.

  Chapter Four

  AT ZERO-DARK-HUNDRED, A Navy SEAL climbed on a boulder alongside a deserted road on the outskirts of Jaar, Yemen. From the perch, the SEAL dialed a pair of night-vision binoculars and panned it over low-slung houses across the city. He swept the infrared lens from west to north until his eyes fixed on a laser-painted marker on the upper wall of a low-rise building.

  Confirming another SEAL had painted the target, he took out a laser-gun, sighted the target, and fired a laser on the terrorist headquarters, painting the wall above the first laser mark. He turned on a Satcom and pressed an encrypted code, waiting a few seconds to signal again. …

  * * *

  UP MARKET SQUARE from the target building, CIA clandestine operator Alan Cuthbert strode in the middle of the dusty street toward a closed teashop. He felt his Satcom vibrate two times under the dark blue Bedouin tob, and knew the target had been painted. That was the first check of three he needed before ordering the drone strike, the last steps in the kill chain.

  Cuthbert picked at grains of sand in his
brown bushy beard. He tapped his knuckle on the shop door, scanning the street behind him in a city that had been fought over by three factions: the Shiite Houthi fighters, who ousted the former Yemeni president in January 2015; al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula; and Saudi-sponsored military guard. In an air of paranoia, Cuthbert watched a young boy head down the silent street away from him, toward the target house.

  He thought about intervening to save the boy from harm, then erased the idea. Anxious to meet the recruited CIA asset named Bahdoon for the first time, Cuthbert knew better than to tap the door again. He waited, eyeing the street, when he heard a creak of the floorboard inside, followed by footsteps approaching. The door opened. A diminutive Yemeni man, clean-shaven, dressed in an Italian designer suit and tie, startled the CIA operator, who stepped inside. Bahdoon’s appearance belied the troubles his nation suffered in yet another civil war.

  Wearing wire-rimmed glasses, Bahdoon offered Alan Cuthbert a seat at a wood table. The Oxford style, short-cropped hair caught the agent off guard, too; so did the lack of facial hair. On the table sat a tin teapot. What threw Cuthbert off even more—there were no bodyguards in the shop. Stranger still, Bahdoon didn’t pat him for weapons. They sat down. On the chance of the tea being spiked, the agent waited for the host to sip first, before he poured a cup.

  “Yemen tea is good for your endurance,” Bahdoon said, sipping.

  Cuthbert took a sip and watched the top-secret asset’s eyes, then said in code: “The stars are aligned,” referring to the terrorist safehouse being laser-painted. “But we still can’t drink tea on the moon.” Again that was code, asking Bahdoon to give the second of three confirmations before Cuthbert ordered the drone strike and then exited Yemen by boat later that night.

  “Hmmm, you are strapping,” Bahdoon said, sipping. “You know what they say.”

  “About what? Size? Strength?”

  “… Drones.”

  Cuthbert shrugged. Bahdoon sipped the tea and placed the teacup on the side beside the saucer. He flipped the saucer over, removed a note taped to the bottom, and handed it to the agent. Cuthbert unfolded the paper, read three numbers of mobile phone SIM cards with RFID identifiers. He took out a smartphone and scanned the numbers with a secure mobile app. He uploaded the image, swiped it to an encrypted cloud, and pressed “send,” forwarding it to CIA analysts back in Langley’s Drone Counterterrorism Unit, tasked with operating the military drones in countries, such as Yemen, where no US troops are based.

  “Are drone strikes your life’s work?” Bahdoon asked, pouring more tea.

  “Nah, bagging terrorists is my sweet spot,” Cuthbert said.

  “What about the ones you have killed? Their spirit lives on.” Bahdoon took a sip.

  “Huh? Who are you referring to?”

  “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and Anwar al-Awlaki,” he said. “Zarqawi was the builder of training camps. A brute. He was the founder of ISIS when he sprang from a Jordanian jail in 1999. Awlaki, the graceful American preacher, has been more alluring dead since the 2011 drone attack. It helped launch ISIS’s radical jihad. Awlaki’s impassioned speeches live on YouTube and on the dark web. They are some of the most persuasive recruiting tools for jihadists. The one on the Afterlife spoke to Muslims the world over on how to prepare for death.”

  Alan Cuthbert held up the piece of paper, saying, “Yeah, I read the transcript. He used the analogy of two planes striking each other over India. Death came fast to those passengers.”

  “Instantaneous, like a drone hit,” Bahdoon said, lowering his voice. “I heard Houthi rebels are in Zinjibar scouting the port for mercenaries. Be vigilant.”

  Cuthbert nodded, tapped his smartphone, noting, “Even if you shut this off, there’s a second battery in the internal clock that’s still ticking.”

  “The men sleep with their mobile phones shut off at night. But they have scouts and runners, children looking out for their safety,” Bahdoon said. “There, you must be careful. When you leave, move swiftly. Follow no one in uniform. Those men are AQAP.”

  When the Satcom vibrated against his waist, Cuthbert knew the CIA and NSA had confirmed the RFID numbers belonged to the terrorists sleeping down the street in the laser-painted building. With SIGINT confirmed, he stood up and nodded to Bahdoon, placed an envelope packed with euros on the table, and nodded again. Bahdoon spread the money out and lifted a note in the stack. He opened it and read a list of weapons. “First weapons to be delivered in three days,” Cuthbert whispered. He shunted out the door, thinking, This is our first drone strike in Yemen since the civil war erupted. The war forced the CIA to pull its assets out of the country.

  Outside, Cuthbert gazed down the street to the building at the end of the square. He saw no one and headed the other way. Lurking behind a food cart, the young boy flicked a laser-pointer on the agent’s back, marking him. Cuthbert pressed a hot button through the Bedouin tob. It signaled the CIA reachback operator, the expert at the joystick of the Predator C drone at the drone base in Djibouti, who, in concert with a CIA analyst, would fix the target. That gave Cuthbert half an hour to drive out of Jaar to Zinjibar and escape by boat in the port city.

  As Alan Cuthbert ambled around the bend of the street, flanked by a mix of clay bricks and modern glass and steel buildings, he heard a blade scrape against a stucco wall. Without looking back, his heart raced, his blood pressure elevated, goading him to take longer strides. His eyes scanned the arid street in front of him. His steps hurried. The blade sound scraped louder, then vanished, replaced by the patter of footsteps approaching from behind.

  A man’s voice called out, “Sir … wait. Wait, sir … Sir?”

  Cuthbert wheeled around, sizing up a gangly man with an unkempt beard. He gazed over the man’s shoulder down the street to a second, larger uniformed man approaching. “Sure,” the agent groused, and removed the aba from his head. He flipped the silk bolts aside, whipped out a knife from the mantle; the blade flashed as he rammed it through the left hand of the man, who lunged at him. He shrieked in pain. Cuthbert stepped on the man’s foot and drove an elbow into his throat, chopping him to the ground; he writhed as blood ran out of the impaled hand.

  Cuthbert ran when the uniformed man charged, lumbering in pursuit. The agent disrobed, turned on his smartphone, and pressed a coded text alerting the two laser-paint SEALs that he was on the run heading toward them.

  Down the street, the agent saw a pair of armed soldiers scamper toward him. He glanced at the smartphone and, with a digital map of Jaar, slowed down to swipe it larger. Seeing an escape route, he dashed down a side street. More shots were fired, but missed him. He glanced back to one soldier stooping down to take aim and shoot a series of volleys; the other soldier, joined by the uniformed man, pulled out a pistol and fired several rounds.

  As more shots strafed the ground near him, Cuthbert ran along the walls of the buildings, making a clean shot at his large frame difficult. Shells tore up the stucco wall, sandblasting his face and forehead with chunks and debris, with grains hitting him, his left eye in a spat of dust. He covered the eye, took a step, and a foot stuck out tripped him. The agent stumbled to the ground, scraping his face. Cuthbert rolled over and looked up with one eye at a US SEAL, who pointed him to stay down. The SEAL whipped around a long-barrel MK-17 SCAR assault rifle and fired a two-shot burst at the charging soldier, knocking him to the ground. He swerved the barrel around and squeezed a muzzle flash of three shots that tore into the large uniformed man, dropping him to the street.

  Cuthbert looked to the end of the street and saw a third soldier run away.

  “The tango has gone for help. Let’s go. Move it,” the SEAL said, pulling the CIA agent off the ground as he wiped dust out of his eyes.

  They scurried down an alley, zigzagged up another street, and ran into an abandoned building. In the alcove, they saw a drug-addled squatter quivering in the fetal position. Covering his mouth from the stench, the SEAL pulled a tarp off a motorcycle, handed Cuthbert the assault ri
fle, and started the engine. The CIA agent climbed on and off they sped out of the building and out the center of Jaar, heading to the border, to the surveillance nest where the other SEAL had painted the target on the terrorist building. Cuthbert clicked the Satcom three times.

  * * *

  INSIDE THE SIXTH floor of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, Red Cell CIA analysts watched the plasma screen. The infrared night view of Jaar, where few lights glowed, showed silhouettes of green and black buildings, rows of them, passing under the drone as it flew overhead until it spotted and locked onto the laser-painted wall of the building. One analyst pointed at the screen, while another located the target on a laptop and confirmed the GPS coordinates of the target against the laser markings, saying, “Target all green. Light ’em up.”

  * * *

  INSIDE A BUNKER at the Djibouti drone base, the reachback operator fired the drone’s first of two Hellfire missiles from more than 500 klicks away. The comet trail shot off in front of the drone, arcing down toward the target. The analyst saw virtual crosshairs streak to the laser-paint, when the Hellfire missile locked on the building. Just before it struck, the reachback operator fired the second Hellfire in a double tap strike, Navy SEAL style.

  The first Hellfire missile burrowed into the concrete wall of the old building and erupted into a fireball. A huge ascending explosion collapsed the walls and rooftop, crashing them on top of the floors below.

  The second Hellfire missile’s heat-sync zeroed in on the explosion and slammed into the teetering building. The next blast broke the structure apart, pancaking the floor slabs to the ground in a cloudburst of flames and debris.

  “We got ’em,” the CIA analyst said, tapping the reachback operator in a fist-bump. “The tangos are dead.”