by James Phelan
“Everywhere.”
“I mean, who with?”
“Twenty-fourth Tac.”
Bob was still, and quiet; the quietest Walker had seen him. Respect.
Bob said, “Your guys did some good work.”
“They still do.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. That’s cool man, real cool.”
Walker stared ahead in silence.
“This one time, I had one of your boys back me in a bar fight in Kuwait. All started when some jarhead broke his fist on the back of my head, you believe that?”
Walker looked at him and said, “Yep. It’s a hell of a head.”
They laughed.
Walker went back to glassing the area. His reconnaissance the past couple of days had told him that there were two locals in the roadhouse, but they were the indoors type. A little wisp of smoke rose from the chimney as they made their tea.
“Your guy stepped in and stopped me from getting sucker punched,” Bob said. “Kicked the hornets’ nest, we did; it became a case of six SOCOM vets versus a platoon of Marines. The six of us owned that bar for the rest of our stay.”
Walker smiled. “Ah, you’re all right, Bob, you know that?”
Bob looked a little sucker punched. “Thanks.”
Their encrypted DoD satellite phone bleeped.
“It’s Qatar,” Walker said to Bob, reading the number on the display screen. He activated the speaker phone and answered with their call sign. “Whisky Mike Bravo.”
“Copy that. Heads up, Whisky Mike,” the voice said. “HVT rolling in from the east, make it twenty clicks out.”
“HVT inbound from east, two-zero clicks, copy.”
“Roger that. Make it as a three-vehicle convoy. Tango is in an SUV, make is a new Range Rover, possibly armored, a couple of pick-ups with heavy machine guns riding fore and aft. Looks like they’re heading for a meet with your target.”
“ID on the tango?”
“Negative over the net, Whisky Mike. But this is a category-five, NSA intercept confirm, and that’s the extent of our intel at this stage.”
Which means nothing they are going to share with us, at least not over the phone. Walker looked to Bob, who tossed his empty Coke can into the back seat and readied his H&K carbine.
“Repeat last, Qatar,” Walker said. He scanned east and could make out the faintest plume of dust.
“Cat-five HVT, five minutes out, east of you, make it three mechs rolling in fast,” the voice repeated. Walker knew that the voice belonged to an Air Force captain with CENTCOM’s intelligence section, JICCENT, calling in from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. The NSA intercept ID was likely a cell number or voice match on the High Value Target, relayed to and from the National Security Agency in Fort Meade, Maryland. Their information would be accurate—following the fiasco of going to war for mythical Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, US intelligence agencies insisted on being methodical, absolute, and operating at all times with a paranoid sense of certainty at all costs.
“Copy that: cat-five inbound to our target,” Walker said. Category-five High Value Targets were the likes of terror-cell leaders and Al Qaeda lieutenants. There were none reported to be in this area of Yemen, a hundred clicks from the nearest town, the Gulf of Aden a crust of blue on the southern horizon. This changed everything. “Comms between Tango and our courier?”
“Negative.”
No signals intercepts between these two meeting parties, which fitted the modus operandi of Al Qaeda’s top brass: keep dark.
“How did this cat-five get made then?” Bob whispered. “He called for a pizza?”
“Shh,” Walker mouthed to him, then spoke into the phone. “Qatar, you’re sure they’re stopping in on our friends for a little face time?”
“Whisky Mike, from what I see, there’s nothing else out there but rocks and sand,” the captain replied.
We’re out here, Walker thought, then said, “What are our new engagement protocols?”
“Stay on mission. Observe and report.”
Walker paused, then said, “And the HVT?”
“He has to slide. Sorry, Whisky Mike, but this comes from the Admiral. Eyes in the sky will track him when he leaves. Rest assured the tango will be handled with extreme prejudice when the time is right.”
Bob shook his head. Walker admired his spirit. He wanted in, to take on the incoming convoy with small arms, despite the directive to do nothing coming directly from CENTCOM’s Deputy Commander.
“We’ve got a Predator tracking, overhead your position in two minutes,” the captain said, as if this would appease them. “Stay on station, Whisky Mike, and stay on mission, copy.”
“Copy that, Whisky Mike out,” Walker said, ending the call. His eyes scanned the road where it disappeared in the heat haze on the horizon.
•
Half a world away, in an office on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC, a stone’s throw from the White House, a man received a phone call about the category-five HVT sighting in Yemen.
The news was pleasing, because things were moving exactly as he’d planned.
He was in the business of intelligence, and his job was to be better at it than anyone else. Part of that meant making sure that he had all the cards. To him, this was a business. And business was big.
He knew that within seconds a certain order at the CIA would be made: that the meeting between the HVT and the courier could not take place. Right now, in Langley, a Deputy Director would be giving an instruction, and in turn several orders would follow, culminating in a kill order given to the UAV pilots at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada, who had control of a drone flying in Yemeni airspace.
Dan Bellamy ended the call and smiled. His business was making a killing.
•
“This is bullshit,” Bob said, grinding his teeth. “Cat-five protocols are as clear as—we can’t let this guy through the net, we’ve got to cook him!”
Walker knew the protocols, but Bob and a Predator drone were no match for all the hardware rolling toward the target complex.
“The Predator will be armed,” Walker said. “This cat-five will be stacked up as another Targeted Killing in the middle of the desert later today, another scumbag scattered to the winds. However they do it, Bob, we’ve got our own job to do.”
“Yeah, but this is crap—you know those Nevada jockeys miss more than they hit.”
Walker knew that this was an exaggeration—he had seen Hellfire missiles fired from Predators meet most of their targets nose-on. And advances in Hellfire technology meant that the kill boxes were ever expanding. But that didn’t guarantee that the target they fired on would die. Only a guy on the ground could guarantee that. Hence the decision to send in a SEAL team rather than a swarm of drones to kill bin Laden. For some missions a bullet to the head was the best outcome.
“I’m tellin’ you, we should at least roll down to the road,” Bob said. “Pass through, at the intersection, eyeball this new son of a bitch and—”
“And what? His guys will light us up with a fifty-cal as soon as they sight us. The best case? We get down there and spook them away and we miss everyone—including our courier.”
Walker and Bob went silent, both lost in their thoughts. Walker watched the horizon. He knew that although the Predator might get some imagery, the fact was that whoever was going to meet with his target would do their business and leave, and there was nothing he and Bob could do about it.
“Goddamned unknowns,” Bob said, rapping his fingers against the stock of his H&K 416, the danger-end pointed out the window. “This is horseshit. Cat-five horseshit. We’re here to put eyeballs on your courier’s meeting. Now this. We’ve been here two days, shittin’ in the sand and waiting; now this gift falls in our lap and we can’t do nothin’ with it?”
“I’ve been tracking this courier’s movements for the best part of a year,” Walker said. “Cool your jets, yeah?”
Bob met Walker’s gaze, and nodded. At least he respects the c
hain of command on the ground.
“I’ll watch for the UAV,” Bob said, scanning the blue sky out his open window with an identical set of Steiner anti-glare binoculars.
“UCAV,” Walker corrected as he watched a growing dust plume from the west, inserting the C for Combat, since he was sure it would be armed with four Hellfire missiles. Then again, this was a target-rich environment—the Predator might have discharged its missiles in the night, for this was never meant to be a kill mission, and might remain so.
Bob grunted.
Walker waited silently, watching. The dust cloud closing in from the west: their courier. The tiny cloud growing to the east: the HVT.
Two worlds colliding.
In less than three minutes their world would change.
•
The UCAV was not a Predator drone as the Air Force captain at JSOC had advised, but he was not to know that: his console had it tracked as such. That particular aircraft had been tasked off mission when another had arrived on station to take its place.
The aircraft making its way to the Yemeni target was a Northrop Grumman X-47B: a stealth UCAV, the most advanced remote-piloted air weapon the world had ever known.
Launched an hour earlier from the USS Harry S. Truman in the Gulf of Aden, the UCAV streaked through the sky at phenomenal speed.
There was no doubt about it: the X-47B was a mean killing machine.
•
Walker looked into the large side mirror on their jeep and used his water bottle to wash grit from his face. His clear blue eyes were sunken, skin dark from the sun, cheeks sallow for the too-little food he ate in country compared with the calories that his fear and anxiety demanded. His straggly two-month beard and unwashed hair made him look more like a castaway than an attempt at blending in as a local. Two months combing the sands of one of the world’s richest terrorist hunting grounds would do that to the best of men. It was addictive work, once you lost yourself to it. It required focus; no time for dwelling on life back home, on what this job cost.
“Movement,” Walker said. “Our courier’s arriving.”
“Right on time.”
Walker took out the Canon EOS with telephoto lens and photographed his target getting out the back seat of a clapped-out Peugeot and moving quickly toward the building. A slight man, the courier: five foot nine, no more than 170 pounds, Saudi descent, raised in Algeria, schooled in Paris. He scanned his surroundings, not picking out Walker’s jeep parked 300 meters out on an elevated position among a large graveyard of burned-out and battered vehicles. The target waved his driver to park around the back. The camera’s shutter whirred away.
“Dust to the east is growing,” Bob said. “A minute out.”
Walker looked at the eastern horizon, the single gravel road leading in from that direction: the plume was now huge. Several vehicles, heading in hot. Through the viewfinder’s magnification he made them.
“That’s our HVT,” Walker said. “Range Rover’s riding real low—it’s armored for sure.”
“Damn,” Bob said, watching. “What I wouldn’t give for a few AT4s.”
He pronounced it “eighty-fours,” the US military’s man-portable rocket launcher of choice. Walker had seen them peel apart Iraqi Republican Guard armored vehicles and punch holes through solid concrete walls of insurgent hide-outs. Nice toys.
The convoy pulled up to the squat mud hut next to the gas station, the only real permanent structures out here. Walker’s camera snapped away as the courier greeted the category-five HVT. They looked a little wary of each other, unfamiliar, keeping a distance.
“This is BS, man, BS!” Bob said.
Walker remained silent, taking photos of the seven armed insurgents standing sentry by their vehicles.
Three things happened at once: Walker heard shrieking whooshes overhead; he saw the flashes as the missiles hit; and he felt the concussive force of the impacts.
Then, half a second later, the sound wave hit them.
KLAPBOOM!
KLAPBOOM!
The convoy was transformed into a bright, burning forest of wreckage. Only the carcass of the armored Range Rover resembled a vehicle. No one in a twenty-meter radius was moving.
“What the—” Bob’s sentence was cut short as another missile streaked in, this one hitting the front door of their target building.
•
“Target down, sir.”
“Did we get them all?” CIA Deputy Director Jack Heller asked as he stood in the Langley op center watching live satellite imagery and overhead drone images of the site in Yemen. Vivid color and violent heat plumes in high-res. Beautiful chaos.
This was Heller’s show. As Director of the Special Activities Division, he knew exactly who the category-five HVT was at the strike zone in Yemen. No one else in the room did. Probably never would.
“Two five-hundred-pound JDAMs right on target, sir, and a Hellfire right through the front door. Our kill box is a good fifty-meter radius—there’s nothing left alive down there.”
“The structure’s still standing.”
“Incendiary Hellfire’s still doing its thing; no one’s getting out of that.”
Heller said, “Keep an eye on scene. Make sure.”
“We’ll stay over target as long as we can, sir. The drone is loaded with another three Thermobaric Hellfire missiles—nothing’s going to get out of there.”
“How long?”
“Sixteen hours’ flight time remaining.”
“If you see movement,” Heller said, “rain hell on them.”
“Roger that.”
“Good.” Heller turned to the room. “Good job, people. Couple less dirtbags in the world—”
“Sir!”
Heller turned.
“Two figures in a vehicle just entered the kill box.”
“ID?”
The image from the drone above zoomed in but revealed little through the dust-covered windshield.
“Negative. What do we do, sir?”
Heller smiled when he said, “Toast ’em.”
•
Walker slammed on the brakes and their old Land Cruiser came to a halt ten meters out from the inferno ahead.
He knew that the craters in the road were not the work of Hellfire missiles. There was a large and very real combat aircraft somewhere overhead.
“I’ve got intel and the courier, you handle personnel,” Walker said as they exited the vehicle and moved quickly.
“Yes, sir.”
They each had wet scarves tied around their faces to protect them from the worst of the thick smoke. Walker was armed with his Beretta 9-millimeter in one hand and a dry-chemical extinguisher in the other, an empty backpack over his shoulder.
Bob was first through the gaping hole of what was left of the front wall, a double-tap ringing out from his H&K as he dispatched a wounded Al Qaeda insurgent.
Walker scanned the interior—the ceiling and roof blown out, the sky above sucking out the acrid fumes. Single room, door out back. No movement. He did an intel sweep, unzipping his backpack and bagging anything that looked worthy. A laptop computer was toasting but he blasted it with the white powder and took it. Singed papers. He couldn’t identify anything else of value.
He moved on to the bodies, armed with his camera.
The category-five HVT, identifiable only by what was left of a scrap of his clothing, was beyond dead. The arms and legs were attached to what was left of his body, but his head and most of his torso were gone.
“Clear!” Bob called after checking out the back door.
The courier was immobile, face down, his back on fire.
Walker doused him with the dry chemical, then kicked him over.
The courier’s face was locked in a grimace, a bubbling mess of charred flesh with a red gash for a mouth and bright white teeth where a side of his cheek had melted away. He was alive.
In his hand was a cell phone, its screen lit up.
Walker blasted him again with the ex
tinguisher, putting out the little spot fires, then bent down to him, pistol pointed into his chest.
The man’s eyes settled on Walker’s and they softened, pleading.
“Walker.”
Walker looked up. Bob stood there, H&K aimed at him.
“Sorry, pal. Nothing personal. Heller’s orders.”
“Bob . . .”
Walker looked at his colleague, the guy he’d underestimated. He’s doing this for Heller? Behind Bob, outside the gaping hole, was the bright blue sky.
And the flash of a missile plume.
Too late.
The Hellfire struck the middle of the gravel road out the front and detonated on impact.
Their Land Cruiser bore most of the blast. What was left was engulfed in angry flames.
When the dust cleared, Walker worked his way free of rubble that was formerly part of the building and road. A fire raged outside. The Land Cruiser was a skeleton of its former self.
“Ah, shit,” Bob said as he tried to stand. He held a hand to his leg, watching blood seeping. “I’m hit.” He collapsed to the floor, his back against the wall, his weapon still gripped firmly in his hands.
“We can head out the back for another vehicle—”
“No,” Bob interrupted. “The drone . . . it’ll hit us. Ah, shit . . . Heller. This was Heller, wasn’t it? He sent me to kill you, and the drone’s the back-up plan. Or I’m the back-up. Damn it . . .”
“They sent you because a bullet to the head’s better than a Hellfire.”
Bob grimaced. “You know those Nevada desk jockeys.”
Walker looked up at the sky. His stomach tensed as he saw a reflected glint of sunlight against glass as the aircraft banked around for another pass. He knew that even the latest-generation Predator could stay up there for a long time, and that the Hellfire missile had a range of 8000 meters. Waiting around wasn’t an option.
“Have you got a strobe?” he asked Bob as he moved toward him, still scanning the sky.
Bob pulled an infrared strobe from his tactical vest. Walker activated it and tossed it onto the road outside. Back at Creech Air Force Base, the pilots should recognize that friendlies were on scene.
Should.
Walker tied off a tourniquet on Bob’s leg.