Rogue Empire (Blake Carver Series)

by William Tyree

  ★ PRAISE ★

  For the #1 Bestselling Blake Carver Series

  “Immensely entertaining and startlingly plausible.”

  – Ragazine

  "Hard to put down. ”

  — Paul Harris, author of The Candidate

  “Astonishing. ”

  — Jerry Gabriel, prizewinning author of Drowned Boy

  “Believable and sophisticated. ”

  — Publisher’s Weekly

  “An espionage thriller for our times. ”

  —Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Award Review

  “Chilling. Will keep you up at night long after you've turned the final page.”

  — Keir Graff, author of The Price of Liberty

  Published worldwide by Massive Publishing.

  ISBN: 9781535319553

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2013909551

  Copyright © 2016 by William Tyree

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction, as are all books in the Blake Carver Series. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any semblance to actual events, locations, names or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or stored in a database, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without express written permission.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet, mobile network or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  For my parents.

  PART I

  BREAKING: U.S. Drone Destroys

  Chinese Embassy in Libya

  —25 feared dead

  —Pentagon investigating “a tragic accident”

  —Beijing warns of consequences

  TRIPOLI (AP), September 23 — A Pentagon spokesman confirmed that an American missile struck the Chinese embassy in Tripoli earlier today, calling it a tragic accident for which there was still no known cause. China’s official news agency reported that the blast killed at least 25, with 18 wounded. Local volunteers are actively searching through the rubble for a number of embassy employees that remain missing.

  Meanwhile in Beijing, unconfirmed reports tell of police standing aside as angry mobs form outside the American Embassy. The embassy is currently on lockdown.

  Addressing reporters at the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Dexter P. Jackson said that the intended target of the strike was a jihadist group threatening American personnel in the city. The disaster follows several months of heightened tensions between the U.S. and China, and is likely to further complicate planned de-escalation talks at the upcoming Group of Eight (G8) summit, where the world’s most populous country was scheduled to celebrate its inaugural membership in the exclusive club of nations.

  Jackson declined to name the specific group targeted, but added, “The Chinese embassy was not the objective. We are bringing all available resources to bear in order to identify the root cause of this tragedy, and will release more details as they become available.”

  In a recent cyber attack on the U.S. State Department, China was accused of accessing an estimated 43,000 sensitive diplomatic files. Jackson said there was no connection between the two events.

  A senior Department of Defense source speaking under the condition of anonymity said that a hack into the drone’s weapons guidance system could have caused the mistargeted strike.

  Beijing has yet to issue an official response to the incident, but Chinese President Kang indicated that the act would result in unspecified consequences for the United States.

  Travel Warning for U.S. Citizens

  As of press time, the U.S. State Department has advised American citizens to temporarily avoid traveling to China. Citizens currently in China are urged to remain indoors and take reasonable security precautions.

  This story is developing.

  FOUR HOURS EARLIER

  Tripoli, Libya

  Kyra Javan raced the bicycle through the city as if she were fleeing the dawn itself. As the horizon bled orange behind her, the 25-year-old American intelligence operative steadied the handlebars with one hand and held her hijab in place with the other. Beneath the black linen that flapped over her mouth and nose, revealing only brown deep-set eyes, she allowed herself a pensive smile. The sweet exhilaration of escape flowed through her like a drug.

  It was 6:15 a.m. on what was to be her final day in Libya. Two hundred and thirteen days after she had initiated Operation Trojan Horse, the moment had finally come to kill the Butcher of Bahrain and his top commanders in one decisive blow. And with it, she would finally erase the persona she had so skillfully inhabited these past seven months.

  She whizzed by sand-colored apartment buildings and parked cars and a whiff of open sewer. Down a straight stretch of road, she picked up speed, glancing over her left shoulder, checking to make sure that she had not been followed. She saw no vehicles behind her. Just the usual streams of early risers heading to sunrise prayer like so many pilgrims beginning the same quest anew day after day. The adhan, the Islamic call to worship, blasted from the loudspeakers of every mosque in the city. Ashadu an la ilaha ill Allah. Ashadu anna Muhammadan rasoolullah. Although the slow, twisting melodies were hauntingly beautiful, it was perhaps this sound more than any other that Kyra looked forward to leaving behind.

  For the past week, she had been blessed with the most amazingly vivid dreams. Running amongst blooming cherry blossoms in Washington D.C. Eating strawberry sorbet with the sun beating down on her head. Her entire head, uncovered by the hijab. Unfiltered sunlight on her face, ears, scalp, hair. For her, that simple pleasure now represented freedom more than any other.

  And yet even in those sweet dreams of Washington, the voices of the adhan played in the background. It was everywhere. Like a bad omen.

  The mission to eliminate Saif Al-Mohammed, the so-called Butcher of Bahrain, had started nearly a year before Kyra first set foot in Libya. Al-Mohammed’s involvement in the Allied Jihad – at first as a financier, and later, as its chief strategist in North Africa – had gradually moved him up near the top of America’s target list. He had been wanted in connection with several attacks on Western targets, but he had become truly infamous after planning the abduction of an American journalist for the Washington Post. After repeated viewings of the gruesome video, in which the journalist was beheaded, analysts later confirmed that the man who had wielded the sword had been Al-Mohammed himself. He had followed that ghastly spectacle by organizing a suicide attack at the Formula One Grand Prix of Bahrain, in which 10 bombers had killed a combined 137 spectators. A moniker, and a Jihadi legend, was born.

  Last year, a CIA-led strike missed the Butcher of Bahrain in the Sudan. American Intelligence later discovered his residence in Tripoli, where they hoped to get not only the Butcher himself, but his top lieutenants as well.

  The administration was betting that the political blowback of a drone strike in Libya’s capital city would be minimal. The war torn country had not truly seen peace since the revolution. Officially speaking, the current government had the backing of the United Nations, but how much longer could it realistically hold out against the various warring groups vying for control?

  The strike had White House approval so long as two conditions were met, the first of which was ensuring the Butcher was actually present in his compound. Kyra had reported that he was to be in closed
-door meetings with his top leadership all day. He had given his wives explicit instructions that they were not to be disturbed until lunchtime.

  The second condition: Make sure no children were killed in the attack. No problem there, either. By the time the missile hit, the children would all be in school.

  She had done her job. There was just one task left: Escape.

  Her handler was waiting for her in the marina, where he had hired a boat to take them to Sicily. His name was Blake Carver. Kyra would never forget how her boss had described Carver on a crisp D.C. night nearly a year ago. “If you need someone to infiltrate a mountain fortress in the middle of the night,” he had said, “Carver is your man. And if you need someone to find out if we even have the right fortress in the first place, Carver is also your man.”

  Tripoli Seaport

  Blake Carver stood on the deck of a 28-foot trawler with the Sicilian Prince emblazoned on the aft. A mild current slapped rhythmically against the hull. As the boat rocked gently under his boots, Carver’s green eyes searched the inlet road where he expected Kyra Javan to appear momentarily. To his right, a small fishing vessel left its mooring and headed out to the Mediterranean, its three-man crew waving as they passed.

  He waved and smiled. Enjoy the day, Carver thought. Really. Because by the time you get back, the city will be awash in smoke and its entire population will be out in the streets. And when news of the Butcher’s death gets out, some will quietly celebrate, and others will kill the first infidel they can get their hands on.

  The phone buzzed in Carver’s hand. The caller ID read “mom,” the name he had spoofed for the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean, Virginia.

  He answered. The encrypted voice on the other end belonged to Haley Ellis, who was Carver’s eyes and ears via satellite. “Trojan Horse is approaching the old city,” Ellis said, using Kyra’s codename.

  So Kyra was en route. The Butcher and his regional commanders were gathered in his Tripoli compound. And the strike drone was poised in the sky above. Everything in its right place.

  Carver had begun his career as a member of the Joint Strike Operations Command (JSOC) – a paramilitary spy, capture and kill force that had seen heavy covert action in Afghanistan. Afterwards, he had been a CIA strategist and operative before having been drafted into America’s most secretive intelligence organization. He and 26 others, including Kyra Javan, reported directly to Julian Speers, the Director of National Intelligence.

  The agency had recently been named Guardian, although as a hard rule, it was never referred to as such in writing. The secretive, direct organizational structure minimized the bureaucracy that sometimes hobbled the flow of information and speed of operations across agencies. It also enabled Speers, who had 16 entire intelligence agencies reporting to him, absolute oversight of key missions.

  Among America’s spy community, Carver was either a legend or a pariah, depending on who you asked. Rumors of Carver’s adventures still floated among the various intelligence agencies, growing more mythical with each retelling. But since the day he had voluntarily resigned from the CIA to join Guardian, those who knew his exact duties were limited to Speers, the president, his immediate colleagues and a few in congress charged with intelligence oversight.

  He scratched his beard, sorely missing the chin that was buried under a three-inch layer of wiry fuzz he had grown for the operation. When they retreated to Sicily this afternoon, the first thing he was going to do was shave. And if there was time before they hopped on the plane back to Washington, he was going to eat a bucket or two of Pasta alla Norma. There was a cafe near the Guardian safe house that had the most mouth-watering basil and ricotta he had ever tasted.

  To his back, an L-shaped seawall protected the 300 or so docked boats from rogue waves. He had noticed that there were no longer any leisure boats moored here. The sailboats and yachts that had once inhabited these docks were now on dry land on the other side of the road, some of them with bullet-riddled hulls, scattered about like enormous bathtub toys.

  Aldo Rossi, owner and skipper of the Sicilian Prince, sat before a backgammon board. In Carver’s intelligence briefing, he had described Aldo as a walking jack-o-lantern, noting his hairless scalp, tan, round face and gap-toothed grin.

  “Sit and play,” Aldo urged Carver, gesturing a leathery hand to the board. “A watched pot never boils.”

  Aldo was a career fisherman based out of Sicily, the football-shaped island at the tip of Italy’s boot, some 300 nautical miles north of here. But these days, fishing was no longer Aldo’s sole source of income. Since the Arab Spring, he had built up a lucrative side business ferrying smugglers and occasional American intelligence agents in and out of Libya. His biggest paycheck had come when U.S. Special Forces had embarked on a nighttime mission to abduct a known terrorist in the capital.

  But Aldo’s window of opportunity in Libya seemed to be closing fast. The Italian people had enjoyed favored nation status here for decades, traced back to a phone call in 1986 between Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi and Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The call had come just moments before American bombers reduced Gaddafi’s resident to rubble, an act that enabled the dictator to hold onto power for another three decades. But to the Allied Jihad, who now occupied 30 percent of Libya, old favors meant nothing. To them, an Italian was just another infidel. The poor ones were beheaded on sight. The rich ones were held for ransom.

  Now Aldo rapped a knuckle on the wooden backgammon board and looked up at Carver. “Your move.”

  Irrational anxiety welled up within Carver like a cramp. But why? All indicators were green. And yet deep inside, he knew that something was awry.

  He replied without taking his eyes off the inlet road. “Aldo, you should start the motor.”

  “The boat will start just as fast when your friend gets here.”

  “Now, please.”

  The skipper sighed, grumbling as he went to the controls. “You Americans never relax.”

  Aldo had been told nothing about the drone strike, nor had he been told that Kyra would be fleeing one of the most wanted terrorist organizations on earth. He knew only that they were to smuggle an American out of the country, and that they would need to leave in a hurry.

  For added insurance, Carver had rigged some IEDs along the road to the marina. If Kyra was pursued, he could set them off remotely to buy them some time. And below deck, he had stashed a couple of MP-4s and some RPGs. If he had to resort to using any of those things, then they were probably doomed anyhow.

  Guardian had entertained various scenarios for Kyra’s extraction. One such plan was to have Carver lead an assault team that would have taken Kyra by night and killed the Allied Jihad leadership by hand, similar to the one that had killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. But unlike Bin Laden’s quiet suburban existence, the Butcher’s both vigilant and well armed, having not only the U.S. to worry about, but also opposing militias in Libya. The civil war the country had been plunged into after the overthrow of the Gaddafi regime had never quite ended. At the end of the day, the drone strike was deemed the best option.

  Now Carver’s phone buzzed. Ellis again. “Be advised. We may have a problem.”

  “What problem?”

  “A white truck just exited the target area at high speed.”

  The Old City

  Tripoli

  Kyra pedaled faster now, counting down the blocks until she would reach the fishing marina where her handler, Blake Carver, would be waiting. Then they would sail for Sicily. She imagined watching the drone strike from the safety of the Mediterranean Sea.

  By the time the missile hit, the children would be safely on their way to school. The men would be starting the daylong strategy meetings they held once a month at the compound. God willing, each and every one of them would be reduced to dust. To nothingness. As if they had never even been born.

  She caught a fleeting whiff of someone’s breakfast, pastry dough frying in olive oil. Much as she hated
to admit it, she was actually going to miss the food here.

  The bike jounced and wobbled as Kyra navigated a rugged street. The Old City district truly was a time machine to a bygone era, and the condition of its roads was no exception. She gripped the handlebars with both hands.

  Her hijab caught air and flew off her head, parachuting into the street. Seriously? She had used no less than a dozen hairpins.

  Kyra braked, skidding a bit in a patch of loose gravel, and turned back to retrieve it. Even with her hair covered, traveling the streets of Tripoli alone was a risky endeavor. In recent times, the city had become infested with gangs of frightening young extremists whose sole purpose in life seemed to be harassing women.

  The previous week, a girl from the neighborhood had been severely beaten for walking unaccompanied by a male relative. Were Kyra to be caught this morning, especially without a hijab, a beating wouldn’t be all she would get. The punishment for leaving her husband could be death by stoning. Or worse.

  Her husband was not above administering such punishments, either. Especially now. Having expanded his pool of wives to four, he was expected to keep them in line.

  It hadn’t always been that way. Among Islamic terrorists, the Butcher of Bahrain had been a rare monogamist during his first 31 years or marriage. But some years after the Arab Spring had brought revolution to the country, it had also brought a strict interpretation of Sharia law, allowing him to take up to four wives.

  He did not do this immediately, for fear of upsetting his first wife, Farah, who was notoriously jealous. But where the Butcher saw a jealous woman, American Intelligence had realized a once in a lifetime opportunity.

  A CIA operative who had spent years establishing himself within Saif’s inner circle planted the seed one day over tea. “I hesitate to bring this up, but people are talking. They see you have just one wife, and they worry something is wrong. Does he not truly believe in Sharia law? Or is he secretly ill? Is he so sick that he does not experience the normal desires of a man?”