Brilliant New Light (Chance Lyon military adventure series Book 3)
Page 1
Copyright, 2015
Van C. Torrey
BRILLIANT NEW LIGHT
A NOVEL FEATURING CHANCE LYON, U.S.N. (RET.)
This is a work of fiction. Names of the characters portrayed herein are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual characters living or dead is coincidental.
Copyright © June, 2015 by Van C. Torrey
All rights reserved. Excerpt is permitted under U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.
ISBN-10: 1514243741
EAN-13: 9781514243749
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015909244
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
North Charleston, South Carolina
Cover art by Mike Vera
Cover Photo, Courtesy NASA
NORTH KOREA AND
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
“North Korea is going to get away with keeping its nuclear weapons.”
John Bolton, Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
*
“If we are addressing the issue of weapons of mass destruction, we need to send a uniform, consistent message that there is zero tolerance to any country who is developing weapons of mass destruction, North Korea included.”
Mohamed ElBaradei, Nobel Peace Prize Recipient, 2005
TERRORISM
“The backbone of our nation’s domestic defense against terrorist attacks will continue to be the men and women in local law enforcement and emergency services.”
Saxby Chambliss, U.S. Senator from Georgia (2003 - 2015)
*
“And so every one of us in the FBI, I don’t care if it’s a file clerk someplace or an agent there or a computer specialist understands that our main mission is to protect the public from another September 11, another terrorist attack.”
Robert Mueller, Former Director of the F.B.I.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cast of Characters
Forward
Chapter 1 Assassins
Chapter 2 Investigation and Frustration
Chapter 3 Justice and Revenge
Chapter 4 Vice-Presidential Crisis
Chapter 5 The Selection
Chapter 6 Coup d’état
Chapter 7 Confirmation
Chapter 8 A Sinister Strategy
Chapter 9 Fateful Journey
Chapter 10 The Unthinkable
Chapter 11 Picking up The Pieces
Chapter 12 Ann’s Reaction
Chapter 13 Grief and Discontent
Chapter 14 Emissaries to Beijing
Chapter 15 Doctor’s Orders
Chapter 16 Calculated Response
Chapter 17 Disingenuous Diplomacy
Chapter 18 Change of Scenery
Chapter 19 New Codebook
Chapter 20 Terror on the High Seas
Chapter 21 Aftermath
Chapter 22 Enhanced Interrogation
Chapter 23 Analysis and Decision
Chapter 24 Restraint
Chapter 25 Geo Tagged and Bagged
Chapter 26 Confronting The Fhang
Chapter 27 Two Interrogations - One Truth
Chapter 28 Scoundrels and Skullduggery
Chapter 29 Rat in a Trap
Chapter 30 Needle in a Haystack
Chapter 31 Mysterious Journey
Chapter 32 Competitive Game
Chapter 33 Setting the Trap
Chapter 34 Hard Candy
Chapter 35 Rosebud
Chapter 36 Infiltration
Chapter 37 Hounds to Foxes
Chapter 38 Femme Fatale
Chapter 39 Strait of Juan de Fuca
Chapter 40 Bangor Trident Base
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Other books in the Chance Lyon Series
Author Bio
FORWARD
This is a story about enlightened human excellence and those who would seek to destroy that, replacing it with despotism and fanatical extremism. It is also a cautionary tale, as the events portrayed herein could easily take place, fundamentally disrupting our American culture for years to come.
Exceptional humans who have striven to rise above the ordinary, to dream big thoughts, to excel among their peers, and to contribute to the greater good, are the natural targets of desperate souls who have been marginalized by the forces of hatred spawned by genocide and societal conflict, and who have for generations suffered under the lash of despots eager to exploit base human nature in the pursuit of raw political power.
With no abstract concepts to guide them, such as the ideal of personal liberty, the freedom to choose a direction in one’s life, or respect for common law, such people are bound to their actions by blind adherence to a cruel religious dogma that demands the killing of ‘infidels’ who are not believers of the literal word of their god as promulgated by a mystical prophet. Some may swear blind allegiance to a cult leader pursuing a nuclear weapons agenda out of fear or in the name of nationalism. Such unprincipled villains become willing tools of the tyrants who wish to make war by terror against the Western democracies.
Devoid of the powers of reason and civil discourse as a means of achieving a political solution to their agenda, these tyrants seek recourse in the form of violence in the hope of using fear and terror as a means to an end. Whether the target is random or focused, the end result is always the same; violence begets violence, retribution against a perpetrator is swift and equally violent, competing wills are hardened anew, and the vicious cycle regenerates itself.
In previous iterations, American military, both conventional and Special Operations forces, bore much of the brunt of achieving a tenuous level of stability by removing the Taliban from direct power in Afghanistan and giving Afghans the potential for moving peacefully into the twenty-first Century. Lieutenant Chance Lyon, a U.S. Navy SEAL operator, gave his heart and nearly his life in this struggle. Later, the Islamic Republic of Iran came within a heartbeat of achieving a long sought after nuclear weapons capability only to be thwarted by United States’ Special Operations forces led by Navy SEAL Lieutenant Lyon and his counterpart, U.S. Army Ranger Captain John Olyphant, in a secret dangerous and audacious covert interdiction raid in the desert of Iran never acknowledged by the United States. The result was Iranian nuclear ambitions being set back for years to come and a dramatic change of secular leadership in that country.
Now, these same warriors operating as a paramilitary unit, and without the benefit of conventional military forces to back them up, must face down and counter a brutal North Korean dictator who already has a nuclear weapon and the means to deliver it. Facing their greatest danger yet and with the stakes much higher and closer to home, Chance Lyon and his paramilitary team require all the guile and military technology available to checkmate this tyrant before he sets off a firestorm of nuclear terror that could endanger the United States and all of Asia in the process.
CHAPTER 1
ASSASSINS
“Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.”
George Bernard Shaw
*
Summer
Rachel Hunter and her companion, Doctor Michael Ryan, finished their romantic dinner and walked out into a typical crisp, breezy San Francisco late summer evening taking the side streets on their way back to the Mark Hopkins hotel.
Blending into the light tr
affic of the Sunday evening, a late model dark sedan pulled up alongside the couple who were partially shielded by parked cars near the curb. As the rear curbside window made its silent descent a gunman aimed a double-barreled shotgun at the unsuspecting couple and fired two shots at point blank range before the car rapidly accelerated into the night.
After several seconds of chilling post-violence silence, Rachel Hunter pulled herself up unsteadily from the sidewalk and with a bewildered look attempted to make sense out of the carnage around her. She quickly saw and then felt what at first glance appeared to be minor wounds to her left leg and arm. Instinctively she put her hand to her face as she looked down in horror at Michael’s convulsing body, blood pouring freely from wounds to his head and upper body. Rachel reflexively pulled her hands away from her face to see them holding gore and bloody pulp. At first she feared these must be from her wounds, but the absence of any pain belied this. She sunk to her knees to tend her gravely wounded partner, but suddenly knew there was nothing she could do but hold what was left of Michael’s head in her lap as she screamed in terror.
Within moments the quiet street became a bedlam of police and paramedics. Flashing emergency lights from their vehicles bounced off the surrounding buildings creating an emergency equipment-induced light show accompanied by sounds of amplified electronic communications incidental to the first-responders to the violent crime.
The paramedics initially triaged Michael as the victim in greatest need of their attention, but it soon became apparent that this was merely a formality and there was nothing they could do for the mortally wounded man. Their attention quickly turned to Rachel Hunter as she lay in shock on the cold sidewalk.
After establishing the classic A-B-Cs, airway, breathing, and circulation, of medical trauma intervention, the medics examined Rachel for wounds similar to those sustained by her companion. Later it would be established by investigators at the crime scene that three factors helped to minimize her wounds from the shotgun pellets. At least one of the shots deflected off a parked car at the curb, Rachel was walking on the inside of and being effectively shielded from the direct gunfire by Michael, and the fact she was wearing a mid-calf length, heavy leather jacket.
Rachel had sustained some non-life threatening injuries to her upper right back and neck, and left arm wounds that were the result of her having her left arm looped through Michael’s right, but she had been exceptionally lucky not to have been gravely wounded. Nevertheless the former Director of National Intelligence was in shock, had lost a significant quantity of blood, and would require emergency surgery as soon as she could be stabilized by the paramedics and transported to the nearest level one trauma center.
Twenty minutes after the first responders arrived at the scene, Rachel Hunter was loaded into an ambulance. Air horns and loud shrieks of sirens reverberating off the buildings lining the streets of downtown San Francisco as the ambulance sped to the hospital. Left behind was the body of Doctor Michael Ryan, covered by a tarpaulin, and guarded by police looking for evidence and waiting for someone from the Medical Examiner’s office to declare him dead at the scene.
Rachel Hunter arrived at San Francisco General Hospital ten minutes later. She was quickly triaged in one of the emergency room bays, connected to I.V. lines containing O-negative whole blood and Lactated Ringer’s solution, and X-rayed to determine the extent of her injuries. In 20 minutes she was in the O.R. in the capable hands of a trauma surgeon and his team tending to her injuries.
Well after midnight, Rachel became vaguely aware of surroundings alien to her, and not readily identifiable. Dim light, soft female voices, the occasional pinging signal of some kind of electronic device, and the fact she was laying on her side supported by restrictive cushions piqued her curiosity as her sensory modes came and went.
“Ms. Hunter, can you hear me?” gently asked a recovery room nurse named Cynthia looking down on her near the edge of the bed. “I’m a nurse, and you are in the recovery room at San Francisco General. Your surgery is over, and you are waking up. The surgeon said you are going to be just fine.”
“Surgery?” mumbled Rachel. “What happened?”
“You had an accident, Ms. Hunter, and you’re in the hospital. In a few minutes I’ll get Doctor Robertson, your surgeon, and he will explain everything to you. Meantime, if you are experiencing pain, just press the button here, and you’ll get some more pain meds.”
Throughout the pre-dawn hours of the morning Rachel gradually regained consciousness and became more aware of her surroundings. By dawn she was sufficiently lucid to understand from a homicide investigator and the surgeon the terrible events of the night before, as she haltingly came to grips with the fact that Michael had been brutally murdered, and she had miraculously escaped with her life.
The surgeon explained her injuries were not severe, but she would be hospitalized for three or four days as a precaution. As the hospital staff and the San Francisco Police became fully aware of Rachel’s identity as President of Stanford University and her past executive positions in the federal government, security was tightened around the hospital, her office at Stanford University, and her home on the campus. In addition to San Francisco P.D. investigators, Rachel was visited by the head of the San Francisco office of the FBI bearing a personal message from the White House, and several faculty heads and trustees from Stanford. Vases of flowers and messages from well-wishers were crowded into the VIP suite where Rachel was transferred after her recovery phase. With the exception of her profound grief for Michael Ryan, Rachel began to steadily feel better physically.
On the second day in the hospital, Rachel allowed herself to think back and reconstruct the events leading up to the tragedy of Sunday night.
*
Rachel had just concluded a three-hour meeting with the Stanford University Board of Trustees as the late summer afternoon had begun to gently descend on the sprawling campus in Palo Alto. After her previous positions at Goldman Sachs in New York, then with the Braxton Administration as Director of Central Intelligence and, most recently, as Director of National Intelligence, academia had become a welcome respite for Rachel Hunter. The responsibility of being President of such a prestigious university was demanding, and the hours were long, but the issues requiring the application of her considerable intellect were no longer those of America’s national security, or the life and death of those civilians and military personnel who labored courageously in the shadows gathering vital intelligence for the safety of the Nation. Stanford was a beautiful and rewarding refuge from the past, but Rachel Hunter had sensed her tenure here was not forever.
Back in her office, Rachel had reflected on how the meeting with the trustees had gone. It had been routine and with little or no controversy, with each trustee having a sometimes passionate opinion even about the most mundane issues, but what should have taken one hour stretched into three. With that over until next month, her long-planned escape into the city for a weekend of shopping, sightseeing, and socializing with two colleagues seemed unimpeded.
Rachel had quickly glanced at her phone messages, none of which were urgent, and scrolled through her emails with a reaction of dismay. Even though Marie, her capable and loyal administrative assistant, was assiduous as a filter of the spam and nonsense that somehow got through to the President of the University’s email, there were annoying semiofficial matters that did require her attention at some point. Perhaps next week, Rachel thought, but not this Friday afternoon.
“Thank you for everything this week, Marie,” she had said sincerely to her assistant as she prepared to exit. “Have a special weekend, and we’ll attack all this next week. The Cardinal is playing Arizona tomorrow in Tucson and I just couldn’t fit it into my schedule. The Cal game is the following weekend and that will have me scurrying around like a madwoman. I’m taking this break while I can. See you Monday. If there’s a calamity, call my cell.”
Before leaving her office Rachel had checked her cell and saw a text from Do
ctor Michael Ryan, a close friend who was a neurosurgeon at Stanford Medical Center. He was also going to the City Saturday for a ballgame at AT&T Park and planned to spend Saturday night there entertaining his surgical resident staff. After the girls’ party broke up Sunday afternoon, the plan was for Rachel and Michael to get together for dinner Sunday night and have a romantic evening before heading back to Palo Alto early Monday morning.
Michael’s text simply said, “See you at the Top of the Mark at five Sunday evening. MR”
Rachel Hunter, in spite of her abundant physical attractiveness and keen intellect, had never married, not that she had ever had the opportunity. Living in large cosmopolitan cities like New York and Washington, D.C., and working with powerful and intellectually stimulating people had provided her with numerous attractive social opportunities, making her much sought after as a companion. She did socialize, but always in an understated way particularly after she moved to Washington, leaving an exceptionally successful career at Goldman to take a challenging position at the CIA.
Rachel had led a talented team of cyber warriors that succeeded in gaining unprecedented access to President Vladimir Putin’s most private communications for over two years. This espionage operation was considered payback for the misdeeds of Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, American civilians previously convicted of being espionage agents for the Soviet Union. It was shut down as a precaution after the CIA became concerned that the technology in place might become compromised. Nevertheless, the information gleaned from this eavesdropping at such a high level for so long provided vital strategic intelligence to the United States. After that success, Rachel was promoted to Deputy Director of Intelligence (DDI). She became Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) when Jonathan Braxton, a former Harvard Law classmate, became President.
In Washington, Rachel had been deeply immersed in the intellectual challenges incidental to her position and worked long hours at the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, as well as her home in Georgetown. She had picked her social opportunities carefully and had more than one discreet companion, all of whom were private figures, unknown to the media and her professional colleagues. They were consistently complementary to her striking good looks and rare intellect. The same social pattern continued after she moved to California to take the Presidency of Stanford.