by Robert Gandt
Carson watched the XO stride across the deck. The door clunked shut behind him.
The pilots in this squadron trust you with their lives. Alexander’s words replayed themselves like a mantra in Carson’s mind. Come to me if you have any problems.
If he only knew, thought Carson. With a mounting sense of dread, he turned back to the flickering computer screen.
< >
Rear Admiral Jack Hightree was a man who kept his emotions under control. Rarely did he burst into fits of anger. Today was an exception.
Maxwell was standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Boyce in the admiral’s stateroom while Hightree blew his stack.
“Goddamnit!” said the Admiral, pacing in front of his desk. “You gave me your word. I put my own credibility on the line by taking your problem up the chain of command. I thought I told you that the matter would go no further.”
“Yes, sir, you did,” said Boyce.
“Then what the hell happened?” He whirled on Maxwell. “You, Commander Maxwell. Did you go over my head and contact someone at the Pentagon?”
“No, sir, I did not.”
“Captain Boyce, did you contact anyone?”
“No, sir. Absolutely not.”
Hightree let out a snort of exasperation. For another long moment he peered through his rimless glasses at the two officers. “God knows what they’re thinking back at OpNav.”
Maxwell caught Boyce shooting him a sideways glance. They both knew what Hightree was really worried about. His career.
Hightree yanked a sheet of paper from his desk and waved it at them. “Some 0-6 named Allen is arriving from Oceana tomorrow. He’s supposed to coordinate a prisoner exchange with Al-Fasr and some unidentified American prisoner. We have orders to facilitate the operation.” He glowered again at Maxwell. “Could this by any chance be the same alleged POW you told me about, Commander?”
Maxwell forced back the grin that threatened to spread over his face. It worked. Claire’s boss must have pushed the right button.
With a straight face he said, “I have no idea, Admiral. Captain Allen is the Strike Fighter Wing Commander. I know him well, but I haven’t had any contact with him in over two weeks. You can check my e-mail logs.”
Hightree squinted at him for another moment, then turned back to his desk. Some of his anger seemed to dissipate. “Maybe something good will come out of this. If this is for real, it’s the right thing to do. If we bring an American POW home, it will make us all look good. The Reagan Battle Group may get a commendation out of it.”
Maxwell and Boyce exchanged glances. Hightree was back to normal. Thinking about his next star.
< >
Bandar-e Mah Sharh, Iran
The rubber hull of the Zodiac boat made a scrunching sound against the pebbly shore.
Mustafa held the boat against the retreating tide while Tyrwhitt hopped into the knee-deep water and waded ashore. A tiny sliver of moon hung in the western sky. Nightfall had settled over the marsh country, but Tyrwhitt wished it was blacker. Even in total darkness, traveling by foot through this territory was dangerous as hell.
Not only was he concerned that the Bu Hasa might renege on the deal and start shooting, there were at least half a dozen other Arab and Persian rebel groups operating in this area, all armed and motivated to kill westerners. Especially westerners in the employ of the Great Satan.
Mustafa concealed the boat in a stand of reeds. Before they set out on the path into the marshes, Tyrwhitt pulled out the Cyfonika satellite phone. He keyed the pulse signal that would inform the Bahrain station—and Ted Bronson—that they were ashore and were proceeding inland.
Bronson was still a dickhead, Tyrwhitt reflected. Worse, he was a lying dickhead. That became obvious when he assigned Tyrwhitt to negotiate the prisoner exchange with the Bu Hasa Brigade.
“Exchange?” Tyrwhitt had asked. “Of whom?”
“Who do you think? Prisoners. One of ours for one of theirs.”
Tyrwhitt had nodded, both of them acknowledging that Bronson’s previous insistence that no such prisoner existed was a bald-faced lie.
“And you’re assigning me to negotiate with the terrorists?” Tyrwhitt asked.
“You know the ground,” Bronson had said, “and you speak the language. I want you to go in country, meet the Bu Hasa leader, a man called Abu Mahmed, and work out the details.”
Tyrwhitt resisted the urge to ask what had compelled him to change his story. An unacknowledged American prisoner was being held. Had been held for years. Which Bronson had known—and denied—for years.
Long ago he had stopped being surprised at the duplicity of the CIA. Deception was a time-honored tradition in the business of espionage, but with Bronson it went a step further. Bronson had some kind of personal vested interest in keeping the prisoner’s existence a secret. It was obvious that he was not pleased that the prisoner was coming home.
That was the part that puzzled Tyrwhitt. It meant that the decision to repatriate the American prisoner had originated several levels above Bronson’s pay grade. And he was pissed.
Something slithered between Tyrwhitt’s ankles. It made a squishing sound in the mud.
“Are there snakes in these marshes?” Tyrwhitt asked.
“Many,” said Mustafa.
Just what he didn’t want to hear. “Poisonous ones?”
“Cobras.”
Fuck. Tyrwhitt had an abiding terror of snakes, rodents, spiders—things that crept and crawled.
He was plodding through knee-high weeds, ten yards in trail of Mustafa. Over his shoulder he carried an H&K submachine gun. In his hand he kept his Beretta nine-millimeter pistol ready for instant use. A hell of a lot of use they’d be against a snake.
All Tyrwhitt’s senses were engaged. Every thirty or so yards they stopped while Mustafa listened to the night sounds and scanned the landscape around them. Tyrwhitt kept switching his attention from the bushes around them to the slimy, snake-infested muck under his feet.
He wouldn’t have made the journey without Mustafa. The Iraqi had grown up in the Tigris-Euphrates delta, and could pick his way through the marshes like a swamp rat.
Three miles into the interior, they arrived at the rendezvous point—a brackish lake with an enclave of fishing huts on one side. Mustafa motioned for Tyrwhitt to remain crouched in the weeds while he reconnoitered.
Tyrwhitt waited, keeping the Beretta at the ready. His nerves were twanging like harp strings. Clandestine meetings in darkened back streets or souks or seamy wharves were one thing. He’d done plenty of that and could even feel a kind of exhilaration in the danger. This damned swamp was something else.
It occurred to him that it might be a trap. He trusted Mustafa—but only as far as he trusted anyone in this business. If you wanted to stay alive, you never stopped being suspicious. An agent could become a double agent and turn on you like—
Something rustled in the high reeds. He cradled the Beretta in both hands, ready to fire. From the reeds appeared the shadowy silhouette of Mustafa. In trail behind him came two men in black costumes, wearing kaffiyehs, each holding an AK-74.
For a tense moment Tyrwhitt and the men confronted each other, the blackened metal of their weapons barely visible in the darkness.
“Are you Tyrwhitt?” asked one of the shadowy figures.
Chapter 21 — The Exchange
Southern Iran
2055, Monday, 22 March
“I am Abu Mahmed.” He said it as if the name needed no further explanation. “This is my lieutenant, Omar Al-Iryani.”
The second man gave Tyrwhitt a sharp nod.
Tyrwhitt was surprised that they would use their names. Abu Mahmed handled himself like a man accustomed to being in charge. In the darkness Tyrwhitt could see only his lean, beak-nosed features.
“For authentication, I must ask the name of the prisoner you are holding,” said Tyrwhitt.
“You know his name. Rasmussen. He is an officer of the American navy.”
“An officer named Rasmussen was shot down in Iraq during the Gulf War. How did you gain custody of him?”
“You don’t need such information.”
“How do we know it is Rasmussen you intend to hand over?”
“You don’t,” said Abu. “Not until you have him in your custody.” He nodded to Omar. The Arab reached into a rucksack and produced a file folder, which he handed to Tyrwhitt.
With a red-lensed penlight, Tyrwhitt examined the contents. The folder contained a blurry black-and-white photograph of a white-haired man holding a newspaper which, Tyrwhitt presumed, bore a recent date. A signature—Allen Rasmussen—was scrawled on the bottom of the photograph. In a bottom corner was an inky thumbprint.
“This will confirm the identity of the man we are holding,” said Abu.
Tyrwhitt nodded. “Do you require proof that we are holding Al-Fasr?”
“We know you have him. If you are so stupid to try to deceive us, you will not get your captured American back alive.”
Abu unfolded a map and explained the details of the prisoner exchange. “Here,” he said, pointing to a circled spot on the map. “This is an abandoned fishing village. In the center is a courtyard. Only two of your people and two of ours will enter the village with their prisoners. After we have verified each other’s identity, the prisoners will each cross the courtyard and rejoin his own people.”
“How can we be sure it won’t be an ambush?” asked Tyrwhitt.
“We won’t risk the life of our commander,” said Abu. “We want Colonel Al-Fasr back alive, don’t we?”
Tyrwhitt thought he saw Abu and Omar exchange quick glances. Good question, thought Tyrwhitt. He was getting an uneasy feeling. Something about Abu’s manner—that haughty, I’m-in-command tone. Not the demeanor of a faithful lieutenant.
Another thought flitted across Tyrwhitt’s mind. Why was I sent to do this? The details of the prisoner swap were cut and dried. The deal could have been done by satellite phone, even by email. Instead, he had been dispatched through this snake-infested swamp to make small talk with a swaggering terrorist.
The negotiations were concluded without disagreement. The time and place of the exchange was settled upon. Nothing further needed to be discussed.
No handshake was proffered, which suited Tyrwhitt. Something about Abu Mahmed repelled him. He watched as the two Arabs vanished back into the high reeds.
Tyrwhitt followed Mustafa back through the marshes toward the concealed Zodiac boat. As he slogged along in the darkness, trying not to think about snakes, avoiding the sucking mud and invisible sinkholes, his mind kept returning to the image of Abu Mahmed.
The Arab was slick. Too slick. Too sure of himself.
< >
USS Ronald Reagan
“What the hell are you talking about?” said Lieutenant DiLorenzo.
All the salesman’s warmth was gone from his voice. He whirled on Carson, his eyes blazing like coals. “Are you freaking out on me? You can’t back out now.”
It was after midnight, and they were alone in the closed QA space. Carson was shocked by DiLorenzo’s outburst. “I just thought that. . .you know, we owe it the squadron to do the inspections.”
“You’ve already signed off on the inspection schedule. Are you saying we should tell the whole fucking world that the inspections never happened?”
“Well, I was just thinking. . .”
“Leave the thinking to me,” DiLorenzo snapped. He let several seconds pass, then his voice changed to a more conciliatory tone. “Aw, hell, Carson, I’m sorry. You’ve got a short memory, that’s all. This was all explained to you once. You just forgot for a moment how it’s supposed to play out.”
He flashed a grin, then turned away to let Carson know the matter was finished.
It wasn’t finished for Carson. “I still think we ought have those jets inspected.”
DiLorenzo took a deep breath. He rose to his full height and turned to glower down at Carson’s face. “You seem to have forgotten some facts of life. I’m gonna be blunt, Carson. Your last three evals were shitty. So shitty that you not only don’t have a hope in hell of getting promoted to chief, you’ll be lucky to get your twenty in before the Navy throws your ass on the street. This is your only chance to save your career.”
“Maybe my career isn’t that important.”
DiLorenzo gave him a curious look. “What is this, some kind of crisis of conscience? Let me give you something else to think about. Do you know what the inside of a six-by-six cell looks like? That’s where you’ll spend the next several years after a court-martial finds you guilty of falsifying maintenance records.”
“Your initials are on the records too.”
“So what? Everyone knows how the system works. The QA officer doesn’t do the inspections. He takes the word of the petty officer who reports to him that the job was completed. That happens to be you, Carson. If it comes to an inquest, I promise you that you will be hanging all alone in the breeze. You are in this by yourself, and anything you say to the contrary will be denied by me and Commander Manson. You will have no proof.”
Carson let several seconds tick by as he contemplated his future. He had made a deal with the devil. He was screwed.
“Okay. I get the picture.”
“Good. I always knew you were a team player, Carson. Remember that Commander Manson takes care of his team.”
“Yes, sir.”
Carson left the compartment and stepped out onto the red-lighted hangar deck. He knew in his gut that DiLorenzo was right. It was his word against that of two commissioned officers. No one would believe him, because he had no proof.
Or so they thought.
< >
Manama, Bahrain
“Absolutely not,” said Bronson.
“But I’m the logical choice to run the mission,” said Tyrwhitt. “I made the deal, I know Abu, and I know the set up.”
“You stay here,” said Bronson. “That’s already been decided.”
“By whom, may I ask?” said Tyrwhitt.
“You may not ask. Washington has assigned this mission a level one priority, which means an operations chief will run it, not a contract agent.”
Tyrwhitt just nodded. There it was again, the old class distinction between officers and agents. Bronson was in dickhead mode again, and it was pointless to argue with him.
They were back in the SCIF, the heavily bunkered underground facility beneath the old American embassy. The SCIF had a blast door and another squad of armed guards. The exterior shell of the facility was shielded against monitoring or electronic intrusions.
Tyrwhitt had just finished reporting to Bronson about his mission into Iran, giving him all the details of the meeting with Abu Mahmed.
Almost all the details.
For reasons he didn’t yet understand, Tyrwhitt had not mentioned to Bronson the uneasy feeling he had about Abu. Something about the two terrorists—Abu and his thug lieutenant, Omar—was still bothering him. Even Mustafa had gotten bad vibrations from the pair. “Bad men,” was all he would say. He made a slicing motion with his finger across his throat. “Don’t trust them.”
Well, thought Tyrwhitt, it didn’t matter now. His part in the deal was finished. He yawned and sank back into the leather-padded chair. The fatigue of the all-night foray into the marshes had caught up with him. To hell with the Company. To hell with dickhead Bronson. If he wanted to run the mission by himself, more power to him. Who the hell cared anyway?
Good question. Though he couldn’t explain it, he did care. What he cared about, though, wasn’t the deal with the terrorists, or the CIA’s political need to please its bosses, or even the outcome of the mission.
He cared about the prisoner.
Tyrwhitt was unable to erase from his mind the image of the gaunt, white-haired man holding the newspaper. It had to be him, the one he’d met back in Abu Graib prison. Even though he hadn’t seen the American prisoner’s face in the next cell, he knew
.
Something about the prisoner—Rasmussen—still troubled him. He wasn’t out of trouble. Tyrwhitt didn’t know how he knew that—but he just knew. It was why he wanted to accompany the mission back into Iran to make the swap.
“This Iraqi that you hire. . .” Bronson was saying. “The one who went into Iran with you—”
“Mustafa.”
“That one. We ran a check on him, and it seems he’s worked for every employer in the Middle East. Saddam, Arafat, the Mossad, the Kurds, you name it, he’s worked for them.”
Tyrwhitt shrugged. “He’s a professional. He’s loyal to whoever pays him.”
Bronson gave him a pained look. “What makes you think we can use people like that? That’s not the way we operate in the CIA. The man’s a double, maybe a triple agent. He’ll sell us out.”
“He saved my life twice. Got me through a secret police roadblock in Baghdad, and he killed a Hezbollah assassin in Beirut who was about to put a knife in my back.”
“This is the CIA, not the Foreign Legion,” said Bronson. “Get rid of him.”
Tyrwhitt just nodded. Dickhead Bronson. The best thing was to ignore him. “Sure,” he said.
The debriefing was finished. Tyrwhitt was emotionally drained from the trip to Iran and the stress of dealing with Bronson. He left the SCIF, submitting to the usual pat down by the security guards, then passing through the metal scanner at the bombproof exit door.
Squinting, he walked into the harsh morning sunshine. Mustafa was waiting in the battered Toyota around the corner.
“Let’s get a drink, mate,” said Tyrwhitt, sliding into the passenger seat. It was time to exploit Mustafa’s weakness for Jack Daniels. “I’ve got another job for you.”
Mustafa nodded agreeably. “Where are we going now?”
“Not we, mate. You.”
< >
USS Ronald Reagan
The key players in the prisoner exchange—now designated Operation Raven Swoop—assembled in the flag conference room.