by T. S. O'Neil
Michael smiled in return and Ramos continued. “The Marines built it as a forward operating base and stationed a platoon of marines and eight Boston Whaler patrol boats there to conduct counter-narcotics operations. They were usually pretty boring operations, punctuated by the occasional seizure of cocaine or marijuana. We used to dive for lobsters when we weren’t patrolling, but the base has not been occupied in some time, so I believe we should be able to catch quite a…”—he hesitated for a moment, searching for the word—“harvest,” he said finally. Char shoveled in a slice of omelet and smiled. “Good. Nothing’s better than fresh-caught lobster, especially when you caught it yourself.”
“Fine. If we add some filets to the meal and if we get lucky with the lobsters, we can have surf and turf tonight,” added Michael.
“We’ve got some pretty good barbeque facilities on the island. The Marines had lots of free time on their hands, especially the mechanics, and they were always welding things,” added Ramos.
“Why don’t we just camp there? That way we can all tie one on and not worry about losing our way back to the boat,” said Char.
“Okay by me. I haven’t slept out of doors since leaving the Corps. Not that I would call that camping,” replied Michael, while looking at Ramos for confirmation.
“Yeah, the Corps could suck the fun out of a sloppy blowjob, said Ramos. There is a nice deck on the side of the kitchen that we built with spare lumber. We slept there all the time in hot weather. There are cots—we will be very comfortable.”
“Ok, sounds like a plan,” said Michael as he finished the last of his omelet and washed it down with a deep swig of coffee from a white ceramic mug. “Help me gather the diving and camping equipment.”
Michael leaped up from the table and descended the stairs in the front salon to the crew stateroom on the lower deck and Ramos followed. Even on a yacht as big as the Hatteras 80, storage space was limited, so they stored lots of ancillary equipment in the unoccupied crew quarters.
Char returned to the bridge, sat in one of the white leather captain’s chairs, and sipped his coffee. The sea was a bright, translucent aquamarine and a steady easterly wind was tossing up small whitecaps, but it was otherwise calm.
He checked the radar and estimated based on their current speed, they would be catching sight of Isla de Bartolomé off the starboard side in about two hours.
Chapter Seven - El Grocero
Tehran, Iran
The room had been specially designed for the conduct of torture. It was equal parts dankly cold, dimly lit, and sparingly furnished. It was purposely not soundproofed as the prisoner’s cells surrounded the room, and hearing fellow captives screaming in agony had the desired effect of softening them up prior to ever laying a gloved hand on them. It was approximately ten feet wide by twenty feet deep. In the center sat two heavy, wooden chairs secured to the floor by long steel bolts. Close to the rear bare stone wall stood a hydraulically adjustable porcelain exam table.
All of the platforms featured thick leather restraints for the wrists, neck, chest, and ankles. A unique collection of dental and surgical implements, as well as standard power and hand tools, stood by on a long metal table that had last served as a buffet board in the Officers’ Club during the reign of the Shah. Colonel Dmitri Stal looked down at the man―a pathetic shadow of the once-proud soldier―and smiled warmly.
“Come now, this is not necessary. I can still spare your life, you know.” The man had been strapped to the same chair for almost three days and he stunk of sweat, blood, piss, and shit. “Tell me who sent you and this can all be over,” said Stal in the casual tone of a man accustomed to making such offers. “Water,” the captive pleaded quietly.
“Not quite yet, my friend,” said Stal reassuringly. “Not until you tell me what I want to know. Otherwise, we will have to use the drill again.”
They had already used the old steel-encased power drill with a quarter-inch masonry bit to drill into the man’s kneecap twice without success. His continued resistance angered Stal, as he had a plane to catch.
Stal had been summoned to the building before dawn. The traitor was a night shift operations officer that had been discovered nearly a week ago by a Qud Force agent they had planted for just such a contingency. Stal had been asked to apply his particular experience in breaking the man, as he had thus far been resistant to their usual methods of torture.
Stal liked using the drill. It had the dual benefit of making a significant noise, thus increasing the subject’s level of fear, and being exceedingly painful, especially if the body part targeted by the drill bit was particularly sensitive. Areas such as knees, elbows, or even the genitals were fertile grounds for his purpose. In the current case, if the man continued to refuse to talk, Stal would drill into the other knee, which would probably cripple him
Their captive was a Sargord, an officer roughly equivalent to a major, in Iranian Army Intelligence, who had been caught attempting to implant a virus into one of their computer systems. An analysis of the virus had determined it to be similar to the Stuxnet malware, a sophisticated, multifunctional, Microsoft compatible worm that specifically targets the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems, otherwise known as SCADA, which are configured to control and monitor specific industrial processes pertaining to Iran’s experimental nuclear technologies. Such a virus had recently wreaked havoc on Iran’s nuclear industry and it appeared that someone was specifically targeting the Colonel’s operation for similar treatment.
This man had held up admirably, and that angered the Colonel. He didn’t have time for this nonsense as his plane departed a little before noon, but they had asked him to break this man, and he felt like he owed them that. Stal also wanted to know himself who was behind the attempt to thwart his mission. He looked at his watch and cursed. He had just over two hours to get to the airport and even in an official car with police escort; he might not make the flight.
“Use the drill again. Do the other knee,” he ordered the broad-chested Iranian torturer, a Revolutionary Guard sergeant with Popeye-like forearms that ended in meaty gorilla-like hands.
Stal had learned all about how the Irish Republican Army liked to use the drill when he served as the member of a Russian military delegation sent to learn counter terrorism techniques from the Royal Marine Commandos after the fall of the Soviet Union. The Royal Marines had gained considerable expertise in the conduct of counter terrorism in Northern Ireland from the height of the Long War in the late seventies through the Hunger Strikes of the early eighties. The Irish Republican Army had fought a war of attrition against the British Army and Marine Corp based on causing as many deaths as possible so as to create a demand from the British people at home for their withdrawal from Northern Ireland.
The IRA was a secretive organization, but one that the British had successfully infiltrated at multiple levels, therefore strident measures were called for to discover the existence of traitors within their midst. A power drill was one such method, but unfortunately, the pain it inflicted was so intense, even the innocent would implicate themselves in order to stop the horrible pain.
The Republican Guard picked up the drill and held it up in front of the man’s face, allowing him to see the fresh blood that dripped off the drill bit.
“You see, traitor, it still drips with your blood. Soon I will use it to drill into your balls or your dick if you don’t tell the Colonel what he wants to know.”
The colonel’s cell rang; it was his driver. He signaled for the guard to stop the drill and spoke into the device for a moment. The guard held the drill and looked at him with visible anticipation.
The colonel hit a two number code assigned to a speed dial and spoke, “I don’t have time to complete this task, but we know that either the Americans or Israelis sent him, so there is no point in getting him to admit it. Give the general my apologies.” He ended the call.
The guard looked at him in anticipation. The colonel read his expression, “Torture h
im to death if you want, or shoot him in the head. It’s up to you, as I need to go.” The guard smiled a broad toothy grin that made his eyes seem to glow.
“As you wish, sir,” he said, turning back to his captive. The colonel turned to leave and heard the whine of the drill and the sudden high-pitched screaming as the guard went to work.
The Mercedes sedan waited out in front of the Republican Guard Headquarters Building. Per the colonel’s instructions, the driver stood by at attention and immediately swung open the door when he spied Stal exit the building.
It was a perfect March day in Tehran, but aside from squinting in the mid-morning sunshine, the colonel hardly noticed. Due to Tehran’s elevation of almost 4000 feet, the climate was relatively mild during the spring and fall. It was currently around seventy-five degrees and the sky was cloudless. There was still a snowcap on the towering Alborz Mountains to the north of the city.
The driver used the sirens and flashing lights to effectively maneuver through the relatively light mid-morning traffic. When they reached the airfield, they had direct access to the tarmac through a gate controlled by the air force. The Military Police officer gave a cursory review of the colonel’s Qud Forces identification card, saluted and waved them through.
In early 2007, Iran Air began to offer a bimonthly flight from Tehran to Caracas with periodic stops in Beirut and Damascus. The mere existence of the flight caused significant concern within the U.S. intelligence community and led to greater concerns as to who and what was being transported between the two rogue nations. The colonel and his cargo would have fallen into that category. The twenty-three large wooden crates loaded onto six separate pallets consumed the vast majority of the jetliner’s cargo capacity.
The colonel exited the Mercedes sedan and climbed up a stairway on the side of the jet way. An older, burly, male flight attendant escorted him past the line of boarding passengers to a private cabin in the nose of the aircraft. He returned a short time later with claim checks for the colonel’s bags and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Scotch, a small ice bucket, and two glasses.
“A gift from the captain,” he said as he set it on the table and retreated out the door.
The colonel didn’t drink much anymore as it played havoc with his blood sugar. But when he did choose to drink, it was only the very best―he figured that if he were going to risk dying; it should be for a good reason. Although Iran was a devoutly Muslim country, allowances were occasionally made for high officials who chose to imbibe, especially if they were of value to the goals of the Islamic Republic.
The cabin was small, but well appointed. It sported a full-size bed, a dining table, two leather reclining chairs, a Chinese Konka brand twenty-inch flat screen TV mounted to the wall, and even a bathroom, complete with a shower stall.
Stal entered the bathroom and took a long piss. He exited, opened a zippered compartment on his laptop bag, and withdrew an electronic device slightly larger than the similarly shaped Blackberry and used it to check his blood sugar. The device was called a Personal Diabetes Manager and also wirelessly controlled and configured the computer-mouse-sized insulin injector that he wore attached to the side of his belly.
Stal figured he would have a drink before dinner and then deliver a corrective dose of insulin to counteract the high amount of sugar that would be inundating his blood stream. He poured himself a strong one—neat—reclined into the plush leather recliner, took a sip from his drink and relaxed. Everything seemed to be progressing nicely.
Chapter Eight - FUOPS
MacDill AFB
It was 0630. The wiz kid operations officer, Captain Wes Jameson, had skipped PT, which filled him with pent-up energy and that made him anxious. He sat huddled in his small, soundproofed corner cubicle of MARSOC’s Special Compartmented Information Facility, (SCIF), satisfied that he had found what he was looking for.
Jameson was a mathematical genius who had graduated fourth in his class at Annapolis. He was also a legacy midshipmen―his father had graduated and risen to the rank of Captain before leaving the navy for a follow-on career with a defense contractor.
Jameson Senior had almost had a coronary when he’d found out his son was taking the option to be commissioned as a Marine. Jameson Junior didn’t drink, was an avid triathlete, and a staunch Roman Catholic. He was a deacon at his church and enjoyed intelligence analysis as a hobby. In short, he was a commander’s wet dream of an Intel Officer.
Colonel Hearth entered the SCIF and shouted “Jamson!”
“It’s Jameson,” he corrected, not looking up from his work, thinking one of his cohort captains was looking for him to go for a morning run. “Like the Irish Whiskey, not the American porn star,” he continued. Hearth smiled and continued across the SCIF towards the sound of Jameson’s voice.
One of the Intelligence Section’s noncommissioned officers jumped to his feet when he recognized the colonel and called the rest of the office to attention. Jameson jumped to his feet as the tall, distinguished-looking Marine poked his head through the doorway.
“I’ll try to remember that,” commented the colonel in a flat tone of voice that betrayed no emotion. “So, what have you got for me?”
Jameson motioned for the colonel to take a seat, but he shook his head. “Got a meeting with the old man in a few. Need to get a quick brief so I can give him an update.”
“Aye aye sir. I think we found them.”
“Do tell,” said the colonel dryly. He had been told this kid was good, but this had to be a record. His ops sergeant, Gunny Robinson, had passed along the name of the yacht on Saturday afternoon and a little more than a day later it had been located.
“Here is a satellite photograph of the yacht at the small island of Bartolomé de Las Casas in the San Bernardo Archipelago, a group of ten or so small islands about seventeen klicks off the coast of Colombia.” The colonel looked at Captain Jameson skeptically; it was going take more than the kid’s cocksure pronouncement to get Hearth’s buy in.
“How did you find them?”
“Child’s play, sir,” said Jameson brightly. “I was going to have my Intel sergeant start contacting various port captains in the Caribbean looking for the yacht, but that would be like trying to find the proverbial needle in a haystack, not to mention the waste of a good NCO,” said Jameson.
The colonel looked at Jameson, thinking how much he hated junior officers who were smarter than he was. Sensing Hearth’s building impatience, the captain continued. “The Good as Gold left the port of Cartagena two days ago in route to Turbo, a port city in the Gulf of Uraba, near the Panama border.”
“If you didn’t call the ports or search every satellite photograph between Cartagena and Turbo, do you mind sharing with me how you found them?”
“I thought about it for a while, continued Jameson, and then it hit me. When you invest four or five million in a yacht, you normally do a few things to keep it from getting stolen. I got the configuration of the yacht from the original dealer based on the registration number that Gunny Rob gave me. It turns out the boat has a device called a Yacht-Tracker installed on it.”
He looked at Hearth with a knowing grin, but the colonel just stared blankly back at him. “The easiest way to explain it is that it’s like LoJack for boats. It combines global positioning technology with a low-power RF communication that runs over the company’s satellite network to let you know where your boat is all the time. Once I had the right vessel ID number, I called my contact at the NSA who has a hack into the company’s network and ten minutes later I had the coordinates emailed to me.”
The colonel smiled. “Can you do the same with my wife?”
***
The general was dressed in casual civilian attire― a dark blue Polo shirt, Wrangler Jeans, and Tony Lama alligator boots―he was meeting with some Justice Department and National Security folks later in the day near Miami and they preferred that he keep a low profile.
Colonel Hearth stood ramrod straight in a modified
parade rest, as was his custom―it reminded him to never relax around the boss— and calmly waited while the general perused a thick brown file folder that had been sent via courier from Marine Corps Archives.
McElroy was seated behind a battered mahogany desk once owned by Lewis “Chesty” Puller, former Commandant of the Marine Corps and one of the most highly decorated Marines in its history.
Puller won five Navy Crosses—more than anyone else—but he never won the Congressional Medal of Honor; probably because he lacked the humility that seemed to be part and parcel for recipients of such a high award.
While fighting a retrograde action during the Korean War, Puller proudly announced that his unit was surrounded by five
Chinese army divisions, thereby simplifying the problem of ‘finding these people and killing them.’
Puller had been no friend to the then-nascent Marine Special
Forces community, personally ordering the dissolution of the four Marine Raider Battalions. His reasoning was that small raid forces were no longer useful against the heavily fortified sites the Marines faced later in the war in the Pacific. Puller’s stated reasoning was that every Marine was special—a cut above your average Soldier or Sailor. That logic held for more than half a century until the events of 9/11 forced the Marines to organize MARSOC and there was no turning back from that point.
Many Marine officers were amateur historians, and living in
North Carolina during a past assignment gave the general lots of opportunities to buy antiques. When Puller’s desk was auctioned at a private event to raise money for the Marine Corps
Scholarship Foundation, McElroy decided he had to have it. He’d had to offer nearly five thousand dollars to outbid a retired sergeant major who had served with Puller at the “Frozen