End Zone

by D C Alden

  The sunrise saw the arrival of a fleet of dusty Mercedes, and the occupants had been photographed extensively, especially the well-dressed, forty-something man who barked orders at the others, who took evening tea alone on the veranda at sundown, who swore drunkenly into his phone late at night. The team’s long-distance audio equipment had recorded the man’s voice and the subsequent intelligence package had been squirted back to Langley for analysis via their portable SATCOM gear.

  Then they’d waited, barely sleeping, their minds and bodies locked in a constant, nerve-jangling state of alert. When the encrypted message came back it was in the affirmative. The target was ID’ed as Walid al-Khatib, one of the most influential and dangerous men in Libya.

  On the surface, al-Khatib was a reclusive businessman and major exporter of wheat, barely, olives, dates, livestock and other commodities, transporting his goods all over Europe and the Middle East. In reality he was a smuggler of fuel, weapons and people. The secretive Libyan was responsible for the deaths of thousands as they paid to clamber aboard his fleet of ramshackle boats and dinghies and make the perilous crossing to the promised land of Europe. And lately, not just migrants.

  For the past few months, ISIS and Al-Qaeda fighters had quietly joined the ranks of the desperate and had disappeared into Europe. Langley had gotten wind of an operation from an asset in Tripoli; a terror strike was being planned, against unknown targets by unknown personnel. The intel suggested the strike would be on a scale not seen before. They also knew that nothing moved out of Libyan waters without al-Khatib knowing who it was and where they were going. Now Uncle Sam was going to make him talk.

  That was the original plan.

  Mike clambered out of his seat and stretched his body. Every muscle ached, and his eyes were tired and gritty. He yawned as he slung the short-barrelled M4 CQBR over his back. The Libyan watched him and smiled. Mike ignored him. He walked up to the cockpit of the aircraft and stood between the two CIA pilots. Beneath the nose of the plane, the vast, blue expanse of the Mediterranean Sea stretched towards a hazy horizon.

  ‘How long?’ Mike asked.

  ‘Forty minutes until we hit the outer marker. Altitude is set. You’re good to go.’

  ‘Roger that.’

  He stepped back into the passenger cabin. His team was spread out in the seats around al-Khatib, all of them physically strung out but thankfully in one piece. They’d taken a risk but it had been unavoidable; what self-respecting man could hide in a ditch while a child was getting raped a few yards away? Not Mike Savage, as it turned out.

  The plan was to wait until pre-dawn, but the little girl’s pitiful screams had put an end to that. Instead, at just after three a.m. local time, Mike shoved his combat knife into the windpipe of the nearest sentry and opened him up without a sound. Then he led Miller and Flynn through the kitchen door while Tapper and Boswell stayed in the trees and covered their entry point. The Rules of Engagement were simple; drop anyone who posed a threat.

  Mike’s second kill was in the hall outside the kitchen, a guy who’d just stepped out of a bathroom and was hitching up his trousers. Mike shot him twice in the chest at close range, but even suppressed rounds and falling brass can make a lot of noise at three in the morning.

  Bare feet slapped around the building. There were shouts in Arabic and screams of terrified young girls. Mike and his guys spread out in the hallway and waited. Tactically, the enemy were no match for the Americans, and five of them lay dead before they figured out that someone should probably loop around the building and assault from the rear. When they did, Tapper and Boswell’s lethal arcs of fire took care of them.

  By the time the shooting stopped, all twelve of al-Khatib’s security people were dead. They found the man himself hiding in the master bedroom wearing only his underwear. They also found the naked, violated and strangled body of a ten year-old girl in his bed. Mike wanted to shoot him on the spot. Instead he let him get dressed and had him escorted outside.

  The six kids locked in another bedroom were traumatised but okay. All of them were African, trafficked up from the sub-Saharan countries. The oldest was a seventeen-year-old Rwandan who told Mike she could drive a car, so he gave her the keys to one of al-Khatib’s Mercedes and a bag stuffed with US dollars they’d found in his bedroom. Mike told her to head east, to the Egyptian border. The girl thanked him and corralled the other youngsters into the car. Mike watched them drive away into the night, praying they’d make it but knowing they’d probably be robbed and abandoned long before they reached safety. If they were lucky. The world, he knew from much experience, was a severely fucked-up place.

  The domestic staff took off into the night and the CIA operators policed up all the discoverable intelligence they could find. After al-Khatib had been bundled into the trunk of the remaining Mercedes saloon, the team headed south along a dusty back road. Pat Flynn, a former Delta Force operator from south Boston, drove with the lights off and his Enhanced NVGs on.

  The extraction point was eleven miles south of al-Khatib’s compound and the SAAB 340B appeared on time and low on the horizon, just as the sky was paling to the east. The aircraft landed on an empty road, spun around in a cloud of rust-coloured dust thrown up by its powerful twin turboprops, and rocked to a stop. Mike torched the Mercedes as the others bundled the prisoner aboard. Less than sixty seconds after it had touched down, the aircraft lifted off again, heading fast and low across the hills towards the Libyan coast. The SAAB 340B was a CIA plane and its jammers went to work, masking its passage as it headed out to sea. As the plane climbed higher, Mike’s spirits began to sink.

  His hood and gag removed, the prisoner began protesting his innocence and issuing threats. And then the encrypted message had come through.

  You’ve got the wrong guy.

  The real Walid al-Khatib had just been positively ID’ed by a Libyan government official who, at that very moment, was loitering outside the Minister of Interior’s office in Tripoli. Behind the office’s thick mahogany doors, al-Khatib was having a private meeting. The government official had even covertly photographed al-Khatib and his entourage.

  You’ve got the wrong guy —

  So who have we got?

  Omar al-Khatib, Walid’s first cousin and occasional doppelgänger, missing presumed dead after the Akakus Oil transport plane he was travelling on crashed in the desert over a year ago. Walid uses him to throw others off his scent…

  Now Mike had new orders.

  He stood in the aisle and cocked his chin at the two guys sat behind al-Khatib, Jake Boswell and Ty Miller, the big red-head from Saint Paul, Minnesota.

  ‘Get him up.’

  The former Black Knights linebacker and army Ranger yanked the Libyan out of his seat.

  ‘You make big mistake,’ al-Khatib protested in broken English. ‘Maybe I tell TV people Americans kidnap Libyan citizen. Or maybe America pay me money to keep my mouth shut, huh?’

  Mike took a step forward until he was toe-to-toe with the man. His breath reeked of cigarettes and garlic, and Mike’s stomach churned, but it wasn’t the smell. It was the memory of that frail, broken body in al-Khatib’s bed, the sightless eyes that had no doubt witnessed more than her fair share of pain during her short, miserable life. The last face she’d seen before she’d died was the man standing in front of him. Mike was so disgusted he had to turn away.

  ‘Crack it,’ he ordered.

  Boswell looped his Sig Sauer SBR over his back and dropped to his knees in the cargo area behind the seating. Flynn helped him as their hands went to work, flipping latches and lifting out a section of the floor. The roar of rushing air and the thunder of turboprop engines filled the cabin.

  ‘Get him prepped,’ Mike yelled.

  Miller spun the Libyan around and marched him to the back of the plane. When al-Khatib saw the hole in the floor, the man’s socks began to slide on the carpet as he pushed back against his captor. Miller grabbed him by the collar and forced him to his knees.

&
nbsp; Mike stepped around the hatch and squatted down to face the prisoner. There was still some defiance there but it was leaking away fast as al-Khatib’s wide eyes drilled into Mike’s.

  ‘You trying to scare me? You in big trouble, my friend! I have human rights!’

  ‘Untie him,’ Mike ordered.

  Don Tapper, Mike’s XO, stepped up, yanked a black-bladed Spyderco from his chest rig and sliced through the zip ties behind al-Khatib’s back. The Libyan rubbed his wrists, still refusing to look down. There was real fear in his eyes now, the severing of his bonds an almost symbolic gesture, and one that al-Khatib understood immediately.

  It said, You’re free to leave.

  Mike stood. Any resistance that al-Khatib still possessed, left him. He looked up at the CIA officer, his hands clasped together as if in prayer, his voice piercing above the roar of the engines.

  ‘Wait! You cannot do this!’

  Mike had seen a lot of people die in a lot of different ways. It was unavoidable in his profession, but it was dead children that triggered the nightmares he occasionally suffered. Like the little African girl, now wrapped in a rug beneath a Libyan olive tree.

  ‘My brother, I can give him to you! Please!’

  Mike held up a finger and shouted above the thundering turboprops. ‘If you want to live, tell me where Walid is right now.’

  He saw the hesitation in the man’s eyes. ‘He is in Morocco! A hotel in Rabat! I swear!’

  Mike shook his head. ‘I gave you a chance, pal.’

  He stepped back from the hatch. The plane was starting to lose height but they were still several thousand feet above the waves. It would be a long fall. An opportunity for al-Khatib to reflect on his crimes.

  ‘Do it,’ he told Miller.

  The former Ranger lifted a big leg and stamped on al-Khatib’s back, sending him flying forward into the hatch. The Libyan screamed, his hand slapping desperately at the metal edge, and then he was gone, the scream snatched away by the roar of wind and engines.

  Mike caught a final glimpse of him, a tiny black figure tumbling into nothing against the deep blue expanse of the Mediterranean Sea.

  ‘Seal it up.’

  The aircraft landed twenty-four minutes later at the US Naval Support Facility at Souda Bay on the rugged Greek island of Crete. Before they disembarked, Mike and his team packed all their gear and guns into holdalls and loaded them into a waiting minivan.

  The debriefing was carried out in a grey-walled classroom beneath the facility’s training building. Stan Lando, a Special Operations Group Field Supervisor, reinforced the point that no one was to blame; the voice print and photo analysis were a positive match. It was regrettable, but reminded them that shit happens. On the plus side, the phones and laptops might offer up an intel bonus, and the team managed to free a few young trafficking victims, but Mike didn’t take much comfort from any of it.

  Lando wrapped up the debrief and cut the guys loose. As they filed out of the room he asked Mike to wait.

  The door closed and they were alone. Lando sat next to Mike. He had sweat patches under his arms and his tie was pulled loose from his shirt collar. It had been a tough few days for all of them.

  ‘Hey, the guy had us all fooled,’ Lando said. ‘Look on the bright side, cousin Omar might’ve been clean. Now that would’ve been embarrassing.’

  Mike gave him a dark look. ‘He wasn’t.’

  ‘And he’ll never hurt anyone again, right?’

  ‘True. Would’ve been nice to bag the big guy though. It’ll take a while to work up another opportunity. Walid will go to ground. It’s going to be tough to reacquire him.’

  ‘Forget about al-Khatib. He’s officially on the back-burner.’

  Mike raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s up, Stan?’

  ‘Something else has come up. It’s a drop-whatever-the-fuck-you’re-doing type of deal. Highest priority, supersedes everything on the slate right now, including al-Khatib. And it stays that way, until the situation is resolved.’

  Mike cracked a weak smile. ‘You wanna let my guys catch their breath?’

  ‘This is no joke, Mike.’

  ‘What’s so goddamn important?’

  Lando’s eyes narrowed, his skin wrinkling as he frowned. ‘It’s related to Baghdad. To the outbreak.’

  Mike’s smile faded. CIA Head of Station Bill Jacobs had been killed during the incident. Bill had been a friend and mentor of Mike’s, and the news had hit him pretty hard. He’d also seen some of the recovered footage, plus the stuff on LiveLeak and YouTube. The scale and speed of the outbreak had been truly terrifying. Guns and grenades Mike could deal with; WMDs were something else. A filthy, nasty business.

  ‘So, what’s the deal, Stan?’

  Lando grabbed his laptop and sat back down. ‘Take a look at this.’ He tapped a play icon and turned the screen so Mike could see the man in the black turtleneck, the ski mask and sunglasses who sat in front of a tarpaulin and spoke in heavily-accented English.

  ’President Coffman, for many years I have been a great admirer of your country, especially your armed forces…’

  Then the tarpaulin dropped.

  Mike swallowed hard.

  She cracked open a tired eye and saw a man standing over her bed. Despite the closed blinds and minimal lighting she could see he had short fair hair and wore a suit and tie. A winter coat was draped over one arm.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name is Bradshaw. I’m from the Security Services. We spoke on the phone.’

  ‘Show me your ID, please.’ Her paranoia was way off the charts but she didn’t care. When she closed her eyes all she saw were dead people, naked, gassed and drowned. They pointed at her and whispered her name. They terrified her.

  Bradshaw flipped open a small black wallet and Olivia clocked the pyramid badge of Britain’s domestic security service and Bradshaw’s stern-faced mugshot.

  ‘Okay if I sit?’ asked the MI5 officer.

  Olivia shook her head, mindful of the thin oxygen tubes snaking up her nose. Bradshaw hung his coat on a stand and pulled a chair close to the bed.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ she told him. Her voice was weak, croaky.

  ‘Olivia or Mizz Paige, which do you prefer?’

  ‘That’s not my real name.’

  Bradshaw smiled. ‘Likewise. We’ll keep it simple for now, okay?’ Olivia nodded. ‘So tell me, why won’t you talk to your own chain of command?’

  Olivia took a tired breath. ‘I was delirious when they brought me in. I must’ve said some things because I heard them talking about me.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Uniforms. Senior bods from the Met. They stood right there.’ She pointed to the end of the bed. ‘They thought I was sleeping. They think I’ve gone crazy. I’ve been working them for some time, you see.’

  ‘The environmentalists?’

  Olivia nodded her shaved head. Without her trademark dreads, her head felt as light as a balloon. ‘I went deep for weeks, no contact with my handler, no phone calls or emails, no dead-drops, nothing. They were paranoid about security. We were practically prisoners.’

  ‘And you’ve spoken to no one about this?’

  She shook her head, the tubes brushing against her pale cheeks. ‘Only you.’

  Bradshaw reached inside his pocket and pulled out a small device. ‘Do you mind if I record this?’ She didn’t, and Bradshaw set the device down on Olivia’s bedside table. ‘I want you to start from the beginning. I want you to tell me the whole story; names, places, events, everything. As much as you can remember.’

  And so she did. Olivia talked for just over an hour, in which time Bradshaw uttered not a single word. As she recounted her experiences she felt her heart rate rising, echoed by the beeping of the ECG monitor beside her bed. By the time she was finished, Olivia was exhausted.

  Bradshaw retrieved his recording device, briefly checked the audio, then pocketed it.

  ‘I’m going to have you moved to a private hosp
ital in London. Say nothing to anyone, doctors, nurses, and especially your fellow officers.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Olivia felt wiped. The session had drained her more than she realised and sedatives lingered in her bloodstream. She felt her eyelids getting heavier by the second. ‘You have to find Marion and Lucas. Especially her. She’s the brains. I got the impression there were others too.’

  She coughed several times, a deep wet hack that threatened to develop into something serious.

  ‘It’ll take a couple of hours to get organised,’ Bradshaw told her. ‘In the meantime get some rest. I’m going to stay here with you, wait for the transport, make sure you’re taken care of.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Olivia mumbled, watching him get to his feet and dial a number on his phone.

  Oblivion beckoned like a warm duvet slipping across her body. She finally gave into it, let it wrap itself around her in its comforting embrace. Two words followed her into the darkness, two words uttered by the man from MI5 who stood in the shadows at the end of her bed.

  National emergency.

  Funky Cold

  The city of Medina, a suburb of King County, Washington, is one of the most exclusive neighbourhoods in the whole of the United States.

  Its residents are an eclectic mix of tech billionaires, financiers, rock stars and entrepreneurs, most of whom value their privacy above all else, which explains why Medina is also one of the country’s most densely surveilled neighbourhoods. At the southern end of that immaculately-groomed peninsular stands the modern, glass and steel residence of Robert Blake, co-owner of defence giant Kroll Industries.

  Bob and his wife Celine loved to entertain, and were studiously selective about the guests they chose to invite to their frequent soirees. For their party that night, one guest had flown in from Washington DC, despite the troubling development from London. Her trip was a private one, and her car avoided the brightly-lit main entrance and stopped around the side of the house where the external lights had been switched off, and where Bob Blake waited for her in the doorway of the staff entrance. He wore a black tuxedo with a silk cummerbund, and his thick dark hair had been combed back off his forehead. Even his beard had been neatly trimmed, Coffman noticed. The man had smartened up his act.