Drone Strike: A Joe Matthews Thriller

by David Austin

  In a casual tone, more like two peers than commander and subordinate, Gusarov gestured at Kalugin’s knee and asked, “How’s the leg, Gennady?”

  Kalugin cringed inwardly, hoping his commander hadn’t noticed the limp when he had entered the office. Not wanting to risk being taken off operational status while it healed, he downplayed the severity of the injury. “Getting better every day, sir. Thank you for asking.”

  A blind man could see Kalugin was hurting more than he was letting on, but Gusarov would have responded to the question in the same manner. Hell, he had lost track of how many times throughout his career he had lied to his commanders about an injury to remain with his team. Gusarov pointed to a chair in front of his desk. “Why don’t you sit down before you fall down.”

  Kalugin eased into the chair and unconsciously began messaging his knee. The pain served as a reminder of how fortunate he was to be sitting here in his commander’s office. He and three members of his team had been on a routine patrol with the Syrian Arab Army when they entered the town of Salkhad. The townspeople had been complaining that members of ISIS had been using the citadel as a layover point as they attempted to flee the country. But upon reaching the summit, the patrol had come across a small group of Americans instead of the black-clad fighters. Kalugin had no idea why they were there, but a firefight ensued with both sides taking casualties. The battle ended abruptly when a drone fired two missiles into the soldiers’ positions on the hilltop.

  His team had been saved only by a last-second radio call when the crew of a Beriev A-50 early warning aircraft had noticed an American UAV maneuvering into firing position. Kalugin had ordered his team over the side of the escarpment to get below the blasts. Ensuring all his men were accounted for, he was the last in line when the shockwave propelled him over the three-foot retaining wall and sent him cartwheeling down the hill. While his knee, along with every other part of his body, was battered and bruised, he had managed to endure the tumble without sustaining any major injuries. Kalugin knew they were fortunate to survive the encounter, the warning from the plane circling above the only thing that had kept his men from having their remains scattered around that hilltop with the rest of the Syrian soldiers.

  Gusarov opened a drawer on the right side of the desk and withdrew a bottle of vodka and two glasses. Pouring a couple of healthy portions, he handed a glass to his young captain, then raised his own. “Salut,” he offered, before draining the contents in one shot.

  CHAPTER 9

  Gusarov waited for the slow burn of the vodka to dissipate, then refilled the glasses. Returning the bottle to its place in the drawer, he said, “Only one more, Gennady. We have much to discuss and need our heads to be clear.”

  Having no desire to get fall-down-drunk in the middle of the day, Kalugin was relieved when his boss put the bottle away, even though the vodka making his aching knee feel a little better.

  “As you experienced firsthand on the mission in Salkhad,” Gusarov began, “our interactions with the Americans on the battlefield are becoming more frequent.”

  Kalugin felt a twinge of pain in his knee, as if he needed a reminder of the encounter.

  “I don’t know if it’s part of some grand plan concocted by the generals and politicians in Moscow, or a result of both country’s forces operating in a relatively small battlespace. But after your engagement, and the abortion of an attack on their Special Forces base in Deir al-Zour, I get the distinct feeling that Moscow is tiring of the proxy wars we’ve been fighting with America since the end of World War II. The Kremlin seems to have developed an appetite for more direct action against the United States.”

  That last sentence momentarily stunned Kalugin. Were they really going to begin targeting American forces? Like everyone else in Alpha Group, he often felt his talents and those of his men were being wasted on inferior opponents. Their current deployment to Syria was a prime example. Running operations against antigovernment rebels or ISIS fanatics who have little or no formal military training was a joke. While he was perfectly happy to kill every last one of the zealots, what Kalugin really wanted was to test his skills against the best the world had to offer. Whether it was against the British, the Germans, or in this case the Americans, he relished the opportunity. But like any professional soldier or intelligence operative, Kalugin knew it would have to be done in a manner that would not escalate into an all-out war with the West. And if the battle in Deir al-Zour was any indication, the planners in Moscow needed to seriously up their game before directly targeting American forces again.

  The Deir al-Zour governate is an oil-rich region located in the northeast corner of Syria. Sandwiched between Turkey to the north and Iraq to the east, Kurdish forces maintained a base in the northernmost part of the region roughly fifty miles southwest of the town of Shaddadi. Wanting to reassert control over the area’s oil fields, commanders in Damascus sent a substantial force of Syrian Arab Army soldiers backed by tanks, mobile artillery batteries, and Russian paramilitary contractors to clear out the Kurds. There was only one problem with the plan. A team of American special operations advisors were living on the base as well.

  With the attack looming, the Kurdish commander had used a prearranged protocol to call a Russian liaison officer in hopes of avoiding the impending battle. The Russian denied any knowledge of an attack, so the Americans notified their command, who used a similar deconfliction protocol. Once again, the Russians assured the Pentagon that no U.S. or coalition forces in the area would be fired upon.

  Thirty minutes later, supported by a barrage of tank and artillery fire, the Syrian and Russian units advanced on the Kurdish base. Fearing they would be overrun, the Special Forces team called in air support. The response was immediate, and deadly. An Air Force AC-130 gunship, supplemented by armed UAVs, laid waste to the battlefield. While death was raining from the sky, the Russian liaison officer who claimed to have no knowledge of an attack called the Kurdish commander to ask for a pause in the hostilities so they could collect the dead and treat the wounded.

  Reports estimated that one hundred Syrian soldiers and Wagner contractors were killed, with two to three times that many wounded. In the aftermath of the attack, Russian officials claimed the forces were pursuing a group of ISIS fighters and that the battle was nothing more than a case of mistaken identity. The statement was ridiculous because it was common knowledge that the U.S. and its coalition had driven the radical group from the region. The whole episode was an embarrassment to the governments in Damascus and Moscow.

  Having given Kalugin a moment to fully comprehend the severity of his last statement, Gusarov continued. “Our orders for this next operation are coming directly from the Kremlin. President Polovkin has decided that Russia will be the dominant outside influence in the Middle East from this point forward. And to make that happen, we have to remove the Americans from the equation.”

  President Yaroslav Polovkin had always been a shrewd operator, learning the old ways of the KGB as a young man, and he brought those same skills with him to the Kremlin when he was elected to the highest office in the land. Since Russia’s entry into the conflict, the former KGB and FSB officer, was running its involvement in Syria’s civil war as if it were an intelligence operation by sowing seeds of discontent across the region.

  He had cut deals with the U.S. to establish de-escalation zones along the Syrian and Turkish borders, then allowed Assad’s forces and the Iranians to shred the Kurds. He sat back and watched as Syria and Iran exchanged blows with Israel by flying drones across the border and shooting down an Israeli Air Force fighter on a sortie over Syrian territory. Russian and Syrian forces pounded U.S.-backed rebel positions east of Damascus, and then there was perhaps the boldest move of all, the attack on the Kurdish base east of Deir al-Zour, even though results had been disastrous.

  The one common denominator bringing multiple countries into direct conflict with one another was Russia’s not so invisible hand behind the scenes, orchestrating the ch
aos like a puppeteer manipulating a marionette. Polovkin was betting he could push the Americans out of the Middle East by helping the regime in Damascus remain in power, allowing Turkey to overrun the Kurds, and enabling Iran to dig in on Israel’s northern border.

  As an avid reader and student of history, and as a soldier with a direct role in the operations taking place throughout the region, Gennady Kalugin had a front row seat to what was possibly the most interesting show on the planet. A spike of adrenalin seeped into his system, and the dull pain in his knee temporarily faded to a distant memory as he contemplated what his commanding officer had in store for him. Kalugin found himself on the edge of his seat, literally and figuratively, as he awaited his orders.

  Gusarov took a long drag off his cigarette and blew another toxic cloud toward the ceiling before taking another from the pack. He stubbed the old butt out in the ashtray only after using its glowing embers to light the new one. Gusarov opened a folder and studied its contents a moment before beginning. “As I’m sure you’ve noticed during your time in the unit, the Kremlin typically sees itself as a sledgehammer and deals with every problem as if it were a nail. But there must be some new blood in the planning shop because what has been proposed is quite creative. And if all goes to plan, there won’t be a country in the region, excluding Israel, that will have anything to do with the United States.”

  “Then Russia, led by President Polovkin, will step in to fill the void?” Kalugin asked.

  Gusarov took another pull off his cigarette before responding. “Precisely.”

  Kalugin was intrigued. “And how does Moscow plan on turning the sentiment of the entire Middle East against the Americans?”

  “With the use of a single drone,” Gusarov replied, as he flicked a length of ash from the end of the cigarette

  A single drone? Kalugin couldn’t see how the use of one drone could have such an effect over a region as large as the Middle East. He thought he had a decent grasp of his country’s UAV capabilities, and they were not very impressive. The workhorses of Russia’s drone program were the Forpost and Orlon-10 unmanned aerial vehicles. The Forpost was a licensed version of Israel’s Searcher MK II, a medium-altitude, long-endurance class of UAV with a wingspan of twenty-eight feet. While the Forpost was a large drone with a dual-tail design, the Orlon-10 resembled a miniaturized, pilotless Cessna 150. Both drones were capable ISR or intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms, but neither had the ability to carry any weapons.

  “Forgive my skepticism, sir, but I find it hard to believe we can effect change of that magnitude with a single drone.” Kalugin paused, gathering his thoughts as they took shape in his mind. Working through the problem, he continued, “Besides, we don’t have any UAVs with an offensive capability. And if we used one of our platforms, it would quickly be identified as belonging to Russia. Everyone would know it wasn’t the Americans.”

  “I agree, wholeheartedly, Gennady.” Gusarov said as he leaned back in his chair and exhaled another lungful of smoke. “That’s why we’re going to steal one of theirs.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Joe Matthews sat in the left lane on Route 123, listening to the tick, tick, tick of his turn signal as he waited for the light to change. Every time he made the drive into work at the CIA’s headquarters compound and got caught at this traffic light, his thoughts drifted back to that deadly day in 1993 when a Pakistani national named Mir Amal Kasi exited his van and began shooting indiscriminately into the vehicles waiting to make the turn. Kasi killed two Agency officers, Frank Darling and Lansing Bennett, and wounded three others before fleeing the scene. He managed to get out of the United States and make his way back to Pakistan, where he hid out for the next four years.

  Kasi was captured in 1997 and returned to Northern Virginia to stand trial. In a show of support for the families of those impacted by the attack, the wife of the Director of Central Intelligence attended much of the proceedings in the Fairfax County courtroom in person. Kasi was found guilty in 1998 and remained on death row until his execution in 2002.

  Joe would have given anything to have been sitting in this very spot that day. He could have saved so many families the pain and anguish of losing a loved one by putting a couple of rounds in the Pakistani’s head.

  The light turned green and he made the left onto the quarter-mile access road that led to the CIA’s main gate. Joe slowed his dark-green 2003 Land Rover Discovery and showed his identification to the uniformed member of the CIA’s police force, the Security Protective Service. After having his ID checked, Joe was waved through the gate and continued to the right, staying on the compound’s perimeter road until he found a vacant parking spot along the fence line.

  Entering the Original Headquarters Building’s main lobby, he walked across the seal inlaid in the granite floor, but a quick glance to his right stopped him in his tracks. Until recently, there had been one-hundred-twenty-nine black stars carved into the marble of the north wall, a solemn memorial to honor Agency officers who had given their lives in the line of duty. But a new star had been added in his absence, bringing the new total to one-thirty. The Book of Honor attached to the wall beneath the stars contained the names of ninety-one of the fallen officers. The additional thirty-nine are represented by only a star, their names and the nature of their sacrifice still classified. Even though the most recent addition to the book had no name, Joe knew it belonged to Greg Jacobs, the man he had failed to protect in Syria. Running his fingers through the grooves in the marble, Joe bowed his head and offered a silent prayer, ending it by apologizing to Greg for not bringing him home alive.

  He acknowledged the SPS officer as he passed through the turnstiles and made an immediate left. Hidden in a small alcove was a private elevator that accessed the outer lobby of the director’s seventh floor suite. Use of the elevator was restricted to the Agency’s senior staff and members of the director’s protective detail. Having done several rotations on the Director’s Protective Staff, Joe and his team had access keys to the private lift.

  As he waited for the elevator, he checked his appearance in the reflection of its metal doors. The last time he had been in the director’s suite, he and the guys had been called off the firing range and hadn’t had time to change out of their 511s and Salomon hiking boots. Today though, wearing a gray suit, a starched white shirt and navy-blue tie, and black Allen Edmonds Oxfords polished to a shine that would make the Sentinels at the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery proud, his attire was more appropriate for the seventh floor.

  A chime sounded and a moment later, the doors slid open. Joe stepped in and hit the button on the panel for the seventh floor. Thirty seconds later the doors opened, and he entered the suite’s lobby. He nodded to a member of the protective detail seated at a desk near the door. The guy looked vaguely familiar, but Joe couldn’t put a name to the face. He passed the desk, then turned right and stuck his head through a door to say hello to Paula Hanson, the director’s long-time executive assistant. Paula was happy to see him, but her poker face didn’t give any indication if his career at the Agency would continue or if it was about to come to a screeching halt.

  As he contemplated the fact that this could very well be his last day with the CIA, his mind wandered back to how he got here in the first place. At six feet, three inches tall and a chiseled 215 pounds, Joe looked as if he should be playing strong safety for the hometown Washington Redskins. And if not for the events on the morning of September 11, 2001, he very possibly might have had a career in the National Football League. At the time of the attacks he was a hard-hitting All-American defensive back at the University of Arkansas, and as a junior had led the Southeastern Conference in interceptions. Many NFL scouts were projecting him to be a late first, or early second-round draft pick.

  But those plans changed when his world was turned upside down that infamous Tuesday morning. Joe’s mom worked for a small financial firm and had traveled to New York to meet a client. The meeting
was supposed to have been held at the firm’s office on Wall Street, but the client had been running late and asked if she could come to their office in the World Trade Center instead. It was scheduled to begin at 9:00 am, but true to form, Joe’s mom had arrived a little early. She was in the building at 8:45 when al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 and flew it into the North Tower. His mother, along with nearly three thousand other innocents, died when the towers fell that day.

  After taking time off to grieve with his family, Joe had walked off the campus and into the local Army recruiter’s office. Instead of signing a lucrative NFL contract, the All-American enlisted with the guarantee of an opportunity to try out for the Army’s elite Special Forces.

  His father had tried to convince him to finish college, then serve his country by joining the CIA. Joe came from a long line of covert operatives, and the joke around the house was that the Central Intelligence Agency was really a cover for the family business. His grandfather began the Matthews’ journey into the Intelligence Community during World War II as a member of the Office of Strategic Services, then had continued serving his country with the newly formed CIA. Joe’s father had carried on the tradition, joining the Agency in the late sixties, determined to fight the Communist aggression of the Soviet Union. Now he was on the brink of retirement after a long and distinguished career in the shadows. With the family’s background and history with the Agency, Joe understood where his dad was coming from, but he wanted a more direct role fighting the nation’s newest enemy. He was going to make those responsible for the attacks of 9/11 pay a hefty price for what they did to his family and his country.