Patriot

by A S Bond

  Patriot

  A Brooke Kinley Adventure

  By

  A.S Bond

  Copyright © 2014 A.S Bond

  Published by Castle Books, 2014

  License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com

  For Stuart, who shares all my adventures. This couldn’t have happened without you.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Epilogue

  About The Author

  PROLOGUE

  “Scramble Scramble Scramble!” The call came at the start of the shift. For Captain Brad Jones and his crew, every trip into combat began with those three words and a siren, now yowling over the desert airfield. Barely seven minutes later, Brad guided his AH-64E Apache gunship into the air. In the front of the tandem cockpit, Brad’s friend, Gunner Chuck Willows, sat at the controls of the Target Acquisition and Designation System.

  This was a mission they had flown several times; racing to the scene of an ambush to take out a Taliban position.

  “Be advised, we have a small arms fire report and three explosions.” The voice of Joe Blake, Detachment Command back in the Tactical Operations Centre, crackled in Brad’s ear. “And there are two civilian journalists embedded with the platoon.”

  “Copy that.” Two miles out from the target, Brad flew the Apache above the bed of a dried up wadi. Lower than much of the surrounding countryside, he knew it would be invisible to the enemy until the last possible moment. The ground flashed by, a herd of goats fled in terror and a small boy waved a stick at the helicopter. Tomorrow’s enemy, thought Brad as he banked to the left, following the dry water course.

  “Half a mile, Captain.” Chuck called out the range to target.

  “Going visual.” Brad eased up the Apache to a hundred feet. Ahead, he saw smoking ruins of an Afghan compound sheltering the American patrol and the flash of gunfire from insurgents on other side of the valley.

  “This is Crazy Horse One Seven, we have forty individuals with weapons, two hundred meters from the compound, over.” reported Chuck to Command, reading the screens.

  “Crew, we have personnel west of your position, over.” replied Command.

  “We have visual on the target. No strobes. Repeat, no strobes. Confirm position of friendlies, over.”

  “Roger that. Friendlies going green, over.”

  Moments later, clouds of luminous green smoke billowed up from the compound. Smoke grenades.

  “Copy that Command, we have visual on the friendlies. Be advised we’re gonna set up an inbound run, over.” Brad levelled out the chopper.

  “Range Mike Bravo 565888617.”

  “Mike Bravo 56888617 copy that.”

  “Clear to fire.”

  “Firing.”

  A staccato of 30mm rounds from the Apache’s cannon sliced into the fields and the enemy fire over the compound lessened.

  “Good shooting.” said Command, as Brad banked away from the immediate danger zone.

  “We got multiple enemy positions here.” Chuck watched the screen and counted the heat signatures of at least two dozen more Taliban hiding in the fields. “This is gonna go high risk. There’s a group with rocket launchers at four hundred meters.”

  “You got auto range on it?” asked Brad.

  “Affirmative.”

  Chuck pressed a button and Brad felt the deck tremble as a Hellfire missile shot away from the Apache. On the other side of the valley, the missile exploded a Taliban position, taking a rocky outcrop with it and leaving a huge crater in the hillside. The smell of cordite filtered through the cockpit.

  Immediately, Brad swung away the gunship, taking it out of RPG range. Flying this low and slow made them easy targets.

  “We’re taking fire from the north!” shouted Chuck, as if on cue. Red lights blazed across the central warning panel in the Apache.

  “Missile lock!”

  “What the hell?!” muttered Brad, as he instinctively pulled the helicopter into a hard evasive turn, raising the collective for full power, and pushing forward the cyclic to gain speed. Flares and chaff deployed automatically from pods, designed to confuse and misdirect any heat or radar seeking missile.

  “I got visual on the launch. Incoming - get us outta here, man!”

  “I’m on it.” Brad focused on flying the chopper as hard and as fast as he could towards the wadi.

  The missile flew an almost perfect circle, 2000 feet above the helicopter; its internal microprocessors comparing the heat and the electromagnetic signatures from its target with the data profile in its systems. As though making a conscious decision, the missile banked over and descended towards the Apache.

  “It’s on our ass, man.” reported Chuck. “Do your thing.”

  “Where the fuck did the Taliban get an SAM?” Brad shouted as he drove the Apache down into the wadi, hoping to lose the missile in the tight turns and confusion of the terrain.

  Behind them and closing, the missile passed through the cloud of metallic chaff, its sensors registering them as a possible target, but the electromagnetic signature detectors instantly overrode the signal. The missile pressed on, homing in on the fleeing Apache.

  Brad, his hands clenched and sweating on the controls, took a bend, and glimpsed a group of insurgents hit the ground below him. A small - a very small - part of his brain registered a flash of bright blonde hair among them, then he saw the missile take the bend too.

  “I can’t lose it - fuck, what is that thing? Chuck, on my mark, hit it with all the CM we have left and brace yourself. I’m gonna try something.”

  “Do it.”

  Brad gave the Apache full power and headed straight towards the high bluff edge.

  “3,2,1 MARK.” Chuck nailed the countermeasures button and braced himself for the move. Brad yanked back on the controls, pointing the gunship’s nose at the sky and putting it in a high vertical climb, more like a fighter plane than a helicopter. Struggling against the effects of the G force required to pull this unconventional manoeuvre, he prayed the missile would lose their trail in the counter measures and impact on the wall of the wadi.

  At the same
instant the missile passed through the chaff and easily made the turn up and out. The vertical climb slowed the helicopter and the missile closed the gap until it was within a meter or two of its quarry. The onboard proximity censors matched the helicopter’s EM signature and the warhead detonated. Brad and Chuck were briefly aware of an intense light, before a wave of heat and pressure enveloped them.

  The Apache hurtled into the sky, its rotor blades spiralling futilely before they gouged into the sand. The fuselage continued to somersault upwards, until it seemed finally to surrender, and smashed into the hot, dry earth below.

  Chapter 1

  The call came just as Scott was getting up from his desk in the Pentagon. He stared at the flashing light and considered for a moment not answering it. It was 4:30 on a Friday afternoon. He had one meeting upstairs on the third floor and then a chance of getting around the Beltway in time for some R&R on The Painted Lady, his 20-foot daysailer.

  The light kept flashing

  Damn. Scott picked up the handset.

  “Yep.”

  “Scott, it’s Mike.” A buddy from grad school, Mike was twelve years older than Scott and he now worked as a desk officer in technology analysis over at Langley. The two had formed a sort of unofficial liaison over common interests. At a time when heightened pressure on American security and intelligence services seemed to lead to ever more inter-agency shakeups, it was often the only efficient way to share intelligence and navigate the frequent turf wars.

  Mike said, “I’ve got something here that might be of interest to you guys in Warfare Ops. From the Apache Incident. You’ve been fully briefed?”

  “God, yeah. What a fucking disaster.”

  There was a pause as both men imagined those terrible few minutes before the helicopter crashed.

  “Can you get over here this afternoon?”

  “I have a meeting, but I can be out of here by 5:30.” Scott hung up and sat thinking for a moment. Then he picked up some files and headed for the elevator. The serenity of Chesapeake Bay would have to wait for now.

  At the age of 35, Scott Jensen had played the game in DC for over 13 years; longer, if you counted five years of college and internships on The Hill. Just vain enough to keep within sight of the kind of athletic shape he’d had back then, he was short but energetic, and as quick-witted as he was sharp-featured.

  Scott enjoyed his reputation for being a go-to guy and enjoyed even more the rapid promotion to deputy director of a counter-intelligence division inside the Department of Defense. He was openly ambitious, and opportunities were growing in this age of terrorism and security fears. More than anything, though, Scott thrived on the pressure, the unreasonably long hours and the unexpected demands. He got the job done, and he took pride in knowing he did it better than anyone else.

  Later that afternoon, Scott entered the CIA building and found it as efficient and impersonal as ever. After passing through the metal detectors, he clipped his ID back onto his shirt and strode over to Mike who, surprisingly, was waiting for him this time.

  “We’re in the labs today,” Mike said without any preliminaries. Scott followed his friend’s substantial bulk through the hallways. He had almost made it as a pro football player, but it was a long time since the guy had played, that was clear. That is what a government desk job does for you, Scott thought.

  Instead, he said, “Hey man, how’s Gail and the kids?”

  “Yeah...they’re good.” Normally, nothing short of a nuclear holocaust would keep Mike from talking about his beautiful wife and two young boys. Scott took the hint and followed his friend around a corner into Section B, a lab on the east side of the building. Windowless, immaculate and temperature controlled, it offered a welcome coolness after the humidity of early September in D.C. It was also almost deserted.

  “You can take off now, Claire,” Mike said to the young assistant in a white lab coat, who nodded and left without a single glance at their visitor.

  Using his pass and key code, Mike opened a cabinet and, with all the gentleness of a father holding his newborn, took out a large object sealed in plastic. He placed it in front of Scott.

  “This came in yesterday. We found it in the field, and it’s not one of ours. It shouldn’t be one of theirs, either, so where the hell did it come from?”

  Scott broke the seal carefully and unwrapped the thing. “Dear God.”

  “I thought you might say that. It was found in the hands of a dead Taliban commander, near the Apache. He was killed by Special Forces in the area immediately afterwards, fortunately with his hands still on the goods. We found him before his own people did.” Scott said nothing as he inspected every detail of the slender metal tube, just over a meter in length. At one end, three long darts - the warhead - projected forward, while the rear assembly housed the electronic aiming unit. Light and slender enough to be launched from a man’s shoulder, it was terrifyingly efficient. Scott drew in a breath.

  “A MANPAD surface to air missile.”

  “Yep.”

  “Do we know if this is what brought down the chopper?”

  “We’re pretty certain. Up until now, the insurgents in Afghanistan and Pakistan have used standard anti tank RPG-7 ‘s of Chinese design, probably manufactured in Iran. They had some Stingers we supplied to the Mujahidin when they were fighting the Soviets, but we bought most of those back in the ‘80s, and those we didn’t get will be inoperative by now. We know there are some Pakistani-made copies around, but this is totally different. It is the first piece of advanced weaponry we’ve found on them.”

  “It’s not just advanced.” Scott said could barely believe what he was seeing. “It’s practically space age. U.S. forces are still using fourth-generation infrared guided missiles, but this thing is laser guided. Its detection target range must be at least 6 miles. It’s not even a true beam rider.”

  Scott whistled softly. “The operator tracks the target using a joystick to keep the laser aimed, but I’ve never seen one that looked like this. “

  “This little gizmo interested us in particular.” Mike pointed inside the broken aiming unit with a pen. “My tech boys tell me this is an entirely new type of reprogrammable microchip. We think it’s dedicated to seeker input processing and target analysis. Apparently, it’s capable of plotting an intercept course with the target, and keeping the missile on track, even going around buildings, through doors and such.”

  “This looks a lot like prototypes I’ve seen,” Scott said said, his mind buzzing. “So...the user finds the target once, the information is projected onto a matrix in the missile’s onboard aiming unit, which uses your little chip there to combine laser-guided target acquisition of the beam riders with GPS tracking, and keeps adapting to compensate for target manoeuvres until the warhead strikes and detonates.” Scott raised his eyes from the missile to look at Mike. “The implications of this are-”

  “I think we already know the implications.”

  “And once this gets out—as I’m sure it will at some point—so will everyone else.”

  “With ISAF forces dependent on air support in that kind of terrain, a weapon like this, that can bring down aircraft all the time, every time, it’s going to change the entire game. We’ll be vulnerable on the ground and in the air.”

  Scott shook his head in wonder. The weapon was the stuff of sci-fi, and having a monopoly over the most advanced technology was one of the few things that allowed the U.S. to cling to any notion of ‘sole superpower’ status. He realized he was sweating, despite the AC running full blast.

  “This has already been kicked up the ladder,” Mike said, his arms crossed. “The Director took it to the NSC at the White House this morning. We need to try and get some answers, like where did it come from and are there any more, before the rest of the country finds out we’ve just lost our only advantage in a war that is, frankly, not going so well.”

  “Can it have been captured in the field?” Scott asked. “I think the British have something similar
, although it needs to be vehicle mounted.”

  “Liaison says no.”

  “OK, so what do you need from me?”

  “My department is looking at where they got this thing, how they bought it and who supplied them. It was probably made in Iran and carried over the border by some two-bit opium smuggler. But,” Mike said, beginning to pace, “this is a big boy’s toy. I think we should be looking at how they got hold of the technology in the first place. Which is where you guys in counter-intelligence come in.”

  “I see.”

  “You know I can’t do anything domestically, but with your background in weapons within the National Counter Intelligence Executive...”

  “You think there might be some industrial espionage involved here?”

  “Um...maybe.” Mike stopped pacing. “The interesting thing is, that chip was invented here in the U.S. about five years ago, but has not, to our knowledge, been put into weaponry anywhere in the world—until now.”

  “What is it used for?”

  “A type of very high-precision remote drilling in mines, where the drill is laser targeted and GPS is used in the guidance system.”

  “So why keep this investigation under the radar?”

  Mike took a deep breath. “It is and it isn’t. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t look into the U.S. side of this, but it hasn’t been officially sanctioned as a course of inquiry - yet. Partly because...”

  “Mike?”

  “It’s a delicate issue, but as far as we can tell, the technology is still owned by New York’s own billionaire businessman, Jean Maynard.”

  Chapter 2

  Scott was already at his desk at seven the following morning, looking into the original technology patent and its inventor. He hadn’t slept well and there was little comfort or distraction in his small, functional apartment. He had a nasty feeling in the pit of his stomach. Like there was something big about to come around the corner at him.

  The phone cut through his thoughts.

  “Something came of that little problem we discussed.” Mike had clearly been up and at his desk since sometime before dawn. “Maynard has been out to the Middle East three times in the past six months. Private jet into Abu Dhabi, then nothing.”