Collusion

by Newt Gingrich

  “Senator and Spider, get these kids moving to the helos. Now!” Garrett commanded. With Abidemi’s help, Senator led the way. Spider took the rear guard. They began running with the girls, leaving the other five SEALs behind to cover them.

  Big Mac and Curly were on high ground—a slight rise from the flat earth protected by several large rocks. Sweet Tooth, Bear, and Garrett dug in beside them. Five against the twelve remaining jihadists in the huts.

  Three Boko Haram fighters came running out, unsure what was happening.

  “Wait,” Garrett said through his headset. He wanted as many of them exposed as possible. He was counting. Nine still in the huts. The three jihadists outside the dwellings examined their two dead comrades. One began yelling. They scanned the darkness around the camp, searching for some sign. The SEALs remained hidden. A fourth terrorist emerged and bolted toward the Tacoma truck with its Soviet-made ZKPUT heavy machine gun, unaware it had been booby-trapped when the SEALs first arrived.

  Big Mac aimed his MK-12 sniper rifle—a variation of the standard M-16 created to be more compact and lighter than larger sniper weapons.

  “Wait, use the C-4,” Garrett said. “Let’s keep them guessing where we are.”

  Bear held off until the jihadist had climbed onto the truck’s bed. The deafening blast blew the truck upward. It came crashing down as a fireball. The other jihadists started to seek cover in their huts.

  “Now,” Garrett said. Big Mac fired. Methodical. The other SEALs joined him. Within moments, the remaining three jihadists were eliminated.

  Another fighter ran outside, firing his Kalashnikov in all directions. Big Mac martyred him. It was obvious now where the SEAL team was positioned. Rifles poked from behind the hut’s heavy cloth coverings. Return fire. The jihadists’ barrage continued for several minutes before the Boko Haram fighters stopped. A moment passed and then intense Kalashnikov gunfire. Garrett understood. This second exchange was cover fire.

  A single terrorist suddenly appeared at the bottom of the slight rise below their position. He’d managed to escape from the camp without being seen, perhaps by knocking a hole in the back of his hut. He was less than fifteen yards away, close enough for Garrett to hear him hollering, “Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar!”

  “Suicide vest!” Garrett yelled.

  The attacker’s finger slipped off the dead-man switch as he ran forward. Hundreds of lethal metal pellets blew in all directions. The explosion was deafening. A shock wave.

  Bear was struck in his face. A single metal ball passed directly through his fleshly cheek, exiting out the other side, splintering several teeth. Curly got it the worst. His left shoulder was covered with bleeding holes, making his arm inoperable.

  The explosion rallied the remaining jihadists. Six Boko Haram fighters scrambled from their hiding places.

  Garrett, Sweet Tooth, Big Mac, and a wounded Bear took aim. Killing two. The four others ducked for cover behind the huts. They would try to outflank the SEALs.

  “Blow the deuce,” Garrett ordered. Despite his mouth wound, Bear trigged the C-4 planted earlier. The explosion illuminated the entire encampment. One terrorist near the truck was engulfed by flames. Screamed and dropped to the ground. He didn’t move.

  The others were easy to spot. Approaching the SEALs from their left, two fighters began scampering up the rocks. Sweet Tooth grabbed a modified M-79. The single-shot, shoulder-fired grenade launcher was loaded with a twenty-seven-pellet round. Buckshot. Fatal at such close range. One jihadist was killed instantly, the other seriously wounded. He fell, crying in pain. Garrett finished him.

  “There’s one more out there,” Garrett said.

  “Boss, I counted twenty,” Big Mac said.

  “Nineteen,” Garrett said. “We’re missing one, unless intel was off. I’m certain of it.”

  They waited for a long minute, with Big Mac and Garrett keeping watch while Sweet Tooth, their medic, attended to Curly and Bear.

  “We need to get Curly out to save his arm,” Sweet Tooth advised. “Bear can’t speak but looks like a clear pass-through. Jaw appears broken. But we gotta get moving before both go into shock.”

  “Let’s move,” Garrett said, his eyes still darting across the camp, searching for that twentieth fighter, silently praying that he’d miscounted.

  Sweet Tooth put his arm around Curly’s waist, lifting him to his feet. Once he was steady, Curly slapped away Sweet Tooth’s arm. “My feet are fine, it’s my damn arm that’s falling off.”

  In twenty-five minutes they had caught up with the slower-moving girls being escorted to the rendezvous spot by Senator and Spider.

  “Oh, my God!” Senator said when he spotted Curly’s arm. “I knew this was going bad.”

  “If you faint, Senator, we leave you,” Curly replied, grimacing.

  Garrett kept staring back. No sign through his night-vision that they were being tracked.

  No one spoke as the entourage continued. Garrett heard the sounds of a helicopter flying above them. Elsa Eriksson and the second SEAL team were en route to Nigeria. The other bird would be waiting—but only with space for eleven. Someone would have to wait behind.

  Garrett clicked on his communication with Langley, hoping that a third helo was en route.

  “Two wounded, no dead, all terrorists terminated,” he said.

  Again, Harris cursed. “This is your fault, Garrett. You got one helo waiting,” Harris said. “I’ll send back the other one. But when you are out of there, you’ll pay for this.”

  It took them nearly thirty more minutes to reach the extraction point and second waiting helo. Curly and Bear boarded. Sweet Tooth continued doctoring them as he climbed on board. He was trying to keep shock from setting in. The Golden Hour. Garrett noticed Big Mac limping. He’d not said a word. There were bloodstains on his right thigh. The suicide vest. Garrett ordered him to get on board. That left Spider, Garrett, and Senator, along with Abidemi and nine girls to fill seven spots. Garrett helped Abidemi onto the aircraft.

  “Spider,” Garrett said. “Sweet Tooth is busy taking care of Curly, you get on board and nursemaid the girls.”

  Abidemi climbed off the helicopter. “You’ll need me to talk to the ones left behind. They’re frightened and will panic.”

  Senator started to board. “Let’s go, Chief. The next helo can get the girls.”

  “No,” Garrett said. He knew there would be no helo unless at least one SEAL stayed behind.

  A pilot spoke to Garrett. “These little girls are so light, I can get one more on board.”

  Senator looked at the girls and then at Garrett. He reluctantly stepped off the helo so that more girls could board. The final count—everyone on board except for two girls, Abidemi, Senator, and Garrett.

  “Your ride should be back in thirty,” the pilot said.

  They watched the helicopter lift off. Disappear into the horizon. It was starting to get light. Dawn. Garrett and Senator kept watch. Abidemi and the two girls huddled together, cowering, terrified.

  “Status report,” Harris demanded from Langley.

  “No tangos in sight. We got three girls and the two of us still waiting.”

  “Was it worth it, Garrett?” Harris asked. “Worth two Americans injured? Worth your career?” He didn’t hide the anger in his voice.

  Garrett looked at Abidemi comforting the girls.

  “Yes, sir,” he replied. He switched off his microphone.

  Senator said, “The girl, Abidemi, she’s brave.”

  “You got to be to survive in this hellhole,” Garrett replied.

  “What kind of men are these?” Senator said. “Kidnapping and raping children and then praying?”

  Garrett shook his head. “You did okay for your first mission,” he said. “Be sure to put that in your report.”

  Senator gave him a sheepish look. “What report is that? I don’t know of any report.”

  The sun was peeking over the terrain.

  Garrett heard the rescue hel
icopter approaching. Senator set off a smoke flare. Red. The helo landed. Still no sign of terrorists. Senator helped Abidemi and the two girls aboard. Climbed on.

  “Thanks for not forgetting us,” Senator joked to its pilot.

  Garrett was the last in, still checking the surrounding area. Still looking for that twentieth fighter. The helicopter began lifting from the ground.

  “We made it!” the Senator beamed. He nodded at Abidemi.

  Garrett felt a sense of relief. They had made it. He looked out.

  That’s when he saw the twentieth jihadist. That’s when he saw the RPG lifted to his shoulder.

  Twenty-Five

  Current Day

  “You should have put a bullet in Pavel’s head when he returned from Washington,” an enraged Russian president Kalugin declared. It was the morning after. “You should have shot him like the others.”

  General Andre Borsovich Gromyko didn’t have to ask who the “others” were.

  Russian journalist Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya had been the toe first dipped into the water. Arrested by Russian military forces for her reporting in Chechnya, Politkovskaya had been fatally shot in her own building’s elevator. Back then, the Kremlin had felt an obligation to the West to conduct a mock trial. Five men sentenced. Scapegoats.

  After that, the pretending had ended.

  Kremlin critic Boris Yefimovich Nemtsov. Four bullets. Fired from behind him while crossing the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge near the Kremlin. The reason: he’d revealed the true wealth that the Russian president had stolen. Twenty palaces and villas, fifteen helicopters, forty-three private aircraft, two yachts—one with a waterfall—and a multimillion-ruble palatial estate under construction. How had a Russian president become a billionaire many times over while supposedly living on a $100,000 annual salary?

  “A bullet to the head of a deputy minister would have complicated things,” Gromyko said, quietly hoping to justify his actions.

  President Kalugin scoffed. “And what would the West do?”

  “Not only the West. Pavel still has influential friends here, around us in Moscow.”

  Kalugin’s face became flushed. “And what?” he repeated, his anger intensifying. “They are nothing but frightened field mice.”

  “We can’t murder everyone,” Gromyko replied.

  “Have you learned nothing from history? From Stalin? You only have to kill enough. The others will cower.”

  “We agreed that poisoning Pavel with candy was the best way to cast suspicion on the Americans.”

  “Yes, that was the argument you made,” Kalugin said. “The West accuses us of using poison in England. We accuse the Americans of poisoning Pavel. But your poison only killed his driver and wife.”

  Kalugin was quiet while he pondered yesterday’s escape. Gunfire on Moscow’s streets. Car crashes. A truck explosion. Cell phone videos on social media had chronicled the carnage. Gromyko had arranged for the state-controlled television to announce Pavel and his grandson had been kidnapped. Chechen rebels. Radical Islamists. No mention of any American involvement. Within hours, photos of Pavel and Peter had been distributed everywhere. A reward offered. Roadblocks erected. Security tightened at all border crossings, airports, train stations, and harbors. Help rescue Pavel and Peter! Not since the peak of the Cold War had such an impenetrable Iron Curtain been raised at the borders. Or such a huge lie been told.

  “Has he told the Americans?” asked Kalugin.

  “Pavel never would have disclosed all of our plans until he was safely in America. To do otherwise was to risk the Americans simply leaving him here.”

  “An assumption.”

  “No traitor gives away the crown jewel until he is safe. The Americans might suspect, but they cannot possibly know who we have targeted with our poison. Or who is helping us. Our tracks are covered. We can still move forward with our plan.”

  Kalugin nodded toward official reports on his desk. “Tell me the truth, not what these official versions say. How did Pavel make contact with the Americans?”

  “I suspect he spoke directly to the American president at the Washington funeral for their dead Ukrainian ambassador.”

  Kalugin slapped his open palm down on his wooden desk. “You were warned the Americans had sent this man—Brett Garrett—to help him escape. You knew he was waiting yesterday for Pavel and his grandson. You had men watching the Billa. You could have arrested him.”

  “We needed to wait until he and Pavel were together.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, this is what you said,” Kalugin grunted, “and now? You let them escape like smoke through your fingers.”

  “We know where the American was told to go. Ukraine. At the border near the city of Novhorod-Siverskyi. We will catch them there.”

  Kalugin sneered. “Do you assume this American is as big a fool as you are showing yourself to be?”

  Gromyko shrugged, hoping to minimize the president’s anger. “It will not matter. He cannot escape. If Garrett contacts the American embassy, we will know from our friend there. If he uses any public phone in Russia, we will know. If he attempts to communicate with America by a satellite phone, as he did when we were pursuing him, we will know. He is only one man and he is alone without help. He and Pavel will never cross our borders. I swear to you that I will bring Pavel, his grandson, and the American to you on their knees within the next forty-eight hours.”

  “General Gromyko,” Kalugin said in a solemn voice, “your elbow is close, yet you still cannot bite it.”

  Gromyko’s face turned red upon hearing the familiar Russian proverb.

  “We have been comrades a long, long time, so I will speak plainly to you,” Kalugin said. “If Pavel lives and the Americans discover our Kamera plan, it is you who will receive the next bullet to the head.”

  Twenty-Six

  Thomas Jefferson Kim was exuberant when he entered the CIA safe house in Ashburn, Virginia, shortly before 8:00 a.m. and was immediately disappointed when he found only Valerie Mayberry waiting inside. They sat in awkward silence in the second-level living room of the town house that was identical to hundreds of others in the massive suburban development.

  Ten minutes later, the grinding sound beneath them of the ground-floor garage door signaled CIA director Harris’s arrival.

  Kim couldn’t wait for formalities. He rose from his seat on a beige sofa and blurted out: “I know how General Gromyko knew where to ambush Garrett and Pavel. Ambassador Duncan told them!”

  “What?” Mayberry said, clearly shocked. “The ambassador is a Russian mole?”

  “No,” Kim said. “I mean, he didn’t do it intentionally, but he’s to blame.”

  Harris sat down on an overstuffed beige chair and motioned to Kim and Mayberry to return to their seats on the sofa.

  “You’ve just made a serious accusation,” Harris said, calmly.

  “When Garrett was escaping yesterday,” Kim began, “I called him on his SAT phone and a hacker immediately began trying to intercept our conversation.”

  “Yes, we already know that,” Harris said.

  “Ever since that SAT call, this same Russian hacker has been trying to break into my IEC network. A nonstop assault and I’ve been firing back, trying to penetrate his system.”

  “Cyber combat,” Mayberry said.

  “Exactly,” Kim declared, excitedly. “Without getting technical, early this morning I succeeded in breaking into his system, but only long enough to copy several hundred megabytes of data before he blocked me. What I discovered is your network has been breached.”

  Kim removed a stack of printed-out messages from his briefcase. “At first, I thought the hacker used an advanced version of Pawn Storm—a cyberattack the Russians launched a few years back aimed at NATO, the White House, the German parliament, and a slew of Eastern European governments. It used at least six zero-days, including a critical Java vulnerability, to conduct advanced credential phishing.”

  “They got it from phishing?” Mayberry
said.

  “Russian hackers sent emails to government officials that appeared to come from a legitimate server—let’s say Yahoo. The emails warned there had been a ‘server failure’ and that all emails that were supposed to have been delivered a day or two earlier had been ‘undeliverable.’ To fix the failure, the user was told to hit a ‘start service’ button.”

  “And someone fell for it,” Director Harris said.

  “Absolutely,” Kim replied, grinning. “These phishing warnings were so well done that even a Yahoo service technician would’ve had trouble identifying them as fakes. All it took was for a couple of government Yahoo users to click and the Russians were inside their targets. Their spyware began spreading and collecting personal information and messages.”

  “And that’s how they figured out where Garrett would be?” Mayberry asked.

  “No. I mean, that was my first theory. That’s what the hacker wanted me to think. It was a red herring. The hacker in Moscow was invited inside.”

  “What? Who invited this hacker in?” Harris asked.

  “Ambassador Duncan. My guess is he had a computer problem and whoever fixed his machine created a carefully hidden mirror account,” Kim replied. “What makes this so ingenious is the hacker not only can read message traffic, including the ambassador’s secure emails, he also can block them or, if he chooses, he can answer them posing as someone else. This hacker is really brilliant. Not like me, but still brilliant.”

  Kim handed out several printouts from his briefcase.

  “If what you are saying is correct, it explains the communications breach,” Harris said, “but not how General Gromyko knew about yesterday’s ambush. My instructions to Garrett were hand-delivered and none of us knew about the rendezvous site at the Billa grocery until the morning of the extraction.”

  “That’s right, Director Harris,” Kim replied, “but these printouts show that Ambassador Duncan was sending emails while he was flying to Geneva for an economic summit.”