Warning Order (7 page)

“Just kill me, and get it over with.”

“Oh, you will die, but it will be very slow,” al Qatar said, slamming the pistol across the American's face. He knelt down beside the American and grabbed his hair, forcing his head up.

“You don't remember me, do you? Well, I am not surprised; it was quite a long time ago when we first met.”

Boland was bleeding from his mouth, and his nose was broken. Al Qatar let go of his hair, and Boland rolled onto his side and spit half a tooth onto the filthy concrete floor.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Boland panted as al Qatar stood up.

“We have plenty of time to talk. I just wanted you to know that I have been dreaming about this day since you killed my brother.”

“We need to go,” one of Khalid's men said, checking his watch.

“Very well. Give me the case and help me carry him to the car,” al Qatar instructed.

“What about our agreement? I do not see what you promised in here,” Khalid said, pointing down at the bag.

“You are going to have to trust me. I will have it for you by the week's end.”

“Trust didn't work out so well for him,” the Iranian said, motioning to the bleeding American.

“Give me the case.”

Khalid studied the Iraqi for a long moment before nodding to his man, who handed the case off to al Qatar.

“If you prove to be untrue, things will not go well for you.”

“Have I ever failed you?”

“Not yet, but there is a first time for everything,” the Iranian said, smiling. “Bind him,” he ordered his men.

The Iranians slipped a pair of zip ties over Boland's wrists and pulled them tight with a plastic click. After placing a black bag over his head, they lifted him to his feet. Then, without a word, they retreated to the back of the basement.

“One more thing,” al Qatar said to Boland.

He took the small emergency beacon from the hidden pocket in the American's pants and tossed it to the ground. “We won't be needing this anymore.”

Operations Center

I
t took General Vann fifteen minutes to get to the office, and that was with his driver keeping the government Chevy Tahoe at ninety. Despite the early hour, the Beltway had a sprinkling of cars taking professionals into the city, and as his driver weaved through the sparse traffic, Vann knew that every second could be the difference between life and death.

Vann's driver let off the gas long enough for the armed guard posted at the entrance of the subterranean garage to open the gate, and the tires squealed on the black pavement as he brought the Tahoe to a halt near the secure express elevator. The general hopped out of the backseat slamming the door behind him before heading to the secure express elevator.

Placing his hand on the biometric scanner, Vann waited for the stainless steel doors to slide open and then inserted his keycard into the magnetic reader mounted to the panel. The small LED light switched from red to green, the doors closed, and the elevator shot up toward the top floor.

The car came to a silent halt, and the doors opened, revealing the general's aide standing patiently with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand.

“Here you go, boss,” Captain Chad Brantley said, offering the cup to the general.

“Where are we?” Vann asked while they walked down a nondescript hallway, passing his office on the left.

Captain Brantley looked every inch the soldier, despite wearing civilian clothes. His dark beard was neatly trimmed, and his skin held the burnished bronze of a man who spent most of his time outdoors. His thick neck and broad shoulders gave him the look of a college linebacker, but he possessed a catlike grace that hinted at a deeper, predatory nature.

“It's a shit show, sir,” he said, waving his identification card over the reader attached to the solid steel door.

The lock disengaged with a metallic click, and Vann took a sip of coffee before stepping into the chaos of the tactical operations center, or TOC. The general had developed a taste for strong Arabian coffee during his time in Yemen, and insisted that his staff keep a pot going at all times. He drank five or six cups a day.

As the deputy director of the DIA, Vann had the unenviable burden of keeping tabs on the jihadists who flowed into Syria like water from a broken dam, and the TOC was the nerve center of his unenviable task.

He had made a name for himself in Iraq. As a member of Task Force 121, his crowning moment came in 2006, when his men found and killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi—Osama bin Laden's heir apparent in Iraq in 2006. Vann was known for getting results, and he had left a trail of bodies as proof of his lethal abilities.

But this was different. Unlike his time in Iraq and Afghanistan, he didn't have the assets to get his people out of trouble. Worse than that, the general knew that there was no end in sight to the war he had been fighting since 2001. America was finally learning that there was absolutely no way it could kill its way out of this war, but that didn't mean the United States wasn't going to try.

The TOC was always a frantic place, but with an active mission under way, it bordered on chaotic. Individual monitors covered the walls, but the room was dominated by a large screen, upon which the Reaper drone beamed a clear feed back to the States. Vann's team members either sat before their monitors or moved briskly from station to station, passing pertinent intel. At the moment, everyone was focused on the two smoking birds lying stricken on the ground in Syria.

“They really fucked us on this one, sir,” Captain Brantley said while Vann took his place at the center of the bustling room.

The general studied the downed helos and took another sip of the coffee. There was way too much movement on the edges of the crash site. Jihadist's flooded the area, but it was the lack of movement from any friendlies
around
the birds that made his stomach sink.

“What happened?”

“We think they used a MANPAD on the first bird.”

“Where the hell are they getting surface-to-air missiles?”

“No idea, sir. We assume they must have limited numbers because they used an RPG to knock out the second bird. I have no idea how the pilot managed to get it on the ground,” he said, pointing to the second craft, which was lodged between two buildings fifty feet from the first.

As Vann stared at the mangled tail section of the Mi-17, a figure slowly emerged from the cargo compartment. Instead of elation, the general felt a weight slowly begin pressing down on his shoulders, because he knew that now he had to find a way to get them out.

“Well, shit,” he said grimly. “Someone get Anderson on the phone. Tell him I need an extraction team in the air in ten minutes, and get a fucking satellite diverted.”

“Already done, sir. It should be coming online right about now,” a man said, pointing up to the screen just as another feed appeared.

The general put the empty Styrofoam cup on the edge of the table and reached into his pocket for an unopened can of dip. He used his thumbnail to pierce the thin paper that separated the lid from the can and said, “Find Boland.”

  •  •  •  

The Reaper Brantley had “borrowed” from the CIA banked to the left, and the operator panned out with the powerful camera.

“Got him,” an NCO—or noncommissioned officer—said, pointing out the light-blue Toyota Corolla that was pulling up to the objective.

Vann lifted the gold lid off the can of Copenhagen Long Cut, and used his fingers to pinch the dark tobacco together. It burned against his lip, and the nicotine coursing through his body was tinged with guilt.

“What do you think?” he asked Brantley, never taking his eyes off the two men who got out of the car and jogged toward the building.

“Depends on what you want, sir.”

Besides Vann and Captain Brantley, the only other people who knew the real reason they had launched the mission were SecDef Cage and National Security Advisor Simmons. Like many others who'd served with Cage, Vann considered him the only man still dedicated to purifying America's honor after the shame of Iraq, and he would do whatever was necessary to insure that he carried out his boss's mandates.

“I want to clean up Boland's mess and get on with the plan,” he said honestly.

“Well, then, I think you know what to do.”

“Striker has activated his beacon,” one of the men said as Boland disappeared into the building.

“How could Boland have been so reckless?” Vann asked, knowing the answer already.

“Everyone has a breaking point, sir.”

The easiest thing for the general to do was call in a flight of F-18 Super Hornet combat jets and level the building. If Khalid al Hamas was really in there, he could end half of his problems with one strike—but there was just no way of knowing until Boland did his part.

Vann had a special hatred for the Iranian operative, and for spies in general. The fact that Khalid had strong ties to al Nusra and al Qaeda made him a very attractive notch for his war belt. He itched to give the word to fire. And if the American died, well, so be it.

O
peration Save Boland was under way as Mason stepped cautiously out into the street. He was hurrying to cover when a yell drew his attention to the end of the block. A group of fighters emerged from the shattered doorway of a building, firing as they caught sight of the American. Mason ducked below the rounds that splintered into the wall and brought the Kalashnikov up to his shoulders and fired.

The Russian assault rifle wasn't as accurate as the HK he liked to carry, but at close range, it was much more effective. The heavy 7.62 round smacked his target with enough force to knock him off his feet, and Mason smoothly transitioned over to a fighter lining up on him with his RPG.

The jihadist managed to squeeze the trigger a split second before Mason fired, and the rocket-propelled grenade screamed over Mason's head before detonating in a cloud of black smoke.

The heavily damaged buildings and rubble-strewn streets were a nightmare of tight spaces and improvised cover, and the enemy knew how to use it to its advantage. Mason knew that if he and Zeus were pinned down, they would die in the street. He ducked under the flying debris and shouted, “Zeus, we gotta move.”

Bent double, the Libyan ran to an adjacent position as the American lay down suppressive fire. The jihadists were swarming through the area, on their way to the crash site, and some of them stopped to engage Mason's team before they ran past.

Acrid black smoke and the stench of cordite hung over the area as Blaine and Grinch squeezed out of the jagged spider hole to Mason's rear and headed immediately for the downed aircraft. Mason paused to watch them slip onto the street, hoping this wasn't the last time he'd see them.

They counted on him to keep them safe, but he was sending them into harm's way, which made him feel like shit. Like him, they knew what they had signed on for, but sending them out into the chaos that was unfolding on the next street over was well above the call of duty.

Mason had wasted valuable time covering Renee, and as a result he and Zeus had lost what little advantage they had. Mason's battered body already taken a beating, and he wondered if he still had enough left in the tank to make it out alive.

“Focus,” he told himself, turning his attention back to the street.

The two men bounded up the street, one firing while the other moved, stopping only to strip magazines off the dead. Reaching the end of the street, they finally caught a glimpse of the objective.

But they still had a long way to go.

Mason heard the sounds of a heavy gun firing just around the corner, and when he poked his head out to get a better look, he saw that it was coming from a Russian ZPU-1 antiaircraft gun mounted to the back of a Toyota Hilux. A fighter standing to the right of the truck was providing rear security, and when he spotted Mason peeking around the corner, he ripped off a long burst from the PKM he held low on his hip. The machine gun was nothing more than a robust AK-47, and as it bucked in the man's skinny arms, the rounds sailed harmlessly past Mason's head.

“Give me a break,” he said to himself.

The firing died suddenly as the ZPU jammed. The gunner began cursing and hammered his fist on the feed tray in an attempt to clear a jam.

Mason wasn't too worried about the PKM, but he needed to move before the fighters got the ZPU back into action. Taking a deep breath, he shot out from cover, racing toward the blackened, burned-out vehicle. As he passed, he caught sight of a charred teddy bear lying forlorn in the middle of the street, a silent memento of the war's destruction.

“Allahu Akbar . . . Allahu Akbar,”
the man wielding the PKM bellowed at the top of his lungs chasing Mason across the open space with a wild burst from his machine gun. Behind him, Zeus calmly braced his rifle on the side of the building and put a bullet in the fighter's head.

Mason was almost to cover when rounds began pinging off the hulk he was hoping to hide behind. Zigzagging desperately, he could hear the rounds buzzing past his head like hornets as he dove behind the car.

“They're behind us,” Zeus yelled while firing. Now he was the exposed one, and Mason hugged the scorched bumper of the car, trying to cover his friend.

Mason counted five men, and he expected them to rush Zeus, but instead they set up a base of fire and began maneuvering down the street, hoping to pin down the Libyan until they got close enough to deliver the kill shot.

Another RPG shrieked down the street. “Zeus,” Mason yelled. “Take cover.”

The rocket impacted short of its intended target, and the Libyan ducked behind a slab of concrete. The explosion blew up a cloud of smoke, which provided enough concealment for Zeus to link up with Mason.

Mason saw a figure rushing through the haze and took him down with a single shot from the AK, while one of his comrades filled the gap instantly and laid suppressive fire on the two men hiding behind the car.