Satan's Spy (The Steve Church saga Book 2)

by André Le Gallo

  Straight-faced, Navarre told his men, “Make sure this mission takes place without a hitch. Obtain all-source intelligence on Iranian patrol boats. This mission won’t get off the drawing board if the Iranians want to play ‘chicken’ again.”

  61. Zagros Mountains, Iran

  Mike, Steve, and Kella reached the yellow pin first, after a ride that took them over rocky arid ground full of fissures and little vegetation. It was now dark. Mike let Steve and Kella out then parked close to a boulder as high as the truck. He and Steve rolled the second motorcycle off the truck bed.

  “Ali should be here soon. We’ve been riding in and out of this area for the last week, first during the day, then at night. Ali has a good grasp of this geography. That’s what rehearsal is all about,” he said in a reassuring them.

  He asked, “Either of you ridden one of these?”

  “Nothing that fancy,” Steve said, eyeing the bike with heightened interest. “I had an old Harley in college.”

  Looking less enthusiastic than Steve, Kella said, “Never have.” She hesitated an instant then added, “I guess the truck is out of the question.”

  “From here on, the trails go through choke points too narrow for any truck or car. For example, there are a couple of ravines that can only be crossed on planks masquerading as bridges. It’s either bikes, or walking, or horses, and bikes are best. We’ve got,” he looked at his watch, “about five hours to reach our rendezvous with the SEALs. By daylight, you should be on a ship enjoying blueberry pie.”

  Noticing the unspoken question in Steve and Kella’s eyes, he added, “As far as I’m concerned, that’s the Navy’s best contribution to mankind.

  “How about weapons? Either of you weapons qualified?” Mike asked, leaving blueberry pies to refocus on the practical requirements of the mission.

  Steve answered for both of them. “We both have general weapons knowledge, but you could give us the thirty-second briefing on anything you want us to use.” Kella was biting her lips.

  Mike went back to the back of the truck and opened a concealed compartment over the wheel well. “Ali will handle this big guy,” and he laid a Squad Automatic Weapon on the truck bed.

  “Just in case you need to use it, let me introduce you. This baby is an M249, gas-operated, air cooled belt-fed with a Beta mag. It fires the 5.56 mm cartridge, and it’s set on 750 rounds per minute. Don’t change the setting.” He pointed to each part as he identified them. “Eotech Sight for fast acquisition, a laser sight, a gangster handle, and a rubberized trigger grip.”

  “When you leave here,” Steve commented, “you’d make a hell of a salesman. But this looks heavy,” and he picked up the weapon. “And a minute’s worth of bullets is going to weigh a ton.”

  Mike looked toward the skyline, listening for any sounds indicating that Ali was getting closer and said, “We’re not going to be walking so weight is not a problem. This SAW will give us enough firepower to take care of an entire truck of soldiers.” He paused before adding, “Our problem will come from IRGC special troops or commandos. They could come at us from any angle. You each should carry a personal weapon.”

  He retrieved two Glock pistols from the truck’s hidden compartment, “Here, you can carry one of these. Two magazines each should be enough,” he said as he handed them both the pistols and the ammunition. “This is not going to be trench warfare.”

  “Not trench warfare. I’m so relieved.” Kella spoke as if to herself. “Shouldn’t we be moving?” She looked into the dark, shifting weight from one foot to the next.

  Mike paused and listened again. “Well, we’ve got a few minutes,” he said.

  Let me tell you about this machine.” He stroked the BMW gently.

  Pointing as he spoke, he said, “Each bike as two Garmin GPSs, one for the next check point and the other for the entire route. Super bright HIV lights, which will be essential off road tonight. Satellite tracker and communications, both linked to our helmet earphones. We’ve also added octane booster to the fuel.”

  “What’s holding up Ali?” Kella asked.

  At that moment, shots rang out just before the high-pitched whine of a bike came out of the darkness.

  “That’s too close,” Mike said. “Let’s get ready. You have all your stuff?”

  Again Steve checked to make sure that he had Firuz’s CDs. Mike mounted his bike, and Steve climbed on back. Mike gunned his engine, and they waited.

  Ali was next to them a few minutes later, his light grey Circassian eyes like beams in the dark.

  “I’ve got one motorcycle and a jeep behind me, but they’re not close. They’re shooting blind. I don’t think that they know the territory very well. Still, we should get going.”

  His words were followed by the sound of vehicles. “Any changes to the plan?” Ali asked.

  “No. Kella will ride with you. Makes sense weight-wise, and Steve has ridden before. Both have some experience with weapons. Here, take your big daddy.” Mike handed the SAW to Ali who slung it across his back.

  Before moving forward, both Mike and Ali took night goggles from their saddle bags and put them over their helmets.

  Mike and Steve headed out first; Ali and Kella, face to face with the SAW, followed.

  62. Zagros Mountains

  Steve found he had a difficult time keeping silent, as Mike proceeded half out of memory along a treacherous path full of loose rocks, sand, and deep folds in the ground. They stopped occasionally to listen and knew at least that there was one bike still in pursuit. A few miles further, the slope of the ground generally declined. At the top of a deep ravine, Mike instructed Steve and Kella to dismount and cross on foot.

  They went down the steep embankment where, halfway down, two boards had been laid side by side. This primitive “bridge” crossed over a twenty foot ditch, a dried out stream bed excavated over time by heavy rain falls and sudden floods that occur between October and December. Steve and Kella crossed and climbed on the other side.

  A few seconds later, Mike rolled down carefully and, ten feet before the plank bridge, released the bike’s power, which took it across the boards and up the rise in a difficult-to-watch few seconds. Ali followed with his own bike.

  Mike motioned to Steve. “Hold on to my bike. We need to get rid of that bridge.”

  Mike climbed back down on foot. As he was dislodging one of the boards from its semi-permanent home in the soil, he heard a motorcycle, but on the wrong side. Their crossing had taken too long. Although across the ravine from them, the Iranian pursuer was closer than anticipated. Looking down at Mike, he took a pistol out of his belt holster. His motorcycle’s headlight pointed down and half-blinded Mike.

  Awkwardly, feeling defenseless at the bottom of his hole, Mike tried to make himself smaller as he took his Glock from the back of his belt. He aimed it up at the light and got off a quick shot. Other shots exploded at the same time. A bullet hit the board a few inches from his foot. And a burst of automatic fire flew over his head.

  Suddenly, the bike at the top of the steep slope roared and the light sped down toward Mike gaining speed. In his death throe, the rider had given his machine more gas. He and his bike missed the boards and plowed into the wall on the far side, bouncing back to the floor of the ditch. Mike only had a brief glance of the rider’s bloody head as he and his machine flew past him.

  “I’m going to shoot out the lights and kill the engine, too,” Mike shouted to the others above him. “We don’t want him found right away.”

  Mike moved to the edge of the depression for a better angle. He hit the light with his first shot and then adjusted his aim toward the engine. His third shot exploded the bike’s gas tank and, in a seeming act of revenge, the machine sent a tongue of flames up toward Mike who had no time to react. Some of the flame was deflected by the plank bridge, but his left trouser leg was on fire, and he screamed in pain and shock before rolling on the ground to try to extinguish the flames.

  Steve leaned the bike he was holdi
ng onto its stand and ran stumbling down the slope, taking his plastic water bottle out of his pack at the same time. He leaned over Mike’s body and poured the water on Mike’s leg extinguishing the flames. He helped Mike back to his feet and half-carried him back up the slope.

  “I don’t think that he can drive this bike with that leg,” Ali said. “That’s the shifting side. You’re going to have to drive, Steve.”

  As Kella tended to Mike’s leg, Steve moved closer to examine the bike. “It’s been a while,” he said. “I’m going from a Model T to an F-16. Let me have a look.” He mounted the bike and took stock of the controls.

  Mike, wincing in pain, said, “Ali, help me get up on the bike in back of Steve. I’m the back seat driver. If we don’t get out of here fast, they’ll find us and we’ll all be dead.”

  “Fuck the Iranians!” Ali said. “I’m the medic on this team, remember? Half an hour from here is a palm grove oasis. It’s not directly on our route but it’s a good place to take care of your leg and regroup.” Talking as he led his suffering partner toward Steve and the bike, he said, “I can’t believe you shot hot rounds into a gas tank. You must have been AWOL when they handed out brains. Sir!”

  Mike smiled ruefully through the pain.

  Back on the bike with Kella behind him, Ali took charge. “Steve? Mike?

  Ready?”

  Mike gritted his teeth and said, “Good to go.”

  “Wait!” Steve exclaimed. “He felt his pack for the CDs; they were still there. “Okay, right behind you.”

  For the next half hour, until he could inspect them more closely, Steve worried that the CDs might be damaged.

  63. Manama

  As soon as the meeting with the SEAL officer was over, Navarre looked at his watch and called his XO to tell him to oversee their departure from port. Then he texted Thérèse:

  HI! JUST LEARNED FROM SEAL OFFICER THAT UR HERE. STILL IN PORT BUT LVING NEXT FEW MINS. WHY DIDNT U CALL? MISS U! B.

  Within a few minutes, he received a reply:

  THOUGHT U WERE ALREADY GONE. SRY. WHEN WILL U BE IN CONUS? UR SEAL IS PICKING UP 2 OF R PPL. TAKE CARE OF THEM. MISS U 2! T.

  Navarre reread Thérèse’s message. When would she be back in the Continental United States? Had her emphasis been on the professional part, picking up the CIA operatives, or was the emphasis on the personal? Did she really assume that he would be gone already, or was she avoiding him? Had he been too forward? Although she had responded with a “Miss you too!” Overall, he guessed, it was positive. When could he get back to Washington?

  64. Zagros Mountains

  Ali was applying ointment and bandaging Mike’s leg when they both heard the thump-thump-thump sound of a helicopter’s blades. They had reached an abandoned palm grove that was off their planned route to the coast, but Ali and Mike agreed that it offered the only cover for miles. There was a pool of muddy water on their side of the grove. The geometric pattern of the tall trees told them that this had once been a commercial date plantation. However, without human maintenance, nature was doing a lousy job of it, and the vegetation in and around the palm trees made the grove’s interior practically impenetrable. The bikes were well hidden under the trees.

  They watched the helicopter’s safety lights come closer. Suddenly, a bright spotlight went on, pointing its high intensity beam at the grove. The aircraft was too high for the light to be effective; but the four of them retreated further into the grove and froze. The helicopter swooped lower and circled the grove.

  “They can circle until the cows come home,” Ali said. “Unless they drop off a squad of soldiers to search on foot, they’ve got a mission-impossible.” The craft seemed to be getting ready to do just that. It hovered on one side of the grove and came within a hundred feet of the ground.

  “Shit!” Ali said moping sweat from his head.

  Instead of landing, the chopper circled the grove again, the light searching and probing. Before it passed on their side, Ali got into a prone position and steadied his SAW’s sights on the helicopter. “Fifty yards,” he assessed. “Can’t miss,” he muttered under his breath.

  Steve glanced at Mike but realized that Mike was in no shape to make decisions. He could see that the pain monopolized all of Mike’s focus. He seemed barely aware of the helicopter. Looking toward Kella, he saw that she also held her Glock pointed at the chopper.

  Steve reached toward her and lowered her weapon. “Too far for a pistol shot.”

  Steve turned to Ali and said, “Don’t shoot unless he lands. Give him a chance to go away.”

  The pilot hovered for a minute as if a discussion was taking place inside the helicopter. An instant later, the craft took its search south, resuming its altitude.

  With relief in his voice, Ali said, “They didn’t have any troops on board or they would have landed.”

  “Right,” Steve agreed. “If they have doubts, the next chopper will have troops,”

  “Now comes the hard part,” Ali said, “We’re going to navigate with night goggles. We can’t travel with our headlights anymore.”

  They pulled their bikes from hiding, and Ali briefed Steve using the bikes’ GPS maps to coordinate their route. They all drank water from their plastic bottles and lowered their goggles over their eyes. Then they left the security of the grove with Mike hanging on to Steve.

  65. Persian Gulf: U.S.S. Dulles

  In the big ship’s Combat Information Center, Lieutenant Wayne Duncan again checked the weather.

  He had been almost permanently stationed in the Dulles CIC since the time he left Navarre’s briefing. The winds had been unusually strong. Given a choice, he would delay the operation twenty-four hours. Conditions were expected to improve the next day. Unfortunately, the timing was out of his hands and wholly determined by the operational situation in Iran. There was no alternative to making the pickup as scheduled. His Rigid Inflatable Boat was fast, fifty knots on smooth water. However, high waves robbed the RIB of its superior speed.

  If they could only wait a few hours. The pickup had to be at night for the safety of the exfiltrees and the success of the operation.

  He checked again, and the waves measured eight feet, the wind thirty knots; a bit lower than his boat could handle, but not a comfortable or safe ride. The good news was that the wind would keep Iran’s fast boats in port. The bad news was that the Iran Navy could substitute those small fast boats with heavier vessels. If faced by larger boats that could sustain heavy weather, Duncan’s RIB would be a sitting duck. The other bad news was that the second half of the mission, leaving Iranian waters with the CIA operatives, would take place at day break.

  He contacted Task Force 160, better known as the Night Stalkers. Originally out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, the unit, officially called the Special Operations Aviation Regiment, had been created after the disastrous attempt in 1980 to free the American hostages held in the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. The Night Stalkers, an elite unit that specialized in night operations in support of Special Operations Forces, normally worked with the Army Rangers. However, they had also supported SEAL operations. To his question whether the high seas and winds were show stoppers, their confident answer was, “Not a problem.”

  On schedule, Duncan and his crew separated from the Dulles mother ship, which didn’t stop or slow down or deviate from its course toward the Strait of Hormuz. Duncan and his men were sixty miles from their objective. Powered by twin 470 HP diesels, the RIB would take them to the Iranian coast in about an hour and forty-five minutes if nature was their only adversary.

  The RIB’s glass reinforced plastic hull was designed to lower the boat’s electronic signature, but there were no guarantees. Technology and speed could improve their odds but could never counter completely the element of chance.

  As his coxswain, an eye on his Furuno 841 radar, steered the boat toward the Nayband Coastal Maritime National Park, Lieutenant Wayne Duncan peered through the dark.

  * **

  After a few miles, S
teve felt more comfortable driving the powerful and sophisticated bike, although his concentration on the basic controls made reading the GPS map a challenge that he relegated to a lower priority. He trusted Ali and followed him. Ali found enough hard dirt paths and portions of isolated roads that they made fairly good time. The helicopter came within hearing distance twice but didn’t give any indication that the two bikes had been discovered.

  A few miles from the coast, Ali and Steve got onto the SEAL frequency and established contact. When Ali informed Lieutenant Wayne Duncan that there would be two extra passengers to bring out, there was a pause. Then Duncan said, “Not a problem for us, sir. I’ll alert the chopper.” Ali understood that the chopper might not be able to extract two more people from the boat.

  The only obstacle remaining was a road that went through the town of Nayband paralleling the coast. It was the place where Iranian security would be most likely to set up their barriers. Ali and Steve expected the road to be heavily patrolled. They had to cross it. Their only advantage was that they had the initiative. The route hugged the coast for about seventy miles, and without advance information, the Iranians would have no idea where their quarry planned to cross. Unless they detected the SEAL boat.

  Ali stayed distant from the town. He spotted a path that would lead them close to the water. Although the actual pick up point was still nearly a mile away, Ali decided to gamble that there would be enough of a beach along the water where they could ride.

  When they were still a couple of hundred yards from the road, Steve said to Ali over their bike-to-bike channel, “Let’s stop right here. I want to do a foot recon of the road before we announce our presence with the bikes.” Although they had been adjusted to make little noise, actual silence from an 1170 cc machine was not possible.