by JC Ryan
The US politicians knew all of that and didn’t want to get involved in any of it. However, their hands were forced when, during the latest terror attack, Americans were targeted. They were on their soap boxes screaming and shouting how that would not be tolerated. But, of course, with no clue of how they were actually going to add deeds to their words. After each soap box performance, they were probably quietly hoping and praying that the whole thing would just resolve itself before they had to show some guts and authorize US Military engagement.
While the politicians were busy foaming at the mouth, CRC had been given the go-ahead by the CIA to conduct its own investigation and punish the offenders. As the most fluent Hindi-speaker in CRC, Rex got the nod to lead the mission. He had a couple of days to study the intelligence supplied by the CIA and the NSA, plan the mission, and insert his team into India, where 1.2 million square miles of territory was home to 1.3 billion people. Among whom a group of piss-ant cowards who thought violence was the way to persuade people concealed themselves.
The only real clue Rex and his team had was the demand for the release of all mujahideen in India. That indicated Islamists were the perpetrators. But it could just as easily have been a smokescreen. With the promise of updated intelligence as it came in from all US security agencies involved, Rex and his team landed in Mumbai on December first. Rex had promised they’d be home for Christmas, a rash promise, but one he intended to keep.
Mumbai police, working with security forces, had killed the local attackers, ending the attacks. Death toll among the victims was one hundred and sixty-four, with at least three hundred and eight wounded. The Indian government identified an Islamist terror organization based in Pakistan as the perpetrators and claimed the locals’ controllers were still at large in Pakistan.
It took the team a week to find their first lead, a journalist who’d reported exclusive facts about the attack. He was rounded up, taken to an isolated place, and Rex questioned him. The team’s suspicion was that he knew these details because he was part of the group or was being used by them to feed information – or disinformation – they wanted disseminated through the media. Rex, posing as a jihadist from another, well-known group, leaned in and casually informed the journalist in Urdu what would happen to him if he didn’t confess his role.
When the journalist professed, in Hindi, that he didn’t understand, Rex allowed himself a feral grin. “No?” he said, still in Urdu. “Okay, then it doesn’t matter. I just wanted to know if you would understand what I say while slitting your throat.” He withdrew his black KA-BAR knife.
The journalist’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets when he saw the seven-inch blade glistering in the light. Suddenly, the man spoke fluent Urdu. Rex grinned and spoke in German, “I thought I was fast at language acquisition, but this guy has beaten me, hands down.”
His confession flowed out so fast Rex could barely keep up. Apart from all the information about the terrorists they were looking for, the journalist also confessed his membership of the group and his role in the bloodbath. Rex dispatched him with a thrust of the KA-BAR to the base of his brainstem. Wiping his knife on the man’s clothing, he re-sheathed it beneath his loose shirt.
***
IN THE NEXT week, they followed similar leads, crossing into Pakistan to hunt down the leaders of the group, leaving a swath of mysteriously dead bodies through the region. They found the headquarters of the group on Monday, December fifteenth. Four days later, after observing the group’s movements for seventy-two hours, they were confident of catching most of the group’s top leadership there during the lunch hour.
The next twenty-four hours were spent in laying the explosives that would take out the building without harming nearby residences. Shortly after mid-day, they had observed all but one of the regular attendees enter. They waited another hour before concluding that person wasn’t coming.
Rex convened the team for a hurried consultation. The consensus was to take out the majority now, since they were prepared. They could hunt down the last man after taking care of the ones they had available now. A bird in the hand kind of situation.
Five minutes later, the building imploded, collapsing as if a giant had stepped on it. Buildings within a few feet were untouched, but the noise brought dozens of people streaming into the street in fright. Rex and his team melted away before police arrived, and within hours were back in India. That night, Rex sent an encrypted communication in typical Dalton bullet point style, itemizing the main points of the operation and the results. The coms ended with the question, “Are we to stay and hunt down the last man, or get ourselves back home?
The Old Man himself answered the request in pithy terms. “Home. Police will handle survivor. Congrats to your explosives man. No survivors in building.”
Obeying, Rex led his team back to their transport waiting in Mumbai. No one, from the Old Man down, knew it at the time, but the last survivor wouldn’t be captured for another seven years. Rex would come to regret even asking the question. He should have tracked the low-life down and killed him and then sent that coms. It was ‘the one that got away’.
At twenty-eight, Rex had reached the pinnacle of success as a CRC agent. He preferred to work alone, the reason, he said, “To minimize the risk of loss of life on our side.” As one of CRC’s most valuable assets, though, the Old Man insisted he work with a pre-ops team on observation and surveillance. When the mission called for massive action, it continued with the whole team involved. But when it called for an assassination, Rex insisted they step aside and let him do the wet-work. The Old Man was okay with that. Rex had proved his capabilities.
Rex liked this no-nonsense approach, with no rules because the enemy adhered to none. He studied their attacks avidly, learning from them and turning their own tactics back on them. And his reputation for surprising his enemies, lightning fast, deathly quiet movements, coupled with sudden and overwhelming violence continued to grow, though no one had yet come close to figuring out who he was – not even his own country’s intelligence network.
The Old Man protected his agents with his life and refused to give any details about his men to anyone, and that included the President of the United States, had he asked.
Chapter Seventeen
Europe 2010
DESPITE HAVING PARTICIPATED in, and even leading successful missions over the past three years, Rex’s training lacked one vital component — Europe. At twenty-nine, he was a confident and lethal anti-terrorist weapon, but it was now time to learn the more nuanced tradecraft he’d need to successfully operate in Europe. The brash young American needed to learn the manners and social norms of a wide array of first-world countries where he would no doubt be expected to operate in the future. Being able to speak a handful of the western European languages without an accent was not enough to keep him from being made as an American or at least a foreigner.
Before he was sent to study tradecraft in the European countries under experienced operatives, he was grounded in Arizona for two more weeks to learn the reasons he’d be working in Europe. And the first thing he learned was that Europe, in its own way, with only minor differences, was suffering the same kinds of social upheaval due to inadequate immigration policies America was facing.
Much of the European continent had endured decades of left-wing political will. That had resulted in soaring debt, near-bankruptcy, and in the case of Greece, de facto fiscal collapse. Only Germany’s willingness to support the bigger portion of Greece’s debt bailout, which would eventually profit the Germans handsomely in the process, kept Greece, barely, afloat. Yet, it would become a double-edged sword politically.
Meanwhile, the citizenry endured cuts in social programs they’d come to believe they were entitled to. Health care was one of the first that suffered. Most lamented of all were the cuts to pension benefits. Even Rex, not politically inclined at all, could see the writing on the wall for the US as well. It was abundantly clear that in both Europe and the US there wa
s one common overwhelming phenomenon to blame: immigration. Uncontrolled, illegal immigration.
In the US, illegal immigrants were pouring over the borders to work at menial jobs and tax social programs from free public schooling to subsidized health care, rent, and food.
“They’re only trying to make a better life for themselves,” liberals declared.
“They’re taking our jobs and destroying our way of life,” conservatives answered.
The latter pointed to the fact that their birth rate was higher, and they refused to learn the language Americans spoke, with some warning that everyone in the US would soon be forced to learn Spanish. Maybe the Founding Fathers should have designated an official language, but they hadn’t. So, today’s citizens couldn’t even legally force the issue.
With the illegals came undesirable elements – drug traffickers and human traffickers whose disregard for the law and human life made some areas along the southern border virtual provinces of Mexico and exceedingly dangerous. The much-debated wall was laughably ineffective – a boondoggle that would drag down politicians on both sides of the figurative fence.
Now, Rex learned that the same was happening all over Europe, except that it was Muslim immigrants who were overrunning the European nations. The same precipitating event – postwar labor shortage – had become a tidal wave. Shocked natives of the beleaguered countries found their cities surrounded by Muslim suburbs, their daughters seduced into plural marriage and hijabs, and their sons radicalized. Drugs flowed in unchecked, and radical Islamic jihad bloomed. Some countries resorted to building walls and barbed-wire fences, but they learned very quickly that such devices without the political will backed by a strong border-guard contingent to stem the tide would never be effective.
Rex understood the parallels, and he understood something else. The Muslims’ – as in Islamic radicalism – invasion was beginning to infect America, too. Rex hated terrorists and drug dealers. To him there was no difference between them, they killed innocent people. He was willing to fight either or both at the same time, wherever they raised their ugly heads. And he was uniquely suited to the European theater because of his facility with the languages. So, he eagerly absorbed all the background, passed the evaluations of his understanding with flying colors, and then went gladly to be trained locally by members of European security agencies.
MI5 and MI6 were the most knowledgeable, not only because they were working closely with the US security agencies, but also because they’d operated extensively across Europe during the Cold War and still had agents in Western and Eastern European countries. The Russian threat to Europe was not very different from the Communist threat after all – it was just in a different disguise.
In addition to the necessity of keeping an eye on the Russians, the Muslim invasion of Europe required the security agencies to keep a watch in all those countries so overcome with humanitarianism that they threw their doors open for Middle Eastern immigrants and allowed them to spread their ‘religion of peace’ with bombs, suicide vests packed with explosives and ball bearings dipped in rat poison, driving trucks into crowds, and other acts of Islamic jihad love and compassion.
Rex and his cohort – the handful of CRC agents who’d been recruited at the same time as he – were paired with local security agencies or MI5 and MI6 to learn how to move around in Europe unnoticed. They’d learn the traditions and ways of the people, including the differences in generations so they could pass for old or young with disguises. They would learn about safehouses, where to go to get weapons and new IDs, and how to shake off followers in the ancient and modern cities of Europe.
They were taught how to set up bank accounts and safe deposit boxes, as well as caches where they would store weapons, explosives, and tactical gear.
After weeks of learning, they were sent to different countries where they were introduced to local contacts in each, whom they could turn to when they were on a mission and needed help or needed extra bodies. They would have been too noticeable as a group, so they rotated from place to place individually. Rex, a natural loner, found this to be most satisfactory. He learned best by doing, and the opportunity to be trained by watching over the shoulder of a ‘doer’ was exciting, especially if it involved a real mission rather than a training exercise.
Rex’s training took place in the four countries where he could already speak the language like a native, with a few rotations into the Eastern European countries. In the weeks that followed his arrival in London and immediate assignment to an operative in France, he absorbed everything his MI6 trainer had to teach him, and then set up his own network for future needs before rotating to the next training ground.
Most of his contacts were ordinary people, not spies. Some were old, retired agents, but others worked at restaurants or shops – ordinary people doing ordinary jobs, but willing and able to do their part to make their country a safer place by helping and supporting agents in need of a place to hide, a change of clothes, transportation, acting as a messenger, or any of a dozen or more things that might be required while on a mission. Some contacts he met through his trainers, others he had to recruit himself. Rex had seen enough to know that it was best if no one, not even his trainers, knew his true identity. That would have been a weak link. For that reason, he’d adopted the first name Marco for this extended exercise, and each new trainer or contact heard a different last name to go with it.
After completing his scheduled training, he spent several weeks establishing contacts, bank accounts, and caches of everything from local brands of clothing to weapons, ammunition, and identity papers in several cities throughout Europe.
By the time he returned to the US, he had his own infrastructure set up against future need. It included safe deposit boxes with money and identity papers, caches stocked with weapons, ammunition, explosives and tactical gear. He had his own network of contacts among the native populace in half of the countries where he expected to be assigned. He knew how to cultivate them in the others, if needed. Three of his contacts were women. One of them was about his age. The others would be older than his mother if she were still alive.
***
CATIA ROMANO WAS the name she gave him. Not since he’d cut ties with Jessie to join the Marines had Rex been so affected by a woman. He’d had opportunities, certainly, on several occasions, but for the past six years, had been always busy, always undercover, always focused on mission tasks, just not interested in a quick romance.
Catia, however, struck something inside him that he’d thought was dead.
It wasn’t just her beauty, though that was undeniable. Tall for a woman, she could stand eye-to-eye with him, and what eyes they were! The color of the Mediterranean, blue at times and aquamarine at others, they changed with her mood and what she wore. But they were always beautiful, large and expressive, framed by auburn hair and flawless creamy skin, just a scattering of light freckles across her nose to attest to the natural red in her hair. Her smile was enough to set Rex’s heart racing, and she smiled often.
Both knew the rules, though. No fraternizing between agents and handlers. It could get both killed. He wouldn’t even be able to stay in touch with her when his instruction with her was over. He’d know how to contact her, but the same did not go for her. She couldn’t know where he was or what he was doing.
By the same token, he knew very little about her, only that she could be contacted through a complicated exchange she’d set up through a waiter in a certain trattoria. And that she was not one of the ‘ordinary people’ contacts. She was on the payroll of at least two foreign security agencies. He was told that by his trainer when he was sent to meet her. However, he could only speculate about which security agencies they were. He didn’t ask, and she didn’t tell, but if asked to guess he would’ve said the UK and Italy by process of logical reasoning. The trainer who sent him to meet her was MI6 and she lived in Italy. Rex would’ve been only half right.
They hadn’t discussed their backgrou
nds. It was one of the rules that would keep both safe from deliberate or inadvertent betrayal by the other. The need-to-know principle at work. No sharing of backgrounds, who they worked for, information about their families, childhood, or where they’d studied. Anything that would allow one to trace the other was proibito — forbidden.
If they had shared, Rex would have learned that Catia was twenty-seven years old. He might have been surprised to learn that she wasn’t actually Italian but was instead the daughter of an Israeli attaché of commerce. In other words, a spy, working for Mossad. He might also have been surprised to learn that they had something huge in common. Her parents had also been killed by terrorists. In their case, it was a lone assassin, working for the Jihad Council, the military wing of Hezbollah, who had poisoned them while they were on holiday in the Caribbean, though the official version was they drowned while on a boat trip. It had happened in 2005, the year after Rex’s family was killed.
Catia was twenty-two years old at the time, and she knew what her father had been. The first thing she’d done after getting over the initial shock of her parents’ deaths was to contact her father’s chief of station in the Rome office. She’d told him coolly that she knew who and what her dad was, and she wanted to take her father’s place. She wanted to stop terrorists – any terrorists. It took a lot of talking from her and a lot of dissuasion by the COS, but she got it her way in the end.
Rather than placing her in the embassy, the Mossad trained her as a support specialist, and seconded her to cooperate with MI6 as well as their own agents. She was trained to take care of herself if required, also in street-craft, surveillance and counter-surveillance, how to handle weapons, especially knives and handguns, as well as hand-to-hand self-defense combat moves. She was taught how to set up weapons caches, arrange contacts with people who could create false identity documents, and handle agents sent to her for support.
