Rex Dalton Thrillers: Books 1-3 (The Rex Dalton Series Boxset Book 1)

by JC Ryan

  Now he was alternating studying Russian with his training duties and feeling the onset of cabin fever – itching to be assigned a mission. When it eventually came, it was not his favorite kind. He understood he had to take his turn at the boring ones, however. And maybe this would turn into something. In any case, it would give him the opportunity to stretch his command of Arabic.

  The FBI had picked up a faint trail in the US that seemed to lead to a high-ranking politician. After months of surveillance, the identity of the politico was still a mystery. They sought help from the CIA, who also had a mission domestically now, to track terrorists. The CIA had a handle on some of the players, but they, too, had stumbled over the middle and had not identified either end. Intel in Afghanistan had been sparse, and both official agencies were frustrated.

  That was the background to the brief the CIA gave to CRC. Maybe CRC could send someone over to Afghanistan to shake a few trees and see what comes down?

  John Brandt studied what the CIA had supplied, both their Sigint (Signals intelligence) and the FBI’s. All they wanted help with was more intel – no wet-work. Sending a full team was overkill, when he had someone who could handle the entire mission on his own. He called in Rex Dalton. Part of the reason he selected Rex had to do with the fear of the ‘snap’ Longland talked about. So, putting Rex on an intel gathering only mission could probably help to relieve some of the stress, which he said he didn’t have, and avoid the ‘snap’.

  “The mission is to do surveillance, gather intel, and pass what you get to us here at HQ. Then wait for instructions and repeat. You are not authorized to do anything else, Dalton. No dead bodies. Do you understand?”

  “Affirmative, sir. He replied and mumbled inaudibly, “In other words hurry up and wait.”

  “What was that?”

  “I’m to hurry up, get there, move around, gather info, wait, and repeat. Nothing else.”

  “I know it isn’t your type of assignment, Dalton, but you’re the best man for the job if I can only send one. It is important.”

  Rex sighed. He didn’t believe a word of the ‘you’re the best man for the job’ part, but he knew he was not going to wiggle himself out of it, so the quicker he got it done, the quicker he could get back to hunting bad guys who he could eliminate instead of only spy on. “I understand, sir. Thank you. Time frame?”

  “Unknown. We’ll recall you when you’re done. Plan to be there a while.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll leave immediately.” Rex held out his hand for the files but held back his personal opinion about what sounds like nothing but dreariness for an unspecified amount of time.

  While waiting for his transport, he studied the files. There was enough to assure him that whatever was going on, it was big and bad. If he did his job properly, they’d get to the bottom of it, and maybe, just maybe, he’d later get a chance to help another bunch of jihadis into paradise.

  By now, he was an old hand at long, boring travel and at clearing customs on both ends. What he needed in the way of weapons, he knew how to obtain once he’d reached the destination. Sometimes, like in the London mission, it required more ingenuity than others, but he always managed. This time, he had a brief to work with a local private military contractor, who was to meet him and provide everything he needed logistically, from transport, to lodging, to secure coms and weapons. He had a kind of legend he was to use with them, and of course they’d see right through it.

  He and the CEO of the PMC knew each other to start with. Rex’s legend was in reality only the organization he worked for and what his role was. But those were his orders. It was mostly for the locals, anyway. The contractor would know better than to ask. The outfit’s name was Phoenix Unlimited, whatever that meant. He’d rolled his eyes when he first heard it. Sounded like some New Age bullshit, however CRC’s name wasn’t much different.

  He always felt like he was walking down the street naked until he’d supplied himself or been supplied with at least one weapon, even if it was a baseball bat.

  It was no different when he arrived in Kabul. Compared to the US and other western countries, their security was such a joke that he wished he’d brought more of the tools of his trade with him. He might have been able to walk in armed with everything from his KA-BAR to a fully automatic AR47 and everything in between. There were reasons for their slapdash security, of course. Lack of money, equipment, training, willingness, or all of them.

  Rex couldn’t help but wonder, though, how long it would be before some lunatic jihadi strapped forty or so pounds of explosives to his or her body and walked into the arrivals hall. It would be easy to wait until it was nice and full of people arriving to set it off. His eyes darted in every direction, searching for anyone who looked suspicious.

  He felt relieved when he walked out of the building to the parking lot, with his duffel bag over his shoulder, even though he now had to deal with a new type of danger in the form of Afghani drivers behind the steering wheels of old and dirty minibuses, dilapidated trucks and automobiles, the odd SUV, and even a few donkey carts. Every vehicle was covered in dust and dirt and looked as if it was a miracle it was still moving. However, one thing that apparently worked perfectly on all vehicles irrespective of its power source (engine or animal) were the horns. Even the donkey carts had an old fashioned manual version, a trumpet-shaped thingamabob with the balloon at the back. And every one of them was using it to make his presence known.

  Kabul must have had a bit of rain recently; the carpark surface was muddy, with pools of water indicating where the potholes were. Rex stopped in a safe spot and scanned the parking lot. At the far end, he saw who he was looking for. As soon as he saw the guy, he started weaving a legend of his own into the one he’d been given. This guy would see through the original before he even opened his mouth.

  His old buddy, Frank Millard, from Marine boot camp, had jumped ship and joined the Navy after his first tour as a Marine. He’d become a SEAL after that, according to Rex’s sources. Rex had looked him up just before his Bahamas trip, thinking of renewing the friendship. But then he’d thought better of it. It would be too difficult to keep the truth from Frank. He’d have to make up a whole life. Too easy to slip up and rouse Frank’s curiosity. So, he’d given up the idea.

  From what he’d learned, Frank had unfortunately suffered a crippling knee injury during a nighttime parachute jump while on a mission. After his injury and a knee-replacement surgery, he still walked with a slight limp, which meant his SEAL days were over, at least as an operator.

  Rex could have guessed what happened next, if he hadn’t been told. They’d offered him a job as an instructor or a desk jockey. He’d told them to stuff it and had taken a medical discharge. Six months later, he’d come back, as proud and confident as ever, and announced he’d formed a private security contracting business. He wanted a contract in Afghanistan. His former chain of command had been happy to endorse his application. It helped that he already had a secret clearance, and that he’d gathered former military men, retired SpecOps personnel from every US service and a few from allies.

  So that was the meaning of the wuss name of his outfit. Frank thought of himself as the mythical phoenix, risen from the ashes of his military career. Rex couldn’t disagree.

  He swerved to meet Frank head-on. He knew the moment Frank spotted him, because his old buddy put a goofy look on his face and started shouting, “mister, mister, you want ride, come I have nice taxi, air condition, and cold water,” like all the local taxi drivers were doing while Rex was walking through the parking lot.

  Rex kept on walking, stopped a few yards away, and said, “No, thank you, I’m looking for a good-looking former SEAL. Perhaps you’ve seen him?”

  “Yes, mister, I saw him, but when he heard there was a Delta Force operator coming into town he left in a hurry. He told me it would be too big an embarrassment for him and his family if he were seen in the company of anyone who can’t swim.”

  To Rex’s relief, Frank h
ad supplied the very cover he had hastily cobbled together. He replied in kind with a bit more good-natured inter-forces needling until they both got into the SUV. Frank gave him a bag. Inside was an ice-cold Red Bull, bottled water, and a SIG Sauer P226 with 3 spare clips. Rex grinned. “You know, I could survive on this for a week. You, however, would need more water. Doubt you could find a place to swim around here.”

  “What kind of crazy coincidence is this, Rex? Once you disappeared after graduation, I never expected to see you again. Rumor had it Delta Force had snatched you up, but it was like you disappeared into thin air.”

  Rex made the mental switch that would allow him to keep that cover with his old buddy. As far as he was concerned, it was a great coincidence, not that he believed in coincidences. When he had a spare moment and some privacy, he’d get to the bottom of it. But it was still great to meet up with Frank again, and in a situation where he didn’t have to invent anything about his life. Everything he’d done and was doing was need-to-know, and the DF cover was perfect to explain that. Rex urged Frank to talk about himself, covering for the fact that he knew too much about him.

  “Well, I guess you knew I’d joined the SEALs,” Frank said. “How’d you know that?”

  “I guess they told me when they gave me your name as my contact. But I noticed you have a limp. What’s up with that?” Rex mentally crossed his fingers that Frank would buy it, and to his relief, he did. After that, he couldn’t have shut Frank up with less than a sleeper hold. It was good, though. Now he had a reason to know what he did and even more, it was good to remember what a great sense of humor the guy had. Who else but Frank could make the story of his injury and subsequent loss of his career into a comedy routine?

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Phoenix Unlimited Compound June 2013

  THEY CREPT THROUGH town, avoiding everything that had threatened Rex’s life and limb while he crossed the road and in the car park. The narrow, dusty streets teemed with decrepit vehicles, pedestrians, and animals of every kind, including the skinny, flea-ridden dogs he’d come to hate on previous missions. That reminded him.

  “Hey, Frank, I’ve been here before. How come we never crossed paths before?”

  “Just got the contract a few months ago. We’ve been active in other locations, but somebody else had Kabul. I picked up a few of their operators when they went bust over allegations of drug trafficking. Made sure none of the guys I hired had anything to do with it, of course.”

  “I see.” Rex wondered if he’d met any of them before. He searched his memory for when his team had been here, what cover they were using, and who they’d worked with. Then he shrugged. He’d deal with it, whatever came down the pike.

  Finally, they reached Frank’s compound. The walled block contained Frank’s home – the former home of a wealthy Afghani businessman who’d met an untimely death when he crossed swords with another drug lord who had a bigger and better equipped private army than his own. Frank had transformed it into an apartment complex of sorts, housing a dozen or so employees. Other buildings housed his headquarters, a small warehouse, and a garage.

  In the latter, a skilled mechanic kept his fleet of vehicles of every kind in great running shape, even when they looked like the battered minibuses that crowded the city’s streets. The rest of Frank’s employees had backgrounds in Special Forces and Special Ops outfits. There were exes representing the best – SEALs, Delta Force, Recon Marines, and even a couple from Allied Special Forces. Rex would meet them at dinner, following his orientation from Frank himself.

  Frank showed Rex where he could stow his gear in an unused apartment in the house. He then gave him a tour of the compound, along with verbal codes that would get him in and out through the guarded gates. He introduced Rex to the outfit’s quartermaster-slash-chief cook and bottle washer. “Pablo will get you any equipment you require, and if you need to make an extended reconnoiter away from the compound, give him a list of food supplies also.”

  “Pablo?” Rex asked when they’d left the young man’s office.

  “I had to borrow him from the South American branch,” Frank explained. “Our former QM tested positive for opiates. Believe it or not, Pablo is like you in a way. I remember you had this gift for languages. Pablo speaks Arabic as well as he speaks Spanish. Go figure. And he can look the part as well. They miss him in Colombia, though.”

  “Fair enough. Are all of your operatives able to pass for native here?”

  “Nah, there’s no need. Some can, yeah.”

  Rex made a note of it. If there came a time when he needed backup, Frank’s outfit had who and what he needed.

  The two men proceeded to Frank’s office in the largest outbuilding. Rex noted what looked like classrooms, a large meeting room with a hanging screen on one wall, a couple of smaller ones, and finally, Frank’s office. It was sparsely furnished, and small compared to the Old Man’s.

  “I don’t spend all my time here, of course,” Frank explained. “I rotate among the cities where we have contracts. Came here to meet you, and I’ll be back and forth. My men will take good care of you, though.”

  It was nice to know he had a place to stay, his physical and operational needs taken care of, so he could concentrate on his mission.

  “What was your briefing on what I’d be doing here?” he asked. He didn’t want to give away more than Frank already knew, friend or no friend.

  “You’re posing as an agricultural consultant studying farming practices in Afghanistan. Let me guess – poppy farms?” Frank grinned.

  “That’s it.” Rex grinned back.

  “And I suppose if someone pushed, you could admit you’re also a transport consultant, looking at how to improve the Afghani transport infrastructure to benefit farmers in remote areas?”

  “That would be a fair description.” Rex was to ferret out how the opium was being transported world-wide, and especially how its final product, heroin, was making its way into the US with the full support of the crooked politician the FBI was hunting back home.

  Rex waited to see if Frank also knew of the last-ditch cover, but he said nothing else. So, Rex said nothing about it. If pressed further, he was to say he was actually a biochemical engineer. No matter who was interrogating him, they’d think he was studying bio-terrorism, chemical weapons, and such. If the interrogators were the good guys, they’d back off, assuming he was one of theirs and knowing it was top-secret, not to be spoken of. The bad guys would be misinformed, which was what they wanted in the first place. And Rex’s true mission would be protected, though he might be in a pickle himself.

  Frank’s outfit had evidently been busy since learning they’d be hosting him. Frank had a bit more information to offer, including some contact names he’d beaten out of his former quartermaster before firing him and shipping him back to the US. Rex was impressed by his initiative and thanked him.

  After the briefing, it was time for dinner. As they approached the residence, Rex’s enthusiasm took a nose dive. If he wasn’t mistaken, one of the guys lounging in the shade of the building was someone else he knew. The guy, one Trevor Madigan, an ex SAS from Australia, was okay. More than okay – Rex considered him a friend. So, his was the outfit that had gone under. Rex knew it well, from previous missions. He also knew the bloke’s dog, to his chagrin.

  Rex and the dog, Digger, had history, and it wasn’t good. In fact, they were still not friends. But they had an unspoken armistice – which meant Digger didn’t try to attack Rex and rip his throat out anymore. He only growled at Rex when he got too close.

  Trevor could never figure out why Digger had a problem with Rex. Trevor was embarrassed about it – not for his dog’s behavior. No, he was embarrassed for Rex. Everybody knew that dogs had a sixth sense about humans, and you could judge a man’s character by their actions around him.

  Rex knew that Trevor’s jokes about it – maybe Digger was a racist, didn’t like Americans, or it could be because Rex voted for the wrong party, or may
be Rex had some cat DNA in him – were Trevor’s way of covering for him. He knew the real reason. It was not that Digger hated him, but Digger certainly knew that Rex didn’t like dogs. And Rex never told Trevor – or Digger – the real reason. Although he would find out later that Digger knew about it all along.

  Digger was a Dutch Shepard, a big black son of a bitch weighing sixty-six pounds and standing over two feet tall at the shoulders when on all fours. As for his name, Trevor had explained; in Australia the troops are called ‘diggers’ and although way back it could have been a derogatory term, it wasn’t anymore. The Aussies loved and respected their diggers just as much as the Americans loved and respected their soldiers. Even the Australian Prime Minister and other politicians used the term diggers when they referred to the Australian troops. This name came from WW1 with the trench warfare – the Aussies, because of their skills as miners, were the ones who designed and dug those trenches.

  Rex’s official version was he hated dogs – he said they were filthy scroungers, scavengers, noisy, and worse than babies – always needing attention. That was his macho explanation. The real reason was that he was scared out of his wits by dogs. Even the most timid and docile dog gave him the jitters. But he couldn’t admit it – not even a fake Delta Force operator could admit that.

  Rex had good reason for his phobia. When he was seven years old, he’d been mauled by a crazy German Shepherd. He never knew what he’d done to upset the dog. One minute they’d been playing together, and the next minute he was holding in his guts, screaming for his mom, blood dripping into his eyes from the scalp wound the dog’s vicious teeth had opened. It took hundreds of stitches to close the belly wound, dozens more to sew his scalp back together. He’d been in the hospital for weeks and almost didn’t make it. Still had faint scars on his legs and torso, though the plastic surgeons had done wonders on his face.