by Jason Kasper
Zhao’s primary consideration was speed, and he’d spared no effort in that regard.
Powered by two Jedburgh diesel engines and a pair of Imar gas turbines, the Scylla produced 18,700 horsepower and topped out at sixty-seven knots, making it one of the fastest yachts in the world. He appreciated that speed—contrary to many of his island-hopping billionaire counterparts, Zhao preferred long voyages in total privacy, preferably to far-flung lands with diverse dining and culture.
And most often, he traveled with the company of what his Saudi counterparts in the business world referred to as their “pleasure wives.”
These women were models and B-list actresses, usually with affinities for champagne and fine dining, diamonds and designer clothes. They weren’t prostitutes—technically, at least. All were educated and dignified, carrying themselves with polished manners and quiet grace. They could all pass as a date or business colleague at any Michelin-starred restaurant in the world, if he’d decided to take them.
He never did, of course. Zhao preferred his temporary liaisons to occur on the seclusion of his yacht, generally finding his women through a network of fashion photographers who made personal referrals to the business elite and provided literal portfolios to aid in the selection.
Zhao had little interest in Asian women, preferring long-legged Nordic types, those tall blondes with an ice-queen style. He generally took four to six with him on his excursions, depending on availability and trip length. It wasn’t that he needed the physical company—his sexual appetites were average at best, and unlike many of his colleagues, he didn’t mistake any of the women’s ego-boosting dialogue with him for any form of genuine enchantment.
The reason was much simpler: he merely appreciated the view.
An absurdly fast superyacht with 360-degree vistas of the sea or shore of his choice was a marvelous thing. But it was far more so when the deck was covered with nude or semi-nude women, usually draped in the jewelry he provided them unless they were sunbathing.
Growing up in a poor and conservative region of China, Zhao had an upbringing devoid of many things he now enjoyed—fine music, literature, even art.
It was that latter point he considered the women typically present during his excursions to be. Because he slept with them, yes. But most of all, he employed them for the sheer aesthetic beauty they added to his voyages. And when those voyages were over, those women received their gifts in a currency of their choice—the unit of measure was a “brick,” or forty thousand dollars in wrapped bills. One brick per day aboard the boat, the payments—and non-disclosure agreements—taken care of by his crew.
He turned at the bow to look at his ship, the sleek white surfaces and bulbous black windows wiped to a mirror-shine by the constant efforts of the staff onboard the yacht. But he was alone on the deck; there were no women on this voyage, no businessmen. This time it was just Zhao and his crew, a rare solo excursion and a long one at that.
With the wind at his back, Zhao saw his yacht captain exit the cabin door.
The captain wore a pressed white shirt with traditional black shoulder boards, his eyes squinting in the sunshine until he covered them with aviator sunglasses. Locating Zhao, he strode across the bow until stopping at its apex.
Raising his voice over the wind and waves, he spoke in Mandarin.
“Sir, we are ten miles out. There are no vessels on radar, and with your permission I believe we can proceed as planned.”
Zhao raised an eyebrow.
The captain smiled. “We have come a long way, haven’t we?”
“We have,” Zhao said. “And we will go much further yet, brother.”
Then he turned to face the ocean before him, draping an arm around his captain’s shoulders as the two men watched the rolling waves extending forward into the future, into oblivion.
25
Worthy adjusted his hands on the rifle between his legs, scanning out his backseat window for threats—enemy observation posts, spotters with radios or cell phones monitoring the vehicle traffic following the route to Ibrahimkhel.
And judging by the near-constant stream of conversation that had filled the ride so far, he seemed to be the only one paying attention to their surroundings.
Ian asked, not for the first time, “You sure this is a good idea, David?”
“Not really,” he replied. “I mean, technically what she said was, ‘stand by for link-up and exfil.’ But what I heard was, ‘reconnoiter for rocket location in advance of strike force arrival.’"
“And what if she didn’t mean any of that?”
“She did, I assure you. And if anyone has a problem with our actions, I’ll say we got lost and stumbled into Ibrahimkhel by accident. Let me worry about that. You just put your brain to use figuring out what BK could possibly want to hit in Charlottesville.”
“You should know better than me—what’s worth attacking there, the zoo?”
“No,” David replied. “Charlottesville doesn’t have a zoo. Have to drive to Richmond for that. But it’s got John Paul Jones Arena for basketball and concerts; that has a capacity of fifteen grand. Scott Stadium, which can probably fit fifty or sixty thousand people. Could be the university, but we’re too late in the year for a VIP commencement address. And all that seems too low-ball for that cargo he’s got.”
Ian said, “I just remembered—NGIC is in Charlottesville.”
“What’s NGIC?”
“National Ground Intelligence Center. It’s an Army-run unit specializing in science and tech, with a focus on monitoring foreign ground forces. BK could make quite a statement by wiping out their headquarters.”
Elias said, “I would like to propose another option: there is no attack on this date.”
“What do you mean?”
“The logistician said he overheard this information, not that they told him. It could be the date and location of a transfer for the cargo. Does this town have an airport?”
“Yes,” David said, “Charlottesville has direct flights to Atlanta, Philly, New York, Chicago…”
“DC?” Elias asked.
“Yeah, I think there’s a line to Washington-Dulles.”
“Perhaps you should consider this possibility.”
David leaned forward and said, “Why haven’t you thought of that, Ian?”
“Why are you picking on me?” Ian shot back. “Worthy hasn’t said anything so far, and he may not be smarter than me but he’s definitely smarter than you.”
Elias asked, “And what about me?”
Ian shrugged. “Depends on whether your airport theory plays out, I suppose.”
Worthy finally spoke. “With all you guys arguing over what BK’s target is, one of us has got to pull some security. Besides, I’m not so sure Charlottesville isn’t just a decoy anyway.”
“Decoy for what?” David asked beside him.
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe any major American city on the Eastern Seaboard. If I’m BK and I’ve got a rocket stockpile, I’m not wasting it on some dipshit town in the middle of Virginia. No offense, David.”
“None taken.”
Ian consulted his GPS while steering, and then he transmitted, “Should be about ten minutes out from Ibrahimkhel.”
Cancer’s response was almost immediate, crackling over Worthy's earpiece. “If we end up having to sling lead again, you bastards better step up. Already been twice in this country that I’ve had to swoop in and single-handedly save the day.”
David transmitted back, “Yeah, yeah, thanks for all your service and sacrifice. It’s a miracle you’ve survived long enough to be a candidate for lung cancer.”
“No cancer with my genes. My dad made it to ninety-two, smoking two packs a day since he was fifteen. I go through less than a pack, tops, which means I’ll probably live to a hundred twenty.”
“That’s good math,” David conceded. “It’s still disgusting.”
“At least I’m not Ian. Truck Two, out.”
Behind the wheel, Ian a
sked, “What’s that supposed to mean? I did good back there at the checkpoint. Didn’t I?”
“It wasn’t terrible,” David said after a brief pause. “I mean, you could do worse than ‘America says hello.’”
Worthy commented, “But you could do a whole lot better, too. Maybe some Godfather shit, like, ‘America sends her regards.’”
“Oooh, I like that. Yeah, Ian, maybe use that one at the next checkpoint.”
Ian shook his head. “Well if Worthy’s one-liners are better, and his shooting is better—”
“And he’s quite a bit more handsome,” Worthy interjected.
“—then what the hell do you need me for?”
The truck occupants fell quiet then, conversation ceding to the rumble of engine and tires negotiating the path to Ibrahimkhel.
Then Ian loudly cleared his throat. “I said, then what do you need me for?”
“Hang on,” David replied, “I’m thinking. Wait, that’s it—we’ll come to a point where actual thinking is required. You seem to do that better than any of us.”
Worthy said, “Except Elias.”
Elias gave a silent shrug as if this much were obvious, and David continued, “Well yeah, except him. He’s pretty good at it too. And only when there’s no pressure involved, like the risk of imminent death. In those circumstances—no Elias, and no pressure—you’re absolutely indispensable, Ian.”
Their driver fell silent again, probably deciding that he wasn’t going to win any verbal battles. For all his intelligence, he was trampled underfoot when it came to the shit-talking abilities of everyone else on the team.
Worthy had no problem joining in the banter, and poking fun at Ian was always a good time. But he knew that, right now, the humor was largely a guise to conceal the reality of their circumstances.
The team’s supplies were limited to what they had jumped into Syria, bearing dire implications where ammunition was concerned. Despite cross-loading the remaining ammo among the team, each man was down to a few magazines for their organic weapons. They’d mitigated that with a battlefield resupply of captured ISIS weapons and ammunition from the checkpoint, but resorting to local weapons represented a desperate last resort.
And the fact that none of them had been wounded or killed in the previous three engagements—exactly none of which had gone as planned—was less a credit to their skills than it was to the enemy’s ineptitudes. Even wild, undisciplined, and untrained fighters got lucky, and they could miss ninety-nine percent of the shots they took and still succeed in killing one or more members of the American team that didn’t have any men to spare.
Sure, the Delta guys who would be arriving to back them up faced the same risks. But they were fully equipped and had quick response forces standing by, to say nothing of access to emergency medical evacuation flights and pre-staged resupply waiting to be delivered if they got pinned down.
They also had the manpower and organization suited for the job they were asked to do; Worthy’s team, by contrast, was like a scalpel being employed where an ax was required because no other tools were available.
Hell, he thought, at this point they probably owed their survival to Elias. His convincing radio transmission at the checkpoint was probably the only reason Bari Khan hadn’t sent another wave of fighters to stop them, effectively severing any suspicion that the five Americans had survived and were far closer to the cargo than any of the special operations forces currently tied up with their move from Sepaya.
A transmission sounded over the truck’s radio console, a voice speaking in Arabic followed by a short response. “Anything?” David asked.
Elias gave a dismissive wave of his hand.
“They are saying security is good. That is all. I will tell you when these savages say something useful to our purposes.”
Worthy frowned. They’d overheard periodic transmissions throughout their drive, but thus far none had been useful to them—and he wondered if any would before Delta’s arrival to the team’s destination.
His contemplation ended the moment he caught a glimpse of the buildings ahead. At that second, he had no doubt that they were arriving at Ibrahimkhel.
I watched the surroundings pass by with a sense of disbelief.
The scope of destruction in Ibrahimkhel defied my ability to comprehend it. I’d seen war-ravaged lands before, of course, namely in Iraq and Afghanistan. Syria was a similarly ancient land—the capital of Damascus was the oldest continuously populated city in human history.
But Ibrahimkhel was a once-bustling city that had been transformed into a scene that was, to put it lightly, post-apocalyptic.
I was reminded of the World War II images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, grainy black-and-white snapshots of half-standing buildings rising from an endless landscape of destruction.
But the sight before me wasn’t the result of a marvel of technology being strategically employed to end a vast global war. These buildings, this city, the entire country had been beaten down by human hands operating relatively primitive weapons—artillery, mortars, rockets—with such incredible consistency that it looked like a vast reconstruction project had been abandoned midway through, leaving in its wake expanses of loose brick, exposed concrete siding, scrap material, and garbage strewn across the ground between buildings.
The truth, of course, was that those buildings had once been whole and functioning structures. I looked to a pile of twisted metal sheeting stacked nearly fifteen feet high, wondering where the hell it had come from. It was impossible to discern; trying to imagine how this city appeared before the civil war was like picturing a man’s living appearance by looking at his skeleton.
And, I thought, that’s what this region had devolved to—the skeletal remains of a once-functioning society. The strikes of countless bullets gave a blanket-acne appearance to every painted surface, once intact walls now as cratered as the surface of the moon.
To my left was an eight-story former apartment building with its entire front wall missing, revealing an X-ray view of dozens of abandoned rooms that looked like dark spider holes. How many families had it once housed? Where had they gone?
There was no way to tell, no hope of juxtaposing logic of any kind against the backdrop of what we were seeing. Virtually nothing was untouched by war—a building with an otherwise intact facade nonetheless bore a jagged hole big enough to drive a truck through, a black cyclops eye marking the path of some long-forgotten artillery round impacting at random. Rooflines had been chipped away by explosions, partially intact balconies were marked by bent and misshapen railings. Interior stairways were visible through missing walls, entire buildings charred and blackened by explosion and flame.
Yet the civilians I saw were carrying on with life, holding their heads high. I saw children playing atop piles of rubble, scampering up slabs of concrete that had once been walls. People were riding bicycles, wearing backpacks and carrying bags of food and supplies, seeming oblivious to the destruction around them. How they could exist with hope under these circumstances was almost beyond comprehension.
The few who looked at our trucks turned their gaze away just as quickly, trying to hide their dismay with varying degrees of success. They weren’t looking to us as tacit allies in the plight against their oppressors; to them, we were the oppressors. There was a fair amount of vehicle traffic through the town, though every car and truck appeared to belong to civilians—so far we were the only idiots cruising down the streets in marked ISIS vehicles, and I feared we’d take a rocket through the windshield from some resistance group waiting in ambush.
Ian asked, “Where do you want me to go?”
“Just follow the car to our front. Let’s stay with the flow of traffic to get our bearings.”
He did so, carving a left-hand turn after a battered white sedan.
As soon as we completed the turn, however, no more civilians could be seen—in fact, there was no traffic at all. We’d just entered enemy territory.
Elias spo
ke.
“We are lucky for these trucks. Look to our right.”
I saw instantly what he was talking about. A trio of men were standing behind a partial wall on the second floor of a devastated building, and one of them was holding the unmistakable cone of a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
But he didn’t shoot at us or the car to our front, and I wondered what in the hell he was waiting for. Ian continued following the sedan, and for a moment I felt bad for the local driver—probably checking his rearview mirror to see the pair of ISIS vehicles trailing him through a second turn in the Syrian-nightmare equivalent of being tailed by a cop who you expected to pull you over at any second.
Sure enough, the car swung a hard right turn, disappearing into a short side street ending in an iron gate.
To my surprise, the gate was manned by a cluster of armed men. Two of them grabbed the gate’s opposing doors, swinging them open for the vehicle to enter an open courtyard in the compound before we passed the side street and the scene vanished from view.
“Elias,” I asked, “who were those guys?”
He gave an amused grunt. “Take your pick.”
I knew exactly what he meant. At this point in the civil war, there were so many armed militia groups that it became difficult if not impossible to tell them apart—a rifle-toting man could be a member of the Syrian armed forces, pro- or anti-government militia, ISIS, Hezbollah—and we satisfied ourselves by assuming everyone with a weapon was hostile. But the fact that they hadn’t reacted to the sight of our trucks indicated they were either ISIS or an ally, and there was no shortage of either in Ibrahimkhel.
Ian abruptly slammed a fist atop the steering wheel.
“Shit, David. That gate—that’s where the rockets are. It’s been staring me in the face this entire time, and I didn’t even see it.”
I was taken aback by his outburst. “Whatever’s behind that gate could be one of a dozen enemy strongholds in this city.”
