“Andrea, please don’t play coy with me. You are in a tight primary race. You’ve been on the debate stage shouting that you want to personally oust this president. You’ve spent twenty million dollars of your own money. I watch you on television every day. Your anger is tangible. Your passion pure. I say to myself, ‘Is that my friend Andrea Comstock of General Motors, or has a demon possessed her body?’ And you know what? I’m just as angry as you are!” Wolff slammed his open palm on the lacquered conference room table.
Comstock rubbed her chin. “I gotta tell you, Max, I’m uncomfortable with this conversation.”
“Your comfort is not my concern. Your victory is my concern. Why? My five billion euros, that’s why. Your additional five billion euros. The Iran market. Undoing that deal is a huge lost opportunity that you never mention on television. Me? It’s all I really think about. That market is right there,” Wolff said. He pointed south out of the window in the general direction of Iran as if he could see it, which perhaps in his mind, he could. His obsession had consumed him. His wife, Gretchen, was so done with his theatrics that she had moved to their house on Lake Chiemsee in Bavaria, and he wasn’t sure if she was coming back. Regardless, the five billion was significantly more important than his trophy wife of five years. She had dragged their two-year-old son, Heinrich, with her. That was problematic to the point he had told his security team to prepare to go snatch the kid and bring him back to their home in Stuttgart.
“I think I’m done here,” Comstock said.
When Comstock stood to leave, Wolff smiled and said, “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Watch me. Unless you’ve got some oppo research or something of value instead of some obtuse conversation of how important it is to beat this president, I’m out of here. You don’t think I know how important it is, Max? I’m giving up my job. My life. I’m getting attacked every day so that I can save my country. So, I’m done here.” Comstock collected her bags and began to retrieve her cell phone to call her staff, who were being entertained by Wolff’s security team outside.
“How about if I can guarantee your win?”
Wolff picked up the remote and pushed a button. A high-definition image appeared on the display monitor mounted on the wall at the end of the conference table.
Comstock stopped and stared.
Wolff flipped to another image and then another. All pictures of U.S. Army Ranger Corporal Ian Nolte Jr., the son of Senator Ian Nolte Sr.
“What is this?”
“Army Corporal Ian Nolte Jr.,” Wolff said. He let the name sink in for a moment. Her face registered it a few seconds later.
“Any relation to Ian Nolte, the senator from Indiana?”
“Of course. Father and son. Junior, or Clutch, as they call him, is evidently collecting his bona fides so he can run after his father retires. He’s been taken prisoner in Lebanon.”
“Lebanon? Ian is one of the senior conservatives in the Senate. He’s the chairman of the Intelligence Committee. Does he know about this?”
“I’m aware of Senator Nolte. I know him. However, I thought this might be more valuable to you than him at the moment.”
“That’s his son, Max,” Comstock said.
“I’m aware. I’ve just come upon this information and thought you might be interested.”
Comstock turned and looked at the Alps. Her shoulders heaved, something that Wolff imagined she did to release stress.
“What are you trying to do, Max?” Comstock asked, but it was clear she saw the play.
“Whatever you imagine I’m doing is only to help you. Nothing illegal is happening.”
“I want no part in this.”
“I think you’re aware of what I’m offering. I have no recording devices turned on. This is not an effort to scam you. On the contrary, it is an effort to help you and rid the world of the scourge that is your president. I’m offering you the chance to be a hero. Missing Army Ranger. We work some back-end diplomatic channels. Keep the world in suspense for a few days. Paint the president as someone who can’t negotiate the release. Then you offer to negotiate. I put you in touch with the right people. We make it look bleak, get the world on the edge of their seats. Everyone leaning into this.”
Comstock had turned around and leaned forward over the table. Her collarbones poked from the open neckline of her blouse.
Wolff continued, “Then you come in as the leader of your party and secure his release not in competition with the president but in concert with him. Parallel. Not together, but not in conflict. I’ll leave that up to you to decide.”
Comstock’s eyes narrowed. Wolff could see that she was flipping scenarios over in her mind. Maybe this was an opportunity after all. Her hands fidgeted, fingers spinning her wedding band and engagement ring, something he’d noticed she did when she was thinking. He’d watched her during the debates. Even Twitter had a hashtag #spinthering that made lighthearted fun of her nervous tic.
Nodding, Comstock said, “How do you have this information?”
“I sell many vehicles in Lebanon. One of my merchants there also has logistics connections throughout the region. One of his teams rescued the American.” More like kidnapped, but it was a minor distinction. “At the time, they didn’t know who he was. Because of my working relationship with them, they asked for my discreet help.”
“What if I don’t like it?”
“What’s not to like?”
“What if I go straight to the administration and tell them where he is and that you’ve got him?”
“I don’t think you’re that stupid, first of all. Secondly, none of what you said is true. You don’t know where he is, and I don’t have him. Lastly, if you try to beat me to the punch, something worse could happen to this young man.”
“Are you threatening an American soldier?”
“No, but it sounds like you’re uninterested in his release.”
“I never said that!”
“See how quickly this can turn?”
Comstock sat down again and opened her hands as if to say, “Proceed.” She leaned back in the chair, attempting to act uninterested.
Wolff tossed his hands in the air. “I’m handing you a massive victory here. We release him to you or your emissaries and you can ride this wave into Election Day.”
“The media and internet trolls will smell a rat right away. They’ll think that a meeting just like this took place and that instead of releasing the soldier immediately, we used him for political purposes.”
“Of course. And you can be assured that all your friends in Silicon Valley will make sure that all the right hashtags are trending, information is front page on the searches, and so on. They’ll highlight this president’s inability to close the deal.”
“What is the soldier’s status right now?”
“My NATO intelligence sources tell me Corporal Nolte was on a classified mission in the Middle East. He was wounded, and now he’s missing. His partner abandoned him in the mountains of Lebanon.”
“Lebanon?”
Comstock’s voice lowered an octave. Her eyes narrowed. Maybe she had no idea that Americans were supporting Israel on a classified mission. Foreign policy was not her strongest policy area, but she was no neophyte, either.
When Wolff had quietly protested the American president’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the man had taken to Twitter to embarrass him around the world. While the lost face had only motivated him to work harder and be more successful, his desire to strike back had never faded.
“Using a soldier to get what you want is ultimately a losing tactic for you, Max.”
“Not rescuing an American in captivity would ensure your loss, Andrea. You should quit questioning me and focus on what’s important.”
Comstock leaned forward, interested. “Okay. Tell me what it is that you supposedly know.”
“Your soldier is safe right now. He was wounded but has received expert medical care. He was shot while on a mission in Leba
non or Syria. My people are still checking. We can make a plan for the announcement of his capture. Allow enough time for the information to gestate, then you can simultaneously admonish the president for involving U.S. troops in a covert war to help Israel while also offering to help with the negotiations for his release. He’ll decline, of course, and probably even call you names on Twitter, all of which will strengthen your public persona.”
“I’m still not comfortable with extending this for any length of time.”
“You’ve heard of Ross Perot sneaking people out of Iran during your country’s crisis there, correct?”
“On Wings of Eagles. Sure,” Comstock said.
“Ross Perot was a billionaire executive like you. Like me. We can do this as well. My information is solid. I have the means by which to return him to you, but you have to trust me to do so.”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever trusted you, Max, but if what you say about Corporal Nolte is true, then I’m willing to work with you.”
“I speak the truth.” And at that point, he had her on his team. “Would you like some water? We have some work to do.”
“Sure.”
Wolff stood, walked through a side door into the kitchen, and grabbed two bottles of water and some pretzels. He kept walking into another room until he was staring north through a large bay window at the jagged peaks and ravines lowering into the valley floor in Germany. He took a deep breath. Sometimes when you worked hard enough and did most things right, the chips fell your way.
His plan had been missing some panache, the flair that was Max Wolff’s usual style. He made big entrances, big statements, big profits, and, yes, two big losses. But he was on the brink of snatching victory from the proverbial jaws of defeat. His plan now included everything he needed to get Comstock to succumb.
He pulled out his phone and texted Tankian.
Protect the soldier at all costs.
Then he went into the conference room, gave Comstock her water, and began planning how to make her a hero.
CHAPTER 13
Vick Harwood
Two men stood above Harwood and spoke in harsh Arabic. Tanks rumbled in the distance. Helicopters flew overhead. They were searching for him, no doubt.
He clutched his pistol in one hand and his knife in the other. He had no intentions of being found, but if so, he was going to fight his way out and find Clutch. Only his nostrils were above the ground.
The men walked next to him and stopped, but of course it was impossible to tell what they were talking about. Perhaps they knew where he was located, and they were discussing how to kill or capture him.
Or perhaps he had done such a good job disguising his position that they were discussing their children. Who knew?
Harwood had slowly covered himself such that he looked like a piece of the terrain, the ghillie suit helping to break up the patterns of his body. A twig here, a leaf there, some grass, some dirt, and over the course of two hours, his sniper training had helped him make his position next to invisible.
After some debate, the men moved on, one stepping on Harwood’s left thigh. The man stopped, said something else, and then continued.
Harwood let out a long breath that he had been holding, for fear that even the slightest exhale would be heard or detected. He sipped some water, having positioned his drinking tube in his mouth earlier in order to stay hydrated. He realized his mistake when he was finally able to think more clearly. He had been two nights with no sleep and had been in hot pursuit. His initial hope had been to catch the escaping SUV and have a mano a mano fight with the lone survivor of the ambush before he could retreat to a location where the numbers would not initially make sense for Harwood to continue.
If the man had secured Clutch prior to his arriving on the scene of the accident, then he was confident that by nightfall he could extricate himself from his predicament and find a more suitable position to conduct reconnaissance. As it was, he had listened intently. Drones had buzzed up and down the valley in gridlike fashion. The whining engine would be distant and then close and then distant again. That pattern repeated itself over and over. They were definitely searching for him.
Tanks rumbled near and far, as well. The growl of their diesel jet engines roared loudly. He was close enough to smell the exhaust. Because he had selected a deep cut in which to hide, he wasn’t that concerned that a tank would, or could, run over him. The squeaky tread diminished and grew loud at intervals.
Voices carried over the lip of the plateau throughout the day. Some sounded Arabic and some sounded Russian. A truck had climbed the hill and then departed. Footsteps pattered along the ridgeline, especially during the time that the truck had been there.
It was a delivery of some sort, he decided.
Maybe the compound he had briefly glanced over was a supply depot of some sort. It looked like a normal habitat for a wealthy Arab. Stucco walls, Spanish tile roof, sprawling two-story layout, metal grates, maybe vents in the ground that indicated a basement system of some sort.
Harwood’s study of the Beqaa Valley had indicated that there were just such places dotted along the valley floor or the ridgeline. Redoubts for the wealthy. Some preferred the beach, others preferred the mountains, while still others preferred the magnificent views into the breadbasket of the Middle East.
He had left himself enough of a visual gap that he could see that night was falling. The sun was beaming upon the mountains in the east and then was replaced by a pleasant shade of gray and then, thankfully, darkness. Still, he waited. The guards would be on full alert for the first hour or two after nightfall. Drones with thermal cameras were working their patterns, no doubt frustrating their operators.
He had situated himself in between two boulders that would retain the heat almost as much as his body. Painstakingly, he had scattered pebbles all over his body in a random pattern, moving his hand an inch every few seconds so as to avoid detection. His ghillie suit had thermal and radar scatter properties that helped diffuse the penetration capabilities of modern sensors. By his guess, it was nearly midnight. The guards might be more interested in their smartphones, if he was lucky, than some phantom intruder. The longer he waited, to a point, the more their belief in his presence would wane. He had no doubt that someone in the compound was absolutely convinced he was out there, which explained the persistence of the drones and the constant footfalls, until about an hour ago.
His pursuit of Clutch came with a risk and a price. If Harwood was able to retrieve him and get him back to safety, Clutch would still be affected. Who knew what kind of injuries he had already suffered other than the gunshot wound that Harwood had treated in less than one minute as the Sabrewing aircraft was taking off? Was he ambulatory? Head injury? Conscious? These questions brought to mind Clutch’s philosophical discussion earlier about having a purpose in life. While Clutch had graduated from Notre Dame already, Harwood had yet to attend college. Here he was, though, mentoring and now searching for his missing spotter. Clutch had a point. Harwood was now on his third spotter in as many years. He missed LaBeouf and Samuelson and blamed himself for their loss. He should have killed Basayev in Afghanistan before the Chechen had an opportunity to kill LaBeouf. Likewise, with Samuelson, Harwood should never have let him resign and move back to Maryland only to work as a military contractor. “The money’s better,” Samuelson had said. It didn’t matter once he was dead.
Survivor’s guilt was a real thing. Sometimes when he looked at Clutch, he saw LaBeouf or Sammie. He had even called Clutch “Sammie” or “Joe” a couple of times. Sniping was a solitary business, and he bonded with his spotter. Besides Murdoch, Harwood had no close friends in the Rangers. Sure, he was buddies with everyone, but only on a surface level.
And given all of this, there was still an odds-on chance that Clutch wasn’t in the compound. That he was splattered on a hillside somewhere or that he had been only slightly injured and was able to walk away and hide. But that didn’t make sense to Harwood. The search p
arty had seemed focused on the inside of the Sabrewing aircraft and its immediate surrounding area, as if they had already found what they were looking for. No, his gut told him he was in the right place.
And it was time to move.
Almost as slowly as he had covered himself and his equipment, he began to remove the camouflage. It was a calculated risk, but one he had to take. He had his night-vision goggles and his thermal scopes. If he could set up in a decent hide site, he could conduct the reconnaissance necessary to penetrate the site. After thirty minutes of removing his concealment, he slowly turned and lifted himself from his position. Even though he was accustomed to lying in wait in sniper hide sites, his muscles ached from his unusual position on his back.
Soon, he was kneeling and surveying his position. His head was still below the level of the gulley lip. Like a puma, he was climbing the steep gulley up to the lip of the ridge. He secured his SR-25 across his chest, tightening the three-point sling so that there was no rattle to the weapon and his gear. The night-vision device was snug on his head, the harness biting into his scalp.
There were two guards at the northeast corner watching the road. At least that was what Harwood imagined they were supposed to be doing. Instead, they were leaning against the firing port with their backs to Harwood. His immediate decision was whether to kill them or use the blind spot to move to the wall.
He chose moving to the wall. While killing the guards might have been a good option, he would have had to take a few seconds to unleash his sniper rifle, and that was time he didn’t want to lose and noise he didn’t want to make. And he had time to kill them now that he was snug against the seven-foot-high wall. The two men were directly above him, and he was glad that he had screwed the silencer on his pistol.
At the base of the turret, a gate swung outward to the path that the servants used to toss the trash into the gulley in which Harwood had been hiding. The turret had two outward protruding chunks of concrete and two open gaps where men could observe and shoot, if necessary. It was very much like a medieval castle where the guards could observe, roll back behind the protected area, nock their arrow into the bowstring, and then spin back out and fire at the previously acquired target.
Reaper: Drone Strike: A Sniper Novel Page 12
