Reaper: Drone Strike: A Sniper Novel

by Nicholas Irving

  “Bogey, six o’clock,” Harwood said.

  “I’m calling Cartwright,” Clutch said.

  The gate began rolling open slowly as Clutch got Cartwright on the phone.

  “Send it,” Cartwright said.

  “Bogey trailing us in. Need overwatch.”

  “Roger.”

  Harwood wound through the parking lot and past the terminal building as he waited for another gate to open, providing them access to the runway. As they stopped, a man exited from the passenger door of the pursuing car. He was large, dressed in black, and carrying a pistol. Harwood watched through the rearview mirror.

  “Coming up your side,” Harwood said.

  The general’s G3 airplane was no more than fifty meters from the gate. Cartwright stood in the door with his arm level and his hand pressing against the frame of the jet doorway. Clutch was holding the pistol in his left hand, which was supported by his right forearm, with the muzzle aimed directly at the door.

  “They want me alive,” Clutch said.

  “Then don’t die,” Harwood whispered, eyes fixed on the rearview.

  A zipping noise creased the air not once but twice. The second was followed by glass shattering in the vehicle behind them. The big man was no longer in the rearview mirror. As they pulled through the gate and raced toward the G3, Sassi was lowering an SR-25 with silencer on the bore.

  They exited the SUV and entered the G3, which began taxiing quickly. At the far end of the runway, police lights continued to bounce into the sky.

  “Your doing?” Cartwright asked, pointing at the dozen or so cop cars and ambulances.

  “Perhaps, sir,” Harwood said.

  “Good job getting Ranger Nolte back, son. The mission continues, though. We got word of a major terrorist attack going down in Chicago. That airplane you were on? Headed to Chicago with chem.”

  “I saw it with my own eyes. Made to look like just SUVs, but there was command and control, UAVs, ammo, and canisters that looked like they could hold chem.”

  “That’s it, then. Jasar Tankian, the logistician of the Beqaa Valley, has supplied the means to attack the United States. The only question is, what are his targets?”

  CHAPTER 28

  As the G3 hurtled toward Chicago, cutting across Western Europe and the North Atlantic, General Cartwright explained his mission as it related to Harwood and Clutch.

  “About a month before we sent you in to observe supply chains, we had a tip that ISIS was working with who we now know to be Tankian in the Beqaa Valley to perfect drone strikes. We hadn’t seen much in the way of this happening but thought a low-footprint mission with some of our best operators would give us the intel we needed. A lot of our countermeasures rely on cutting the radio signals, and what Tankian has developed is a command and control platform that allows for drones to fly to GPS waypoints without any kind of radio signal.”

  “Limits our countermeasures,” Harwood said.

  “Exactly, Ranger,” Cartwright said.

  Harwood sat across from Sassi, who was next to Cartwright. Clutch was facing Cartwright in the two-by-two facing-seat configuration in the aft of the aircraft.

  “I sent Patalino and Ruben in with Ms. Cavezza here, who I’m still not convinced isn’t Italian OSIE or even our CIA, but we’ll leave that aside for now. Your two teammates were killed by ISIS fighters planning this attack. Al-Ghouta is their version of Tarnak Farms, where Bin Laden planned the 9/11 attacks. What’s happening here is something similar but perhaps on a grander scale. It could involve nukes. Everything is pointing at Chicago or that region. Information is sketchy because our ability to penetrate the tribes and governments of Lebanon, Syria, and Iran are almost nonexistent.”

  Valerie, Harwood thought. She was in Milwaukee, which was close enough to Chicago.

  “Patalino and Ruben were good men,” Harwood said. “I hope we’re taking care of their families.”

  “As best we can. They’ll get closure when we find them or their bodies.”

  Harwood nodded. Combat losses were always a gut punch. Nonetheless, the fallen would prefer that you continue with the mission, no question. It would be what he wanted whenever his time came. The last thing any Ranger wanted was to impede the accomplishment of the mission.

  Then it hit him.

  “Any clues?”

  “No, why?” Cartwright asked.

  “There was one, maybe two, bodies rolled in a tarp in one of those containers. The one with the ammunition.”

  Cartwright stared at him for a moment. “Okay. That’s important. Might be them. We need to recover our fallen. We always recover our fallen.”

  “Tankian’s people captured Sassi where Patalino and Ruben were. It makes sense that everyone was hauled back to the same compound.”

  Harwood nodded, knowing he had it right.

  “Bottom line is that we know there are two containers on a big Ukrainian-built airplane headed to Chicago, and one of those containers has Patalino and Ruben in it,” Harwood said.

  “Not exactly,” Cartwright said.

  “I’m assuming that we’ve contacted all the right authorities and are tracking the plane?”

  “The plane turned off its transponder somewhere over the Atlantic. It might be fish bait, or more likely it is in the final throes of executing its plan. There’s no way it can land in Chicago. We’ve got U.S. Air Force patrolling the skies along the northern tier of the United States. We’ve called Canada and asked for their cooperation. They’re thinking about it. We’ve got JSOC marshaling at Fort Bragg, which means your Ranger buddies, Delta, and some SEALs. The intelligence is lean. We know that Sassi here saw a rehearsal map, which she described as flowing from Syria to Tripoli in Lebanon to Cyprus to somewhere in the Midwest, most likely Chicago. There are other big cities that would make high-value targets—like Detroit, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis—if we go with the idea that they’re striking in that region. We have to be careful. This is comparted. DHS is getting briefed right now. I’ve spoken to the president and SecDef.”

  “I have a contact in Milwaukee if that helps,” Harwood said.

  Cartwright nodded, urging him to continue.

  “An FBI special agent there to protect the political convention.”

  “We’ve considered the convention as a target. We should make contact and share what little intel we’ve got.”

  “That airplane still has to land somewhere,” Clutch said. “Assuming those two containers are part of the plan.”

  “We’ve got every airport in the northern tier of the United States on alert for any aircraft coming in without transponder. The F-15s and F-35s providing CAP will be able to respond based upon the grid where the plane enters U.S. airspace,” Cartwright said.

  “A lot of terrain out there. Like finding a small boat in the ocean if it’s not pinging,” Harwood said.

  “True, but our radars can pick it up if we’re scanning in the right directions. We’ve got all the Great Lakes covered,” Cartwright said.

  After a pause in the conversation, Sassi spoke up. “One thing that has bothered me about this entire conversation since I connected with you, General Cartwright, is that I saw very few ‘terrorists’ in the town of al-Ghouta after about a month of being there. Two months ago, creepy men with beards and shaved heads and beady eyes were all over the place. One month ago, there were fewer. And two days ago, even fewer. The basement where I saw the map was vacant. Only a few terrorists were there either day. There weren’t enough people to train.”

  “Unless they had already finished training and had shitty OPSEC,” Harwood said.

  “OPSEC?” Sassi inquired.

  Harwood explained, “Operational security. Any well-trained unit would have sanitized their rehearsal location. For some reason, they didn’t. Might have been several rehearsal locations. Might have been they weren’t done. Doubt we’ll ever know. The fact remains, it seems like a major piece of the puzzle. When I was in a hide site waiting on nightfall to go in and get
Clutch here, I heard drones buzzing up and down the valley all day. Trucks were moving in and out of the compound also. It’s a major logistics operation. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that this thing has been building up piece by piece over the last year or two. ISIS and the others who oppose us in the Middle East think in terms of years, if not decades, while we are focused on weeks or days or hours. If we have to wait more than ten seconds for a website to download, we get impatient and go somewhere else. So, to think in terms of contemporary clues might work against us.”

  “What he said,” Clutch echoed.

  A small television monitor was playing one of the cable news channels with a breaking news item.

  ARMY RANGER AND SON OF SENATOR IAN NOLTE MISSING IN ACTION IN UNAUTHORIZED SYRIA MISSION

  “I’m right here,” Clutch said.

  “But we’re not telling anyone,” Cartwright replied.

  “I’m fine with that, but why?” Clutch asked.

  “Might be related and it might be totally separate, but we’ve got traffic from the Daimler CEO, Max Wolff, going direct to GM CEO Andrea Comstock, who also happens to be a presidential candidate.”

  “That sounds too convenient for it not to be related,” Harwood said.

  “No law against two car manufacturers talking,” Cartwright said.

  “Then why are you listening to them? There’s more to it than you’re telling us,” Harwood said.

  Cartwright pointed at Clutch and said, “Comstock has apparently negotiated your safe release and will receive you at a location to be determined. She’ll be praised for her negotiating skills and receive the appropriate bump in the polls.”

  “Sweet. Glad to be of assistance,” Clutch said.

  Harwood smiled. “You’re trying to smoke her out.”

  Cartwright nodded. “I’m even willing to offer Mr. Basketball here to her if she’ll tell me her location.”

  “Because she was supposed to meet the airplane with Clutch on it,” Harwood said.

  Cartwright’s loaded thumb and forefinger fired an imaginary shot at Harwood. “You win the prize for the day.”

  The plane was losing altitude as it approached Gander, Newfoundland, for refuel. They landed, taxied, refueled, and took off within thirty minutes.

  Once airborne again, Harwood called Valerie Hinojosa from the G3 communications suite, explaining to her everything that had happened.

  “Where are you now?” he asked her.

  “Milwaukee. Prepping for the convention. We’ve had buzz of some kind of attack but nothing to differentiate it from the million other crazies out there. Jihadis, white supremacists, Antifa, ISIS, and so on. Everyone trying to lay claim to wanting to disrupt the convention and cause damage.”

  “What we’ve determined is that two containers are inbound to Chicago, but they might change up airports on us. With the transponder off, it might be difficult to find this thing. We’ve got an idea we’re working on. How mobile are you?”

  “We’ve got a helicopter, some boats, and a King Air at the airport.”

  “Okay, stay ready. This thing is moving fast,” Harwood said.

  “Always does with you around, Reaper.” Then she said, “Shit.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “Fucking Andrea Comstock is in the air traffic control tower of Sawyer International Airport with the FBI, ordering TSA to clear an airplane to land.”

  “The presidential candidate car exec? What the hell?” Harwood said.

  “I’m calling SecDef now,” Cartwright said.

  “I’m heading up there,” Hinojosa said, and jumped off the call.

  “If it lands, box it in,” Harwood said. “Don’t let anyone off the airplane.”

  Cartwright alerted the National Command Authority, who reacted to the new information.

  * * *

  Tankian’s airplane landed smoothly at Sawyer International Airport on the remote Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

  The pilots had navigated a path through Europe, over Greenland and Canada, and then poked across the border into the United States as they flew less than five hundred feet above ground level across Lake Superior. The plane taxied to the cargo hangar and pulled inside. It was 3:00 a.m. local time.

  As expected, the woman, Andrea Comstock, was waiting for him in a black SUV. She was wearing a charcoal business suit with a white blouse underneath the blazer. The skirt was clipped at knee length, and she stood atop four-inch heels. Her hair swept back in an impressive flowing mane that would look good on television, provided she had something to talk about. Another car was parked behind the SUV. Probably a chase car. She was holding a phone to her ear, most likely talking to Wolff. Two men stood outside the car and SUV, definitely security. One of the men was stocky and built like a wrestler with bowlegs and long, muscled arms. The other was tall and wiry, all muscle and sinew packed tightly in a sleek body.

  A cargo handler drove to the back of the airplane as the ramp lowered. The tractor pulled one container from the back of the airplane, drove it to a waiting Mack truck with flatbed, and deposited it on the back. It repeated the process with the second container. The trucks idled, waiting for him.

  He walked to the woman and said, “I will leave what you came for in the container yard.”

  “He’s supposed to be here now,” she snapped. “I put my ass on the line. I had my team coordinate for your trailers and your cargo. I broke rules, maybe even laws to make this happen. Now, make good on your promise to deliver my … guest to me. I’ve already promised his return to his family.”

  Tankian towered over the woman. Didn’t really know what to say. Wolff’s instructions to him were to greet the lady, stall for a moment, deliver what he had, and then join the trucks.

  He shrugged. “Take it up with the man.”

  “What man?”

  “Whoever told you to do all of this,” he said. He swept his hand across the hangar.

  “You can’t be serious. There are television reporters waiting on my word.” Her voice carried an air of desperation. “Right out there.” She pointed over her shoulder.

  “I only know my part of the operation. I was instructed to tell you that your guest would be available in the container yard. Thanks for the help with all the logistics.”

  With that, Tankian turned and walked away.

  “Hey!” she shouted.

  He stopped and turned again. Her two security personnel were jogging toward him. He had a pistol in one pocket, a knife in the other. He wished he had the sniper’s long gun, but that would have been too obvious. Especially now that he understood the plan. While he never intended to go operational in combat on American soil, was never fueled by enough hate, he did believe that if he persisted with this mission, he would draw the Reaper into his orbit.

  And he would kill the Reaper, the man who had destroyed his livelihood. If there were ever a reason for vengeance, it would be this. If he were not to defend what he had built, then what would he defend? Nothing. There was also the practical matter that Wolff had promised him €2 million upon delivery of the containers and execution of the mission. As a logistician, he had the delivery part down cold.

  The operational part might challenge him, but he had executed many complex tasks in the past. It was no easy task to conduct a fifty-mile logistics resupply from the Beqaa Valley into Syria. Especially when he was backhauling two or three ISIS terrorists at a time. They would rendezvous at his compound and then infiltrate to Tripoli, where, a month ago, they boarded the Sieg and loaded the Hunter unmanned aerial vehicles onto the ship.

  He imagined that was where he was headed. Standing on American soil for the first time in his life with nothing but his future to believe in, he faced the two security men head-on.

  “Ms. Comstock wasn’t done talking to you,” the wiry greyhound said.

  “I’m done with her. I followed my instructions.”

  “You don’t leave until we get the soldier,” he said.

  Tanki
an drew his pistol quickly and fired at the man who had mistakenly believed he was in a shouting match, not a pistol duel.

  Comstock shrieked, “What are you doing?”

  Tankian fired at the wrestler, because he knew it was only a matter of time before he gathered himself and seized the initiative. With both men on the concrete floor of the hangar, Comstock began pleading. She held her hands in the air, as if pushing against something, perhaps willing him out of the hangar. He had no desire to kill her. The way he figured it, Wolff had engineered this to kill her career. He aimed the pistol at her, saw liquid running down her legs, and turned around once more.

  He walked through the door of the hangar and stepped into the nearest truck on the tarmac.

  “Whattawe got back there in them containers?” the driver asked.

  Tankian stared at the man and shrugged. “Vehicles. Drive to the gate, then stop.”

  His look must have been intimidating, because the man went pale, shifted the rig into gear, and stepped on the gas. Looking in the rearview mirror, he saw one other truck following his vehicle, while another two headed in the opposite direction.

  They stopped. Tankian exited briefly. Opened the container. Took about five minutes. Closed the container. Reentered the passenger side.

  “Now, go.”

  Then he called Wolff to tell him everything was back on schedule.

  * * *

  “Max Wolff, please!” Andrea Comstock shouted into the phone.

  A moment later, Wolff answered the phone.

  “Did everything go as planned?” he asked, knowing full well she was most likely on major nuclear meltdown.

  “No! I’m standing here in bumfuck Michigan with about a hundred media people clawing at the fence like zombies!”

  “What happened?”

  “Don’t play coy with me. You totally fucked me, you asshole.”

  “I should be so lucky.”