SAFE HAVENS: Shadow Masters (A Sean Havens Black Ops Novel Book 1)

by J. T. Patten

  C’mon, c’mon. Work, dammit! Let it go. Holy shit, you’re stronger than I imagined.

  The tail tried to struggle and push back but Havens was firmly rooted and stabilized to thwart any resistance.

  Ahhh. There you are.

  Good night, John-boy!

  Chapter 2

  As the target went limp, Havens couldn’t help the feeling of exposure and uneasiness as he settled the man to the ground gently without raising too much attention from those walking around him.

  Three things were just not right in his mind. One, the tricep he dosed was firm and well developed. In this town of scrawny men, firm and developed meant security, military, or foreigner. The guy’s back was solid muscle. Two, the back of the man’s haircut had been recently squared and his neck had been shaved. That validated his hunch that the dude was military. Three, this guy didn’t smell bad. Everyone in Yemen smelled, even Havens, but this dude smelled of French milled hotel soap and deodorant. Foreigner. Maybe Havens’ own tribe—an American.

  Despite his mind jesting and complaining of the environment, Havens had immediately felt remorseful in another compartment of his brain right after his initial musings about the Arabs left his mind’s tongue and touched his inner soul.

  His soul still breathed the richness of life amidst the heavy scarring of his professional career. He kind of liked the Middle Eastern market smells and often missed those aromas when he was back CONUS.

  Home in Chicago.

  And sure, the smell of perspiration, stale dust, heat, and ethnic spices were at times less than appealing, but admittedly, he liked that too. It was different. It was what made the world and people interesting to Sean Havens.

  He really didn’t feel disdain at all for the Muslims walking around him seeking deals, buying specialty items of the day, or just walking about to see or be seen. He loved them. He understood them. He respected them, their history, and their customs. Their habits both amused and intrigued him.

  That was all part of his job—to plan, understand, anticipate, adapt, execute, and vanish. Therefore, he had selected a location for his and his family’s residence that was far from the shadow world. Far from military affiliation. Far from black helicopters and black SUVs carrying sunglass-adorned suits with bulging side masses from the artillery they carried to protect themselves and their cargo.

  Havens exited from one of the little souk “mall” areas back to the street. Mopeds, motorcycles, bicycles, and wheelbarrows weaved in and out of the ethnically diverse crowd. The noise of the small engines and vehicles beeping were particularly annoying on this day.

  There he is. Havens spoke to himself in Arabic to shift back in character should expressive thoughts enter his head and reflexively exit his mouth.

  Get your head in the game, Havens. Let’s make sure.

  OPSEC to men like Havens is about paying attention and being aware of the surroundings. It was routine, but as necessary as a pilot’s pre-flight check.

  Is anyone with him today? This is a wide open area. Get him before he goes back into these catacombs.

  Random distracting thoughts would now have to wait.

  Game time.

  Deftly, Havens reached past his lightweight traditional Yemeni shirt and embroidered futa skirt.

  His hand moved across his body like a cat stalking an unaware robin probing for worms in the quiet of a summer morning.

  His grasp was now nearing a not so ceremonially edge-honed jambiyyal dagger tucked at the waist belt. His edge was personally honed to be razor sharp. He would have preferred having his Emerson CQC-7 blade, but that would be a clear tell to any observer.

  He closed the distance.

  Havens took another panoramic view of his surroundings for potential threats. His mind rapidly processed with hyper-vigilance a mentally engrained checklist of feasible sensory alarms.

  Is anything out of the ordinary?

  Is anyone else watching me?

  Is anything blocking my way of escape?

  Am I making any assumptions?

  Am I going to get caught?

  Am I going to get dead?

  Assured that his situation was clear or at least manageable, he re-gripped the ivory handle of the knife while simultaneously setting a fabric basketball pick with his left hand and shirt bottom to conceal the weapon’s withdrawal from its decorated scabbard.

  Something stood out in his periphery.

  His senses signaled something was off. Where?

  What the hell? Where did this come from?

  Havens froze mid-stride.

  Dammit!

  A bead of sweat rolled down his inner arm. His lip tasted of salt. His grip hardened around the knife handle. He started to count the men.

  Outnumbered as usual, Havens.

  Let’s do this.

  Chapter 3

  Back home on another continent, the Chicago Police Department was convinced that fifteen-year-old Maggie Havens had been lured earlier in the day by an internet predator to the spot where she was sexually assaulted.

  They had told Maggie’s mother, Christina, that the man representing himself on the social website was not likely the sixteen-year-old misunderstood music lover and humane society volunteer that had been represented in online posts. It was much more likely that this individual was in his mid-twenties or thirties, based on Maggie’s description of her attacker to the responding officer.

  What troubled the police, and now both Maggie and Christina, were the threatening texts she was receiving on her cell phone, having been instructed prior by the assailant to “not fucking talk to no fucking cops or I will cut you from ear to ear.”

  Further troubling was the sophisticated layering of cutout communications from IP addresses to cell phones that blocked the police from identifying and tracking the messages and internet traffic history. Techno geek rapist, maybe, but the threats seemed much more aggressive than the typical profile.

  The police did not share this aspect with Mrs. Havens, but were consulting a few department experts since this no longer seemed to match the MO of a typical perv, power rapist, or angst-filled teen.

  Maggie had initially convinced herself that she could keep the incident to herself, more frightened of her parents, who would no doubt kill her for meeting someone that she neither knew nor had permission to meet.

  She continuously processed the ordeal while stumbling home sobbing. She started to get light-headed. It was so bright out. She squinted her swollen eyelids. Rubbing them caused more irritation from the salt residue of dried tears.

  Everything hurt so much.

  Her head throbbed, her legs felt weak, and she felt her hands get cold and clammy.

  She knew she was going to faint and tried to fall on the grass.

  A cyclist had stopped, immediately dialing 911. The good Samaritan had inadvertently exasperated the situation as soon as the police had arrived.

  A watcher had notified the rapist who sent the text immediately.

  U FUKD UP!

  C U SOON BICH

  While the rape kit and prints were being analyzed, debate ensued among a group of officers sitting on their desks in a traditional morning huddle. They couldn’t wrap their head around whether this was just an internet geek who wasn’t getting any and needed to prey on a teen or something more, as others added their two cents in the station’s makeshift verbal circle jerk.

  “I bet we find out it was the Albanians.”

  “No way. They would have taken her for prostitution or cut her. I saw that movie. CIA dad comes to the rescue.”

  “Yeah, it was on that show Castle too.”

  “Dude, it’s on every show where a girl gets kidnapped. They always blame Albanians now. What else? Something good.”

  “Does she have a boyfriend or history of meeting up with guys on the internet?”

  “She could be one of those Chris Mathews lures where he comes out of the pantry and the dude shits his pants when he sees the cameras.”

 
; “Yeah, I’ve seen that. Did you see that school teacher who got pinched? I keep waiting to hear how many of those guys blow their heads off or find a rope in a closet.”

  “Guys, she is a sixteen-year-old girl who the mom says keeps to the books.”

  “Well, you know those quiet types.”

  “You keep quiet if you have nothing constructive to add.”

  “Then it must be like a Russian mafia thug.”

  “Enough with that shit.”

  “Wait. Let’s see where he goes. Go on…”

  “Don’t they have hackers and a network of soldiers who do this?”

  “Homeland Security says the Iranians can do the same thing.”

  “Maybe it was someone who the girl double crossed or her parents. Did they have gambling debt? Any enemies?”

  “Where was the dad?”

  “His wife said he is away on business and is still traveling on the road between…let me see here. She claims he is in Slovenia and Greece.”

  “See, I told you it could be the Albanians. Maybe the dad is involved with them in his business. Is anyone checking on that?”

  “Wait, I didn’t think Albanians lived in Greece.”

  “They don’t, idiot. They live in Albania.”

  “Maybe they are sex slaves.”

  “Not the kind of Albanians we are talking about and why would the dad be doing business with human traffickers?”

  “So what does that have to do with Greece?”

  “Oy vey, shut the hell up. You make my head hurt. Where did you say you went to school?”

  “Western Illinois. What’s the big deal?”

  “Somebody get me a map.”

  “You don’t know where Western is?”

  “No, dumbass, a global map. Never mind, the dad doesn’t work for the Albanians, the Greeks, or the friggin’ Russians. He works for a consulting company doing some freakin’ MBA business stuff.”

  “Dude, Western sucks. No wonder you don’t know geography.”

  “They are solid for Criminal Justice.”

  “Oh, yeah, I can see that. How you doing on this case?”

  “Bite me!”

  “What does the mom do?”

  “I’ll tell you what the mom does…” The officer looked down to his crotch nodding.

  “Puleeze. Don’t waste my time.”

  “She is a therapist.”

  “Oh, we should check that out. Maybe one of her whacked out or pissed off patients did it.”

  “She is a speech therapist for little kids, not a shrink.”

  “Thhhwelll.”

  “Dude, that ain’t cool. That’s like mocking a kid.”

  “Thorrry,” another officer chimed in, but was met with a middle finger.

  “Dude, really. You can’t mock disabled kids like that. It’s like the same rule that you can’t call them retarded.”

  “Dude, way uncool. My kid goes to speech.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Tell you one thing, whoever it is—Albanians, Russians, Hells Angels, friggin’ Stone Cold Steve Austin, or an army of Bruce Lee’s—I’d kill whoever touched my daughter.”

  A number of officers nodded in their first agreement of the morning.

  “OK, so we know that Mr. Daddy Havens is probably a pussy with no enemies who leaves his family to make shitty companies in shitty countries do business better in some emerging market.”

  “That’s what it sounds like.”

  “What else have we got for possibilities?”

  The officers looked around at each other then down to their shoes as if the answers would be looking up at them.

  “LT’s coming ladies. Let’s get to work.”

  “Hey, Daniels. Come here,” the lieutenant called to an officer. “Close the door when you come in. There’s more. I think I know this dude. And if it’s the guy I am thinking of, it may be worse than we thought.”

  Chapter 4

  Completely unaware of his daughter’s recent assault thousands of miles away, Sean Havens stopped moving in the Yemeni souk.

  Like a tailor of men, Havens worked in the rich fabric of socio-economic human systems and their exploitation. He operated at or below the classified Special Access Program level to remove oversight scrutiny, meaning he had intel clout. Clout that was supposed to keep him informed of anything and everything he should know while in the field.

  He didn’t know about these men now in front of him, but he should have.

  Havens watched with concern as two over-muscled Caucasian men were trying, but failing to contain their giggling and tomfoolery as they stole various small goods from the vendor tables and hanging rods.

  For as much as they stuck out among the native crowd, surely people would be watching them closely. Unless, of course, they were regulars in the area.

  Havens thought it odd that contractor presence did not come up in the intel reports he had received or even during the surveillance of the area that he had personally conducted for the past week.

  He watched as one man would block the other from view while blabbering to the market hawker. For being so boisterously silent, if there is such a description, he was impressed that they were able to pull it off…

  Nope. Havens noticed some men advancing towards the petty thieves. He could see that, while in plain clothes, the local men were armed authorities.

  Someone’s in trouble. Oh, this day sucks.

  Havens sized up the unwitting contractors in their 5.11 military cargo pants and black performance t-shirts. In one man’s hand was an out of place local artisan bag, likely with stashed stolen trinkets.

  Did the storeowners just ignore them as if they were bullies coming through sweeping milk money off weaker students’ desks?

  They appeared to be young former Marines or Army Rangers who had been in Iraq or Afghanistan but had now signed up as hired guns, enticed by private military corporations’ money, over re-enlisting. Havens didn’t fault their choice; he faulted their immaturity and current behavior. They had forgotten that they were soldiers and should still be acting like professional warriors. It would be worse if they just didn’t care. Clearly they were drunk, but at this time in the morning were they just starting or finishing? And where were they partying, and what commercial contracting outfit was running the risks of giving their guys booze here in Yemen without better monitoring?

  Havens knew they were private contractors, but with whom and for whom, he did not know. Nor did he care.

  He did care about why they were off the reservation this morning screwing up his plans. He had carefully assessed where military, police, contractors, etc. would and could be that would potentially be in his path on that day. And why were these fools armed? An incident like this would end badly, especially if the contractors shot someone.

  More anger towards the West. Just what we need.

  Arresting or killing some wayward soldiers violating local laws and cultural codes could be unifying for a people who did not want armed foreigners in their midst. That was not what Havens had in mind. That did not fit his morning plans. He did not want this place unified.

  Perhaps the locals were waiting for just the right excuse.

  “Hmmm. Maybe this is my lucky day,” Havens said to himself, now operationally going mobile again.

  Luck is what happens when preparedness meets opportunity, Havens often said, and he was about to seize this opportunity as it unfolded before his eyes.

  Havens reached into his own artisan’s bag. He discretely extracted an Israeli Defense Forces stun grenade and eyed a spot to pitch it. Havens gave a quick tug of the primary pull ring and tossed it towards an alleyway that was devoid of people.

  He threw another armed stun grenade backhand ideally to go just further than the first, but heard a small crash as opposed to the combo thud and tumble sound he was expecting.

  “Allahu Akbar!” he shouted hoping to draw upon the fear of a martyr suicide bomber or rebel attack.

  Heads abruptly t
urned towards the call. Others blindly dove for cover just before the detonating flash-bang blasted the marketplace.

  In four great strides Havens withdrew his dagger, and through a full economy of motion cut one arching slash up and across the first contractors thigh, then up the torso across the cheek and over to the second contractor across the forehead flowing in the motion down across the contractor’s lower thigh above the knee before continuing the circular motion and then hammering the knife down to the first contractor’s boot just below the laces and before the potential steel toe.

  Nice boots. New Oakley ¾-height assault. Very nice, you fucking punk. May as well be walking around with ‘Death From Above’ Ranger t-shirts, dip cans in your back pocket, infantry belt buckles, and damn cowboy boots. Way to blend in. Clearly not ex-Special Forces.

  The contractors let out screams, unheard during the second grenade detonation, as Havens’ ceremonial knife parted flesh and found bone at an angle and level of pressure that would scar but not severely damage long term.

  Havens was lightning fast with fluid motion, like an artist painting a grand circular brushstroke across a six-foot canvas. The artisan operator shifted compression and angle as he neared arterial threats and eyes.

  Now, as he was in a low crouch having completed the slashing superficial circle of wound, his right leg sweep kicked the second contractor’s left leg just to the side of the knee but with only enough force to damage cartilage and tendon as opposed to breaking the bone.

  As the first contractor was reaching down towards Havens, he snapped up the knife torpedoing upwards from the stabbed foot that was starting to bleed through the tan mesh of the Oakley.

  Havens struck the lower jaw of the contractor with the butt of the knife causing the man’s head to snap back and his body crumbled from underneath.