by J. T. Patten
“I see where you are going.”
“Exactly. Everyone is happy when a problem can just disappear and our special mission operators can focus on their tasks at hand without domestic distraction. Those ones are slipped under our door, so to speak. And, in most all cases, those targets are pieces or shit that are bothering other citizens around them. We are taking out the trash for our brethren while also cleaning the streets. In that folder you have there are gang members who are tied to your situation but they are also involved in the families of local servicemen, whether they’re trying to recruit a service member’s kid to a gang, pushing drugs, shooting up a neighborhood, maybe sexually assaulting a serviceman’s wife or daughter.”
“We whack them and problems go away. When problems go away politicians are happy and police chiefs are promoted. If our guys are caught, someone can turn a blind eye. Been there done that.”
“Exactly, we just stay clear of media or use it to serve us by creating situations that they will exploit unwittingly to facilitate our desired courses of action.”
“How long have you all been doing this?”
“Our group? Just a couple years. Part of that was an evolution and framing. We had a couple trial profiles of team members that we tested and are finding we needed more guys like you than guys like me. Things were starting to get sloppy. Frankly, things are still a bit sloppy. The framework and concept are solid, but as you know black ops are better constructed in the mind and on paper than they are in real day-to-day planning and execution. Sometimes what sounds good at the time is pretty stupid once you are carrying it out. Backstops and top cover aside, we have to be professional and not create any awareness to our activities. We are all seasoned, but frankly, we are pretty close to acting like amateurs in this arena.”
“Makes sense. I am all for the basic concept of the program, but these types of things end up taking on a life of their own, and most often the ring leaders start getting a bit of a God complex.”
“So do you want to think about it?”
Havens flipped back to a picture of his wife contorted in her own blood. He could imagine his daughter watching as her mother fell. He imagined the fear she had before the gun was fired at her crashing a bullet through her skull.
“Think about it? That’s all I have been thinking about since I got the news. I am in but want to know who is running things at the top.”
“Excellent. I will be back in touch with you in the coming day with some details. You start thinking of accounts you want money put into and other housekeeping items. Keep the file. It is yours. Let me know if you want them to close the file.”
“You never answered me on who is flagging this group. Who does this boil up to?”
“I’ve shared everything you need to know. The details you are asking about are not your concern. Just like your old line of work. You work through me. You see me starting to act like I think I am God, you come to me.”
“How can I contact you?”
“I will give you a number when I call you next. In the meanwhile just get some things in order.”
“When do I start?”
“You already did.”
“Sounds good. We have a deal then.” Havens extended his hand to his new boss.
“Great.” Harrison looked down at his Suunto Vector watch. “Still have time for a bite?”
“No, I’m going to start working. Thanks.”
“I’ll show you out.”
“I am assuming we don’t need to do any of the planning and communicating in a SCIF?”
Harrison grinned.
“Brother, if we don’t exist, we can’t get a secure compartmented facility certified out in the field. You will buy or rent your own facility and a small fleet of vehicles to suit your needs. Ideally, you can do the same to support our ops. Our communications will be like any other friend or business associate just talking but we will establish some protocols and use encrypted commercial phones for designated communications. Most, however, will be up to you. We hope to get the encrypted phones in soon. There was a procurement hiccup. We can use burner phones no problem, but the reality is, who’s going to pick up on us anyway? And from what I have been told, if we get picked up, having the encryption may draw more attention.”
“That’s true. I use an iPhone 5 and pull out the SIM card since I can’t take out the battery. I figure no tool out there can pull data off a 5 right now and with a PIN and PUK code, it would take a court order and a few days to get the info. By then, I’d be using another one.”
“Shit. I figure no one is even pulling from our airwaves, and I don’t keep contacts or things, so I keep it unlocked so I don’t have to put a passcode in when I drive.”
Loose lips. Not real smart though I get the concept. Whatever.
“And I will pick the teams or be assigned?”
“Sean, you will have little interaction with the guys that do the work in the field. I will be the primary interface.”
Havens processed the information.
“I will provide you the targets and you will come up with the courses of action and to some degree the operational plans. You can go in the field as you see fit on your own for recce and source development. Chances are, for the first number of months, you won’t need to develop sources and go underground. Just help us check the boxes.”
“What is your background, Harrison?”
“Let’s save something for the next time.”
The men parted with another handshake. Havens thanked the doorman again as if he had just been a guest in the man’s home. He walked out the revolving door with a new sense of purpose. The emptiness was filling again. He couldn’t wait to go see his daughter. He hailed the first cab he saw.
Harrison went to the restroom and then gave a last look around the club as he retrieved his light overcoat from the check. He could see actually being a member of a place like this. A bit stiff and he probably wouldn’t like the people, but he liked the thought of a nice upscale wood-trimmed officer’s club. He had been to such clubs with his SAS counterparts in the UK years ago and often stayed in the Special Forces club while in London when he wasn’t trying to disguise the purpose of his visit. Until then, there were plenty of other clubs and discrete meeting places in the city that could be obtained with the right amount of personality and green dead presidents. Harrison handed the doorman another two hundred dollars and thanked him.
“Thank you, Mr…”
“You’re welcome.”
“We hope to see you again sometime.”
“Doubtful. This old place just served its purpose.”
“Please consider us again.”
Yeah, please come back and tip me four hundred dollars for two hours use of your space.
Harrison walked out the alleyway exit and headed south to a parking garage a block away.
A job well done, Harrison. Double tapped Havens without him even knowing. It will be win win though. Havens could be good to work with even if he is a bit of a prick.
Harrison relished the idea of working with elite professionals again.
It was a beautiful day and he loved his work.
Chapter 36
After circling the block, the taxi now thirty feet back from the club pulled back into traffic. Havens hadn’t seen Harrison leave the front way and caught a glimpse of him in the alley. “Take a right here after the alley.” Is there a large covered parking garage down this way?”
“There is one a building over.”
“No, that’s no good. How about one maybe a block or two down?”
“Yes, sir. There is one just off Congress. Four levels. Why do you ask, sir?”
“Just take me over there but keep going past it on this street. Then make a slow loop around it so we can get there in five to seven minutes.”
Havens had no intention of following Harrison. He suspected if Harrison was cautious he would be running some surveillance detection routes of his own, which would end up costing Havens a f
ortune in cab fare and ultimately end up somewhere that he couldn’t enter without risk of exposure. No, Havens just wanted to see what kind of car Harrison would be driving, whether rental, utility, luxury so he could make note of its general purpose or track it later if need be.
It was Havens’ city and now he was working it. He was back in the game. He still was uncertain if he liked playing in his own backyard. This was different from imaginary Nazis and VC in the backyard. This was a killer game and he just volunteered to play.
Chapter 37
Draeger turned the dial of the SCIF safe. He kept turning. Missed his spot. Spun the dial again.
Pain in the ass security. These fucking safes are so temperamental.
Finally the lock clicked and the door popped open. Draeger signed the access document under a different name and pulled the Special Access Program file he was looking for. Despite this being a protected program, they had made a number of administrative adjustments to ensure a greater sense of anonymity and plausible deniability.
The folder contained what he expected. There was a list of a number of names and tagged offense subject descriptions organized by city. Judgment had been passed by others and these individuals were to be eliminated as a further threat to U.S. security or interests. He would relay the names in a benign manner to Harrison via RSA standard encrypted email, and now that Havens was on board, a plan would be forthcoming in weeks. If the phones would get here, it would be more ideal for timing.
Harrison had expressed some concern as to how on board Havens would be for exterminating such a wide base of people in his home city where even the most careful planning could have blowback on his own domestic foundations. Havens was used to working abroad where he could keep distance from his life. This was one of the reasons Havens never moved to Virginia, Tampa, North Carolina, or Maryland where his business associates and clients resided.
Draeger, however, had assured Harrison that he had a plan. If Havens was able to help them knock out this list, that would buy DOSA enough time to find his replacement. Their newest recruit would be the perfect scapegoat if something fell apart and would be an ideal backstop once he was dead. He would be a fucked up head case who decided to take apart a city over his grief.
Under the current administration the longevity of this project would probably be less than a year as the bureaucrats involved would no longer be able to stomach the political risk of any fallout from such a program on their careers. Draeger’s orders were to move this quickly to get some defense funding back into the budget. Cuts would make the U.S. weak. Cuts would make people who were promised riches to question alliances if they weren’t paid.
Yes, even in its infancy stages, this program had a very limited shelf life and Draeger would need to start planning his next gig in short time. In the interim, he had another idea as to how he could nudge Havens just over the edge of sanity and transform his former colleague into a homicidal maniac—or at least create evidence that would support such a claim. It would close the loop on Harrison and the entire Chicago operation.
This is going to be fun.
Now Draeger just needed his contractor to finish the new panic room and life might get back to being more enjoyable again.
His mood darkened quickly as he recalled his last mission with Havens, being forced to kneel alongside him in the corner of a Tehran apartment bedroom. Draeger had slipped up and missed a surveillance tail when they rotated spotters. The Iranian authorities had followed them to the apartment and surprised them. Two highly trained IRGC operatives now each had a gun to the heads of Draeger and Havens who were kneeling executioner style facing the cracked plaster wall. Draeger was pleading in Farsi while Havens remained quiet. Draeger looked at Havens who was fixated on something beyond the wall as if he were a million miles away. Draeger had continued his frantic negotiating when Havens interrupted, also in the armed men’s native tongue.
“Excuse me. We are indeed CIA spies. If you please, as fellow soldiers we would like to kneel before you, our captors. We will accept the bullet so you may know that power of Allah will prevail in this lost war.”
Havens further admitted to being sent by the Americans to kill the Supreme Leader despite that not being their mission. Havens gave his real name as well as Draeger’s. “Glory to the destroyers,” Havens had said in Farsi.
Draeger knew Havens had lost it.
Great, Sean, not only do we die but you just outed us and linked us to a cockamamie mission that will be a PR coup for the Iranians.
Entertained by this admission and the idea of making these weak Americans bow to the Persian power now before them, their captors all too eagerly honored the request as Havens was now denouncing his God and praising the almighty power and mercifulness of Allah. As Draeger was about to emit a final plea to save himself and stop Havens from talking, Havens started retching violently and vomited.
His captor, in disgust, cursed this dog, and instinctively looked for the reaction of his other IRGC comrade. In that instance Havens executed an attack with a Krav Maga left hand grab at the gun barrel and a right hand wrist wedge. He pulled back on his adversary to use the foe’s counter motion as a momentum lever to raise himself up and turn the man’s gun fire on the second operator while delivering a series of furious kicks to his first victim. Havens’ last action was firing off two more rounds into the heads of the now former IRGC members.
Havens shouted at his companion to get up, but Draeger remained motionless.
“Get the fuck up!!! We have to move now!!!”
“I can’t. I shit my pants.”
“You what? Who gives a fuck? Get up and move. Are you afraid someone is going to laugh at you, you pussy? Move it or we are both dead again with you lying in shitty pants. What the hell, Pres?”
Their escape and evasion had been successful due to Havens’ cool head and pre-deployment preparation, notwithstanding his use of some well thought out tools provided by “X” and an extraordinary amount of luck. It was apparent to both that God understood Havens’ ruse as a distraction and granted the men amnesty as they fled. And yet Draeger felt more humiliated by Havens than bound to him for a life of repayment. The two never spoke of the event’s personal aspects, and while Draeger demonstrated his own acts of heroism during that time as they retreated to friendly confines, he would never get past the embarrassment or the shame of his cries of self-preservation while selfishly questioning the actions of his protector’s operational mind still engaged in the last seconds of life.
You’re dead, Havens. And your little dog too. Draeger writhed his hands in his fantasy depiction of himself as the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz. He took pause in the moment of comic relief, knowing that little Dorothy from Kansas lived in the end while the witch died.
Note to self. Stay out of Chicago while that asshole is still alive. Fucking Havens will find a way to drop a house on me or melt me with a cup of coffee to the face. Fucking black ops Captain America. Hate you. I hate you, I hate you.
Chapter 38
Days later Havens met Harrison at a greasy spoon restaurant for a cup of coffee where the tasking orders were exchanged. Using an overkill of tradecraft, they split the bill with cash, and Harrison insisted on paying the tip with a few dollars and some change. He remarked that Havens had paid too much and pushed the change across the table. Havens noticed the fifty cent piece, which in his experience meant a micro-SD card was inside. Havens took the change, put it in his pocket, and parted with Harrison like old buddies just playing some early morning catch up.
“Hey, Harrison, you know no one uses 50 cent pieces anymore, right? I’ve got a guy who can make one with a nickel when you are ready to play with the big boys.”
“Budgets, Havens. Talk to your Intelligence Committee about it. Now maybe they can free up some cash with that roadblock bureaucrat dead in Missouri.”
That’s who that guy was in the paper. He was on a funding subcommittee who wanted more defense cuts.
“You ca
n buy a quarter on eBay for about twenty-five bucks.” Havens watched Harrison squirm under the open chatter.
This guy is wound pretty tight. Not a lot you can do with a regimented shooter unless you have more stuff to shoot. Although there are some good JSOC intel guys who were Ranger shooters first. Who put him in charge of a program like this? He had to be an officer prior.
At home, Havens pushed with the edge of his thumb on the back of the coin’s America letters and the piece opened revealing the tiny storage device. He popped it into the larger adapter card he had on hand and viewed the benign list. With the context removed, it looked like a number of individuals who had made over a hundred dollars in contributions to a local arts campaign. To Havens it would have been a year’s work to really put the plan in place with airtight contingencies. Now Harrison had notified him the deadline was being pushed up by eleven months with no explanation.
Why is he keeping me at arm’s length about this? Harrison isn’t even finger pointing bureaucracy or some bullshit reason. I should be included in these kinds of decisions if we’re going to be working together. Unless there are no plans for extended interaction…
The time frame was unrealistic as it always was in this business. Timelines are often artificial and decisions are made by people who are not the ones doing the actual work. With no comprehension of the difficulties involved, operational dates are set like the planning of an ad hoc family get together that would be better done sooner than later due to other more important commitments that may arise. Why should this job be any different?
Havens resolved himself to this being his fate until he could find something he was more suited for. But he had no idea how he could do anything else in life at this point. He knew that he needed the money for his daughter, but he knew money was tight in this budget climate and that the defense and intelligence committees were recommending a pinching of pennies, especially the guy who…yeah, that committee member that Harrison mentioned. He was killed with that Lincoln thing I glanced at on the plane. I have to check with Red on that. A lot of people are going to be out of work if that budget doesn’t pass.
