War Shadows (Tier One Thrillers Book 2)

by Jeffrey Wilson

  OTHER TITLES BY BRIAN ANDREWS AND JEFFREY WILSON

  Tier One Thriller Series

  Tier One

  WRITING AS ALEX RYAN

  Nick Foley Thriller Series

  Beijing Red

  Hong Kong Black

  OTHER TITLES BY BRIAN ANDREWS

  The Calypso Directive

  The Infiltration Game

  OTHER TITLES BY JEFFREY WILSON

  The Traiteur’s Ring

  The Donors

  Fade to Black

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 Brian Andrews and Jeffrey Wilson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503942035

  ISBN-10: 1503942031

  Cover design and illustration by Mike Heath | Magnus Creative

  For our parents. Thank you for instilling in us the courage and wisdom to discern the difference between what is right and what is easy and for supporting us when our journeys took us in harm’s way.

  And for all of you out there, still serving at the pointy end of the spear—you know who you are—safe travels and good hunting.

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  PROLOGUE

  PART I

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  PART II

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  PART III

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  GLOSSARY

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  OGA: Acronym for Other Government Agency, denoting clandestine operations conducted independent of the military chain of command. In most cases, OGA refers to units administered, funded, and controlled by the Central Intelligence Agency, but not all OGA personnel fall under the CIA umbrella. OGA assets conduct counterterrorism operations, intelligence collection, and communication efforts with deep cover assets embedded within enemy organizations. Their existence is categorically denied.

  PROLOGUE

  Camp Al Qa’im (Formerly FOB Tiger)

  310 Kilometers West of the Secret Tier One SEAL Team Compound

  Al Qa’im, Iraq

  2300 Local Time

  2006

  The desert is no place for a SEAL, Jack Kemper told himself, but to the desert they sent him again, and again, and again. He’d logged more than eight hundred days in theater over the past four years, and this deployment looked to be the worst yet, kicking off with twenty-eight missions in thirty days. Kemper was raw—raw from the heat, raw from the killing, but most of all, raw from the “moon dust” that covered everything in the far-western corner of Iraq. The Wild West they called it. It was a terrible place, this place. Far from the sea. Far from his family. And far from God.

  This was no place for a Navy SEAL.

  It was no place for a human being.

  He shifted his SOPMOD M4 on his chest and subconsciously tightened his fingers on the grip. The situation could be worse, he told himself. He could be alone. He could be unarmed. He could be a goddamn spook flying around in some piece-of-shit Russian Ka-27 helicopter. The CIA was fond of repurposing old Russian helos so as not to attract attention shuttling their war shadows around the red zones. The day Kemper found himself riding around in a Kamov like a spook would be the day he asked Thiel to put a bullet in his brain.

  He looked around at the seven other Tier One operators who, like him, were waiting for the go.

  “What the hell are you grinning at?” asked Aaron Thiel, Kemper’s best friend since SEAL Qualification Training.

  “Chafing,” Kemper answered, kicking up a cloud of dust with his heel. “Fucking moon dust is rubbing me raw in all the wrong kinda places.”

  “There’s nothing funny about chafing, dude.” Thiel shook his head. “I got moon dust in my eyes, in my nose. Hell, I even got moon dust coming out my ass.”

  “I feel like I swallow a pound of the shit every day.” Kemper swiped his tongue along the outside of his front teeth, clearing the grit off what should have been smooth enamel. His mouth was so dry, he couldn’t muster the saliva to spit it out. He swallowed instead.

  “What the fuck is taking so long? The Head Shed is killing me.” Romeo, sitting next to Kemper, was the greenest SEAL on the squad and had earned a reputation for being high maintenance. Despite these shortcomings, the kid had proved himself to be one helluva shooter under pressure. Besides, being the greenest SEAL in a Tier One unit was nothing to cry over—sorta like being the shortest first-round draft pick of the NBA.

  “It ain’t the Head Shed, bro,” Kemper replied. “Captain Jarvis wouldn’t tolerate Perry dicking around like this. It’s those spooks that came in twenty minutes ago. They’re the logjam holding us up.”

  “Goddamn spooks—why can’t they just make up their minds? Let’s screw this cat already.”

  Kemper laughed. He had no idea where the cat expression came from—somewhere in Romeo’s twisted mind—but he shared the anxious feeling. During SQT and BUD/S, they had been conditioned for every conceivable form of abuse and punishment, both mental and physical, except for one. The waiting. There was the waiting in the barracks, waiting in the Blackhawk, waiting in the mini-sub, waiting in the water, waiting in the brush, waiting in the dirt, waiting in the dark . . .

  Always and every day, the waiting.

  Kemper slapped Romeo on the back. “Don’t worry, Romeo. Jarvis will get this train back on track.”

  Romeo didn’t bother answering. Instead, he spat a brown squirt of tobacco juice from angry, pursed lips. Kemper shifted his foot to avoid the gob of Skoal splattering over his Oakley boot.

  The sound of a door swinging open and then slamming shut made Kemper look up. Senior Chief Perry strode out of the Tactical Operations Center accompanied by some dude wearing civilian cargo pants and a green Timberland s
hirt. The stranger carried an assault rifle across his chest, wore a drop holster on his left thigh, and had “the look.” Definitely a spook, Kemper thought, studying the man. The spook’s rifle was slung properly, so maybe this jackass knew what he was doing.

  The NCO and the spook approached the cluster of wooden picnic tables where Kemper and the rest of the boys had been waiting—fully kitted up and ready to go—for the past forty minutes.

  “This is Jones,” Perry said to the team, his Alabama twang extra thick tonight.

  Kemper glanced across the picnic table at Thiel, who rolled his eyes. Spooks were all either “Jones” or “Smith,” it seemed.

  “Jones will be joining us on the op,” Perry continued. “Tonight’s High Value Target is of special interest to our spooky friends, and the consensus is that Jones needs to be there when we hit the X.”

  “Awesome,” Kemper snorted under his breath.

  “Nothing changes from what we briefed. Two teams of four, only difference is that Jones will be riding fifth wheel—”

  “Not it,” Romeo interrupted with a grin.

  “This plan was vetted by Captain Jarvis, so keep your shit to yourself, Romeo,” Perry barked.

  Romeo looked at his feet.

  “As I was saying, Jones will be riding fifth wheel with me, Kemper, Sanders, and”—the NCO paused, savoring the moment with a smile—“Romeo.”

  Romeo looked up, flashed his own cocky smile back, and barked, “Hooyah, Senior.”

  Perry let it slide. Glancing at his watch, he said, “No other changes. We’re still on our timeline. Med is set up here, and Qa’im will also be our FARP. The CASEVAC bird is staged here as well, along with the PJs, as briefed. Any questions?”

  Behind him, Kemper could hear the slow, rising whine of the engines on the two Blackhawk helicopters from the Army’s elite 160th SOAR unit.

  “Yeah, I have a question,” Kemper said, looking at Jones. “Is there anything else we need to know?”

  The spook held his stare, and Kemper saw something in the man’s eyes. Arrogance? No, nothing so petty. Jones was a man with purpose. He was also a man who had carnal knowledge of the enemy, but Kemper knew that sometimes that knowledge could be a double-edged sword in the field.

  “Nothing relevant that wasn’t already in your mission brief,” the spook said.

  Kemper smirked. Yep, he hated these spook motherfuckers. Stingy with their intel and always changing the rules of the game at the last minute. This spook seemed more legit than most, but if Jones had read his Excel spreadsheet wrong, it would be Kemper and his Tier One brothers at the tip of the spear who would pay the ultimate price.

  “All right, fellas,” said Perry. “Roll Tide.”

  By the time the boys piled into the back of the Blackhawk, rotor wash had moon dust flying everywhere. Squinting, Kemper clicked his night vision goggles down into place, transforming the desert into an eerie, gray-green moonscape. He scooted to the rearmost edge of the port-side door, hooked in, and let his feet dangle over the skid. As the helo took flight, he watched the Forward Operating Base shrink below. Camp Al Qa’im was unimpressive—a desolate shithole a stone’s throw from the border of Syria. Despite the heavy US military presence in Iraq, the border was a porous entry point for weapons and fighters supporting Al Qaeda’s growing presence post-Saddam. And despite the Joint Special Operations Command’s best efforts, the situation wasn’t improving.

  Nine months ago, while Kemper was stateside between deployments, a brutal, coordinated Al Qaeda offensive had targeted Camp Al Qa’im. Nine Americans had died and dozens more were wounded defending the base, but ultimately the terrorist attack had been thwarted. The casualties in the jihadist ranks had been higher than those reported by the Western press, but that seemed to be the media’s modus operandi these days. Skew and twist. Massage and dismiss. It didn’t matter; Kemper’s clearance level meant he always learned the whole truth.

  When he told Kate that he’d lost two buddies in the firefight, she went ballistic. Even the most dedicated Navy wives had their breaking points. She told him she wanted him out of the Navy, and he understood why. She might as well be a single mom, she cried. Jacob was growing up without a dad. It was time to retire the Trident and become the husband and father he’d taken a vow to be. He’d paid his dues, given his pound of flesh to the War on Terror. It was time to let someone else carry the load. Tier One would survive without him. For the unit, you’re replaceable, Kate had cried, but for us you’re not.

  Her words that night had battered down his defenses, and he’d promised her he would retire from the unit the next day. But when the next day came, he broke that promise, and now here he was, back in the suck.

  The nose of the helicopter dropped, and the green flight line beneath him disappeared as they sped low over the desert floor. Their INFIL point was a short hop, only thirteen minutes away. Tonight’s op was a carbon copy of the twenty-eight before it: snatching Al Qaeda leadership and Mujahideen pussies out of their compounds scattered in the barren desert. Their ultimate objective, according to Captain Jarvis, was cutting the head off the snake. But with each passing day, and each hollow victory, Kemper sensed Jarvis’s metaphor was fundamentally flawed. Al Qaeda wasn’t a snake; it was a hydra. Chop off one head and two more vipers sprouted to take its place. Somewhere in this godforsaken desert, there was a wellspring yielding a seemingly inexhaustible supply of young Muslim men willing to martyr themselves in the name of jihad against the West.

  As troublesome as the midlevel jihadists were, the Teams harbored greater disdain for the Mujahideen. The Muj proclaimed themselves leaders, but they never dirtied their hands. Instead, these men used children to fight their war for them. They recruited orphans and kidnapped others to fuel their cub camps, where they brainwashed kids into becoming remorseless gunmen and suicide bombers before reaching age ten. It was the Muj who had incited the growing insurgency against American forces in Iraq, and it was the Muj currently stoking the flames of rebellion inside Syria. In Kemper’s opinion, the Mujahideen council was evolving into a terrorism bureaucracy umbrella, making Al Qaeda far more dangerous than before. Which was probably why grabbing high-value Muj targets had become a top priority for the Pentagon. Which in turn explained why the JSOC was running Kemper and his team ragged.

  Finding and extracting Mujahideen scattered across the Wild West was both difficult and dangerous—even for operators as elite as Kemper and his Tier One brothers. They’d had several close calls recently, and they found the enemy becoming more tactically competent and evasive as the mission count climbed. On the bright side, after they killed the gunmen and suicide bombers protecting a Muj, the terrorist’s boldness always evaporated. Rather than risk personal injury, the pussies always surrendered. That’s why the team had to keep going, night after night after night—extract intel, find the connections to other known bad guys, and dismantle the next terror attack before it could materialize . . .

  What’s wrong with me? Kemper thought, shaking his head. I’m thinking like a spook.

  He looked up the line at where Jones was sitting, legs dangling out the side of the Blackhawk like a veteran operator. Jones must have felt the weight of Kemper’s gaze, because the spook turned to look at him. He had his NVGs pushed up on his helmet, so Kemper could see the man’s eyes. In the stark, high-contrast monochrome of night vision, Jones seemed relaxed and confident. Almost bored.

  I wonder if Jones was an operator before he became a Jones?

  “Kemper,” a voice said in his headset, just as he felt the helo flaring above the desert floor—the entire thirteen-minute trip gone in a blink.

  Kemper turned and saw Perry miming that he lift the left ear-cup of his headphones.

  “Be sure to keep an eye on Romeo tonight,” the NCO said, without keying his mike.

  Kemper raised an eyebrow, confused. “Say again?”

  “I said keep a close eye on Romeo. The kid is more spun up than usual tonight,” Perry said, his lower jaw j
utting out.

  “Roger that, Senior.” It wasn’t like Perry to play the mother hen. The salty Senior Chief’s Trident must be tingling, Kemper thought.

  Three minutes later, they were on the ground, two kilometers south of the target compound. The other half of the Tier One strike team was being dropped equidistantly north of the target by a second bird. As their Blackhawk lifted off, the team spread out. Each SEAL took a knee and scanned a sector for threats across their rifle sights. Seconds later, the quiet Blackhawk nosed over, rose, and disappeared into the night, and they were alone. From the corner of his eye, Kemper saw Perry raise a hand, signaling the drop zone was clear. They rose in unison and began the short trek to the target.

  Perry led the team to a thinly spaced grove of palm trees, fifty meters from the target house. The trees were a gift, providing rare and valuable cover. Al Qa’im was a border town that had sprung up along the life-giving Euphrates River. Push farther south, and the Wild West became nothing but a wasteland. Even greenery as scant as this had been absent in the shithole they’d hit last night. Romeo had dubbed the place Mos Eisley, after some town in a Star Wars movie. All afternoon, the kid had been annoying everyone in the barracks with his awful impression of Obi Wan Kenobi: “Mos Eisley—you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.”

  What a dork Romeo is.

  Kemper smiled at the thought as he surveyed the target—a single-story brown stucco building. The house was large by Iraqi standards, probably seven hundred square feet. Kemper recalled a sketch of the interior he’d seen in the pre-op briefing: a rectangular floor plan with three rooms—a front vestibule, a small kitchen, and a large common room in the back. The compound had seen gunfights in the past; huge chunks of wall had been blasted out of one corner, and the stucco around the windows was pocked with bullet holes. Heavy tarps hung over glassless window frames. Slivers of light escaped from the corners, bright enough to wash out his night vision. Squinting through his goggles, he shifted his gaze to the front of the house, where three vehicles were parked: a white Toyota pickup truck, a small gray sedan with blown-out windows, and a 1990s-vintage Mercedes, no doubt belonging to tonight’s HVT—Mahmood Bin Jabbar.