Anyway, Wink and I had overloaded on gossip and Corona just about three weeks before I’d wheels-upped for the Kuz Emeq. He’d provided Fred’s phone number from memory, along with a rambling monologue (there’d been a LOT of beer) about the unit’s overt, clandestine, and covert capabilities.
Let me digress long enough here to explain a few basics about intelligence gathering. It has been argued in Congress that we should cut back on military and intelligence training activities. What Congress doesn’t, perhaps, understand is that such activities give us the chance to gather intel vital to our national security, as well as pass on some good instruction to our allies.
When SEALs from SEAL Team Four instruct Venezuelans or Colombians in counterinsurgency, or SEALs from Team Eight work with elite military units from Africa as part of the Pentagon’s JCET program,43 they teach them how to patrol; how to ambush; and how to interrogate. But they don’t quite teach ’em the exact same way we do it. Moreover, they make careful notes about the foreign units, their officers, and their capabilities, notes that are passed on to DIA on the unit’s return. We recorded their strengths and weaknesses; do personality assessments; make diagrams of their headquarters and installations. And so, if the need should ever arise—a coup d’état that installed a hostile government, for example—SEAL Team Four, or Eight, could operate against the folks they’ve trained, and decimate ’em. Or, they could go back and work with the officers and men they knew, helping them set up guerrilla operations against the bad guys.
For its part, the Agency sends experts who help develop counterterrorism programs all over the free world. But as they do their teaching and consulting, they also gather intel, so that we get a clearer picture of what our allies are doing, what their capabilities are, and how they plan to act if a crisis arises.
And so Wink, an observant type with a photographic memory and a couple of decades of field experience, came home with a lot more information about KSK than Fred might have liked him to have. For example, Wink said (it seemed strange to him at first, until he realized what was going on) that KSK was kept in virtual quarantine. Its communications links were all monitored. There were no public phones in the barracks. The men were even forbidden to have cellular units. And contact with the outside world was limited as well.
“It all looked like one of these goddamn South American antidrug units we used to fund at the Agency,” Wink explained. “The ones where they’re so worried about OPSEC, they keep the whole frigging unit in isolation, allow no comms whatsoever, and only one or two of the most senior people know what the target is until the troops are in the air and on their way.”
Moreover, despite the fact that they’d tried to hide many of KSK’s personnel from him, he’d managed to slip away from his minders long enough to discover that some of Fred’s operators looked like skinheads, others had the kinds of tattoos favored by bikers, and still others could have passed for the everyday kinds of Germans we’d seen on the streets.
So, KSK wasn’t a military unit in the conventional sense, Wink said. KSK was something different. Just like 14 Intelligence Company was different.
“These guys are going to operate inside German society,” he told me. “Oh, they’re pushing the military stuff: hostage rescue and counterterrorism is the overt raison d’être for KSK, and that’s what you’ll see at their base. And that’s precisely what Fred wants you to see—the choppers, and the kill house, and the rest of it. But I tell you, Dickie, I’ve run six big, complicated black programs in the last twelve years, and Fred has structured KSK almost the same as the one I called Skyhorse.”
I hadn’t been cleared to know about Skyhorse, but there had been a lot of RUMINT44 at the time, and I could make an educated guess. “Wasn’t that the op you ran in Jordan under Royal Jordanian Police cover? Built a clandestine unit based on 14 Intelligence Company to infiltrate Palestinian terror cells?”
Wink’s eyes went wide over his Corona. “I didn’t think you knew. Anyway, the way KSK is set up—it’s like seeing a bigger, more sophisticated, and complex version of the indigenous undercover reconnaissance unit I trained in an unnamed Arab country”—he drained his Corona and grinned mischievously—“located somewhere between Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.”
I’d written Fred’s number down at the time, shoved the information in my wallet, and forgotten about it—until the previous night. I hoped Wink’s beer-soaked recall had been unimpaired, and was delighted to discover that it was.
I shook myself out of the past and dealt with the present. “You’re right, Fred—I’m sorry. Life’s been a goatfuck—and just as always, I’m the fuckee.”
He roared with laughter. “Still the shy one with words, I see, Richard.” He pronounced my name in the German fashion, Ree-kard.
“Jawohl, mein Brigadegeneral.”
He laughed again. “Und zooo, now that you are on the phone, and since the connection sounds as if this is a local call, what is it that you want of me?”
Fred is a perceptive Kraut, and like I said, we’ve known each other since Christ was a mess cook. “Do you think I’d call only because I need your help? Maybe I’m in town and I want to go out and sample the local brewskis.”
There was a pause on the line. Then his voice came back, and when it did, it had a serious edge to it. “Honest answer, Richard?”
“Of course.”
“I think it is the former, not the latter,” he said. “I believe you and I both know that you are engaged in activities that I, for one, do not want to talk about on this phone.”
Sumbitch.
“Und,” he continued, “I believe that you do indeed need some help in your current tasks, and that I can afford you assistance.”
Son Of A Bitch. I answered in the affirmative. There was no reason not to—because it was all too fucking true.
“Fursermore,” he went on, “it has been brought to my attention of late that there is a high degree of activity in—” He broke off, and I heard him cup his hand over the phone again and bark a series of orders. “Areas of shall we say common interest.”
“You’re right on that one, too, Fred.” He certainly was up to speed on my problems—at least it seemed so in the abstract.
“Ja, I know I am correct.” He chuckled amiably. “That’s why I’m a Brigadegeneral.”
That’s the Germans for you. Always wishy washy. I glanced at my watch. “So, Fred, I’m on my way to Düsseldorf,” I said. “And I thought maybe I’d stop by and see you for a couple of hours. Talk a few things over.”
“I’d like that, Ree-Kard.”
“Only thing I need is directions. Word has it that you’re pretty much kept in quarantine these days—out of the mainstream.”
“Oh, Ja? And who says so?” Another pause, another clap of hand over the receiver. Then: “I tell you what, Richard. You follow the BMW Limousine that has just pulled next to your”—he paused as someone spoke to him—“old, black Mercedes, and it will bring you to where I am.”
I spun around and looked over the bustle of the rest stop. A huge black BMW 7000 series four-door sedan with half a dozen antennas sprouting from its trunk had pulled adjacent to my vehicles. I took a closer look and saw that its front door quarter panels were equipped with gun ports. From behind the opaque, dark gray smoked glass windows, the Beemer’s driver flashed the brights thrice.
“Damn, you fucking Krauts are efficient,” I told Fred. “Ja,” he answered matter-of-factly. “That is because we are Krauts—not to mention the fact that we have recently been equipped with an Amerikaner GPS technology, integrated into a new, computerized system of tracking phone calls, courtesy of your Zentraal Intelligence Agency.” He roared with laughter. “Now hang up, Richard, and follow the BMW, and I’ll see you in about eighteen minutes, if you can keep up.”
We couldn’t keep up, of course, and so it took my two-vehicle convoy twenty-five minutes to drive the thirty-six kilometers from the interchange south, then west, until we reached a small vi
llage named Gemünde. From there, the BMW turned onto a single lane of blacktop that meandered through a long ravine bordered on either side by a thick pine forest. After three kliks, we reached a four-meter-high fence, topped with razor wire. Just inside, two five-meter-wide cordons sanitaires of freshly raked earth paralleling a ten-meter band of lumpy soil was evidence of multiple sensor systems and land mines. We wove our way through a series of blockades designed to bring vehicles to a crawl and pulled up to a single electric gate manned by a squad of locked and loaded sentries. There was an audible hum as the gate was slid open. Then, before we were cleared inside, our IDs were checked by an efficient-looking pair of security guards. As the engines idled, I did a quick target assessment and discovered two more squad-sized security teams, well camouflaged, and with heavy automatic weapons, in ambush positions. These people were serious about their security.
We drove another two, three kliks, and emerged from the forest onto a wide, grassy plain. Ahead I could see a series of chopper pads bordered by landing lights. Three dark brown, unmarked CH-53 Pave Lows sat like ominous hulks, juxtaposed against the emerald green grass. Behind them, six MH-6 Little Birds, also unmarked, were arrayed in a loose diamond formation. Behind the choppers, well-camouflaged but nonetheless obvious to my practiced eye, were the above-ground valves to the fuel farm, which was obviously buried somewhere beyond the birds. Just like Wink had said: the conspicuous accent was on SpecWar.
Off to my starboard, there were barracks, warehouses, and other stowage and training facilities. To the port side were two soccer fields, a well-maintained cinder track, and a big, square open rustic shed under whose brown cedar roof sat a half dozen press benches and a huge pile of weights, all arrayed neatly on skeletal racks. Beyond the choppers, I could see a huge berm rising in the distance, and even through the windshield of the car and Baby Huey’s choice of Generation X music, I could make out the snap-crackle-pop of small-arms fire. I couldn’t see everything, of course, but from the quick peek I was being afforded, the place looked like it was, indeed, self-sufficient. Just as Wink had described.
We drove around the perimeter of the chopper landing area, cruised past the high berm, and came to a fork in the road. BH followed the BMW as it steered to port. We crossed a small bridge under which a ripply stream flowed, progressed through a series of tight curves that took the road around half a dozen gnarled, thick trees that must have been a couple of hundred years old from the look of them.
About half a klik later, we emerged from the greenery into a clearing. Three hundred yards away, the single lane of blacktop abutted the outer rim of a wide, light-colored gravel courtyard, which fanned out in front of an exquisite, fully restored eighteenth-century stone country house. House, hell—this was a fucking ESTATE. It had been built in the French style—evidence of France’s influence on so much of eighteenth-century Germany. It was the French philosopher Voltaire, after all, who’d been the most influential teacher that the great Warrior and king, Frederick the Great, ever had. Voltaire had even inculcated the young Prussian prince in the concept of benevolent despotism—a concept, incidentally, by which I command my own troops today. Oh, I’m a real benevolent fucking despot, believe me.
The Beemer veered off toward a wrought iron fence, with gold pikes atop its ten-foot-high pickets and intricate, scrolled torsades at ground level that ran along the right side of the courtyard. The car pulled up to a double gate. The driver must have hit an electronic release, because the heavy gates swung open and the BMW disappeared behind the big house.
As I watched the gates swing shut, BH steered us right up to the front portico, where he pulled over and switched the engine off. The RV followed suit. We tumbled out and stood around, admiring.
And there was a lot to admire. The stonework was all hand done. The long, multipaned windows that faced the courtyard all had cremorne locks of bright polished brass. The roof was slate, in what appeared to be a handmade, ornate clamshell pattern. The front door itself was exquisitely detailed with hand-carved bas-relief falcons surrounding a coat of arms that featured a crossed sword atop a medieval mace, all entwined with ivy. I took a second look. Geezus—the fucking door was one solid piece of wood. Probably weighed in at two hundred pounds. I ran my hand along the cool, grayish stone of the house, looked at how the windows were set, and checked the doorway. Damn, the stone on the house must have been two feet thick all the way from the ground to the roofline. I stepped back and did some mental arithmetic. It would take a shitload of C-4 to bring this place down. Yeah, they built things solid back then.
Then the big door swung open, and Fred came through, wrapped me up in his big arms, and swung me around. “Will’kommen, lieb Richard!”
“Fuck you, you Kraut cockbreath—” I hugged him back, then broke his grip, stepped clear and took a good look.
He’d hardly changed—just under six feet of kinetic, coiled-spring energy. Maybe a bit thicker around the middle, and grayer around the edges. But then aren’t we all—except for moi, of course. Fred was still muscular as hell. He wore his flecken camouflage with its distinctive raindrop pattern of black, brown, sienna, gray, and OD shirt with sleeves rolled high to accentuate the definition of his biceps. His chest was massive and his neck and shoulders all showed evidence of a lot of reps on the weight pile. A brigadier’s insignia wrapped around the epaulettes on his shoulders, and what I took to be the KSK’s distinctive patch adorned his black beret.
I looked into his cool, gray eyes and held my hand up at shoulder level. He grasped it like the fellow gladiator he is, a grin spreading across his rectangular face. “It’s been too long, Rotten Richard,” he said, shaking free of my hand and snatching me up in the bear hug once again. “Too fucking long.”
He ushered us inside, gave us the pfennig tour, and then called on his senior NCO to take my guys off for lunch, followed by a quick tour of the facilities. He and I caught up in the house’s huge, formal dining room, which Fred had made over into an office-slash-op center-slash great room. We sat across from each other at a small, round, ornately carved medieval table and consumed multiple liters of a local Altbier called Heimbacher. An adjacent serving table held a silver salver on which were piled a mound of handmade sausages, and huge round slices of hot roast pork, a big crock of red cabbage, and a covered basket holding piles of crusty, warm rolls.
I toasted him with the excellent Altbier. “Nice spread,” I said.
His eyes crinkled. “Ja—rank has its privileges, Richard.”
I shook my head in the affirmative. “I can see that.”
“All in all,” he said, “life is pretty damn good. Just about as good as it was when we spent time searching for virgins in the Virgin Islands.”
“With few if any real fucking virgins to be found, eh? Even though we spent enough damn time looking for ’em.”
“Ja—” He shook with laughter. “That was most certainly the truth.” Fred pressed a hidden button somewhere on the floor. A green-uniformed steward materialized through a hidden-panel doorway and cleared the plates as we waited in silence.
Once the steward had withdrawn as silently as he’d come, Fred drained his beer, pushed his chair back from the table and rose, drew himself another from the ten-liter keg that sat atop the serving table, then turned toward me. His expression was serious. He hemmed and he hawed for some seconds, rocking back and forth on his heels as generals are sometimes prone to do. Then, finally, he spoke. “We have common problems, you and I, Richard.”
“Common problems,” I repeated. Now, Fred is an old friend. But my business is MY business, and so I was going to let him do the talking first, to see what he knew, and what he wanted.
“Ja—problems,” he said again. He crossed the big room, moving toward the document safe that stood behind his desk. “As you know, KSK has”—he paused, searching for the right word—“die Haftbarkeit; the responsibility”—he gave a bitter half-laugh—“the liability, I’m beginning to think, for counterterrorism in the area o
f what we call, ah, double-vey-emm-day—WMD; weapons of mass destruction.”
“Affirmative.”
“You’ve heard that, have you?”
“That’s the RUMINT at the Pentagon.”
“The Pentagon.” Fred gave me a look that told me he didn’t believe me. “And, zooo?” He waited for me to speak. I chose not to, and there was what you might call a pregnant pause.
“Richard,” he said, “let’s not play games. We go too far back.”
He was right about that. “Okay, Fred. You say we have common problems, you and I. Suppose you tell me what they are.”
“This is perhaps a good idea, Richard. We should . . .” He struggled for the translation, then gave up. “Karten aufdekken; show ze cards to one another.” Fred turned his broad back to me. With the electronic dial of the safe shielded, he punched the combination in. The lock opened with a click. He turned the big handle that released the locking bolts, swung the thick, insulated steel door open, and retrieved a hefty file from inside. Then he reversed the procedure and locked the safe door, checking to ensure that he’d secured the locking bolts again.
He brought the file over to the table where I sat and laid it in front of me.
I reached down and flipped it open. On the left side, a thick sheaf of documents were attached. I riffled through them. There were transcripts of what must have been phone taps. There were copies of bills of lading. There were bank receipts. There were memos, spreadsheets, and letters. Then I looked at the right side of the file. Under a cover sheet, two dozen photocopied surveillance photographs were attached.
I flipped through the pages. I didn’t recognize any of the surveilees at first. But at the bottom of the file, a few were familiar—even surprising. You want an example of surprising? Okay: the late and unlamented Prince Khaled’s face stared out at me. That brought me up short.
I tapped the grainy surveillance photograph. “This is Khaled bin Abdullah.”
“Ja,” Fred said. “Khaled.” He shook his head. “Nasty piece of work.”
Option Delta Page 16
