Cold Shot: A Novel

by Henshaw, Mark

  “You speak out of turn, Elham,” Ahmadi said, his words tinged with anger.

  “And when would my turn come?” Elham asked. “I have been a soldier for more than twenty years and if I have learned one thing, it is that the lowest-ranking man in the room is usually the one who sees the truth most clearly. The higher the rank, the more one is concerned with how the situation makes him look before his peers and the world instead of how to solve the problems at hand. And the problem is that we are all trapped here now with an illegal weapon of mass destruction that the world won’t tolerate.”

  Avila dropped the paper and pushed it away from him. He leaned back in his chair, lifted his chin, and puffed up his chest. “No, the Russians will help us,” he began. “They are our allies too. We have conducted joint naval exercises with them—”

  Are you truly that stupid? Elham thought but didn’t say. Patience gone or not, he still had some small sense of propriety left in him. “The Russians in the Security Council abstained from the vote to cut your country off from the civilized world,” Elham pointed out. “They are happy to take whatever you give up freely but they are not prepared to risk anything for you. If they won’t even cast a vote in your favor, they certainly won’t send warships to face down the United States Navy.” He finally turned away from the window and looked to his countryman. “We are on our own here, you and I. Our hosts cannot protect us, not from the Americans and certainly not from the Israelis who will be coming. This country will be crawling with CIA and Mossad within days.”

  “That is not true,” Avila protested. “The Americans have no power here! They cannot touch you so long as you are under our protection. You can stay here indefinitely. Our patience is greater than theirs—”

  “Is it?” Ahmadi asked. “Even if that is true, the question is what will the Americans do when their patience runs out? And the Israelis will have no patience whatsoever in this matter.”

  Avila looked up at his intelligence adviser, desperate for some good solution. “What do you think, Diego?”

  Carreño scratched his beard, then pulled up a chair and lowered himself into it carefully, trying to avoid touching his tender ribs. “I think we must strengthen our position.”

  Avila leaned forward, anxious. “What do you propose?”

  The SEBIN director made a show of pondering the question for several long seconds before answering. “First, we must move the weapon. Clearly, it is not safe where it is. The Americans know about the facility—”

  “The Americans know about all of your facilities,” Elham interrupted.

  Avila leaped to his feet and pounded on the desk with a closed fist hard enough to crack a knuckle. “That is not possible!”

  “It is not only possible, it is certain,” Elham corrected him. “The American shooter on the hilltop spoke to his superior as he fled, no? Yet the call was made on a common cell phone, which we found. He used no encryption. Why not? To be certain that you would intercept the call, which you did. And what did you do? Order security sweeps at every facility in the program. Do you really think the American satellites didn’t see that?” The look on Avila’s face delivered his answer. “You were outmaneuvered, presidente,” Elham told him.

  “Even if that is true, we can still win,” Carreño said, cutting in. It never hurt to help a superior preserve his sense of machismo in the presence of allies, especially ones who were dubious and wavering. “As long as the Americans and their allies don’t know where the cargo sits, we will still have a path to victory. They can’t go about the country randomly striking at sites hoping to destroy it. Eventually the world would turn against that and the American public themselves always tire of long military operations. Uncertainty would be our greatest tool.”

  “Yes. Yes!” Avila agreed. “How soon can it be moved?”

  “Assuming we want to finish construction first, we could have it ready for transport by tomorrow,” Carreño said. “Do you agree?” he asked, turning to Ahmadi.

  “I would,” Ahmadi said after a slight pause. Elham grunted in disgust.

  “I would also suggest,” Carreño continued, “that perhaps we should consider seizing the American embassy.”

  “To what end?” Elham asked, incredulous. Madness, he thought.

  Carreño twisted in his chair to address the Iranian soldier. “Two years ago, the last presidente ordered me to run an operation to capture an American spy on our soil. The mission failed, but the goal was to hold up the criminal to the world as a useful diversion away from the start of this operation. We wanted to put the United States back on its heels and we need that now. We may not find these spies in the countryside, but the Americans must have any number of spies in that embassy . . . but only for a few more hours. They’re evacuating their staff and if we hesitate, they will slip past us on one of those helicopters. But even if we don’t catch their real spies, anyone we could grab could be accused of such and no one will accept American denials outright. And if we have prisoners”—Elham noted that the man declined to use the word hostages—“the Americans will have to proceed much more slowly.”

  Elham watched Avila nod slowly, as though Carreño’s words were the wisdom of God Himself. “I think that would be good,” the presidente agreed.

  “What do you think, doctor?” Avila said, turning to Ahmadi.

  “I . . . I think it might work,” the Iranian said. “We seized the American embassy in Tehran in my youth. If their president now is as weak as their president then, it could give you some considerable leverage.”

  “And if he isn’t?” Elham said.

  “Do we know how many members of the embassy staff remain?” Avila asked, ignoring the question.

  “No idea,” Carreño admitted.

  “Then move quickly . . . tomorrow morning, I think. We want the cameras to see it . . . but kill the cellular network when the order is given. We don’t want the Americans warning their asesinos in the countryside,” Avila ordered. “You see, my friends,” he said, turning back to Ahmadi and Elham, “this will work itself out in our favor. Watch and see.”

  You are a fool, Elham thought. The man was choosing to believe his own fantasies instead of dealing with realities. You want the Americans to tire of this quickly but you want to kidnap their citizens? Fool wasn’t a strong enough word.

  CIA Director’s Conference Room

  Holland stuffed the last Krispy Kreme donut into his mouth, his fourth of the morning. The sugar crash would hit him before ten o’clock and it would be terrible, but for now it kept him going. The last file of bank records appeared on his screen and he started to filter through the account numbers, then stopped to rub his eyes. He’d been staring at spreadsheets throughout the night and his vision was rebelling, refusing to focus on any more of them. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them and shook his head. Finally the laptop screen sharpened and he began to scroll through the numbers again.

  U.S. Embassy

  Caracas, Venezuela

  The morning sun was to the Marines’ backs, pouring its rays square into the faces of the mob. Small favors, Corporal Charlie Mansfield thought. If I gotta stand here decked out at the crack of dawn without a cup of coffee, the least you morons can do is go blind. He shifted his feet slightly, trying to relieve the discomfort. He and his brothers from the Corps were standing in a line, twenty feet behind the embassy’s main gate, all dressed in riot gear. The caraqueño mob on the other side had been mostly quiet during the night. It took a dedicated protester to shout curses at dirty Americans in the dark hours before the dawn. Many of the mobbers had stretched out on the grounds outside, finally submitting to nature’s demand for rest, but sleep had come hard as Seahawks from the U.S. Fourth Fleet descended over them at least twice an hour throughout the night. The helos had landed behind the embassy, each taking up a load of passengers, then rising over the building and passing low back over the protesters on its w
ay out to sea. Mansfield didn’t know whether the pilots had been doing it on purpose to annoy the crowd but he couldn’t say that he disapproved.

  He heard boots on the asphalt behind him and turned to see another Marine approach at a slow jog, one of the guards stationed inside the building. His fellow leatherneck slowed to a stop, dispensing with the salutes that would’ve required Mansfield’s setting his gear on the ground in order to return. He leaned in close so the corporal could hear through his riot helmet. “Last Seahawks from the fleet are prepping for launch, ETA one hour. They’ll touch down on the back field and keep the engines warm in order to evac us if it comes to that. Everything quiet?”

  “No trouble so far this morning. But it’s early. That’ll change,” Mans-field replied. The other Marine nodded and jogged off back up the hill toward the embassy.

  It took another fifty minutes to fulfill Mansfield’s prophecy. The mob stood quiet most of that time, a few of the younger groups singing patriotic songs and starting to wave their signs and flags, hoping to inspire some zeal in their tired comrades. It seemed too early for that yet . . .

  . . . and then Mansfield felt the emotions rise in the air. Something changed in the crowd, some kind of excitement moving through them in a wave. The murmurs and Spanish curses began to rumble through the air and the sergeant could feel the anger spread like a morning fog. This is going to be ugly, he thought.

  The Molotov cocktail came over the wall from the middle of the crowd. Mansfield couldn’t see who’d lit the bottle that landed just in front of the Marine guard line, close enough to burn. They stepped back a few feet. The next homemade munition followed a few seconds later, this one passing just over the heads and exploding behind the Marines, spreading its payload across the black asphalt.

  The crowd’s yells would’ve been deafening now if not for the helmets. The Venezuelans were pressing themselves against the gates, hands and fists reaching through the bars, and Mansfield spoke more than enough Spanish to know they were screaming death threats—

  It happened in an instant. A roar went up from the crowd and suddenly the men in front were grabbing at the bars, trying to shake them from their hinges again. The younger caraqueños, impatient with that approach, began to scale the gates and the wall.

  This is it, Mansfield told himself. They’re coming over. Some had tried before, ones and two. Now they were trying almost by the dozen.

  The corporal stepped forward and raised his tear-gas launcher to his shoulder. The crowd didn’t recoil, started yelling louder instead. As the first youth reached the top of the gate and stood straight up, waving his comrades forward, Mansfield pulled the trigger, heard the launcher utter a loud thump, and felt it press against his shoulder. The CS grenade struck the teenager square in the chest, white smoke trailing, and the young man pitched backward, falling into the bodies below. The rest of the Marine line followed Mansfield’s lead, more CS grenades sailing over the wall into the crowd, pouring out their white smoke. The yells turned to coughs, then gagging, tears flowing as the vicious aerosol attacked the crowd’s tear ducts. One of the protesters sucked in a lungful and immediately vomited onto the ground, collapsing to his knees. Someone grabbed one of the grenades and threw it back inside the compound. Mansfield returned the favor and sent another canister over the wall to replace it. I can do this all day, morons, he thought, though he knew it wasn’t true.

  “Get ready to fall back,” he ordered his men. The president had denied them permission to use their guns and without that, intimidation had been their only defense and that was failing fast. Mansfield checked his watch. I hope those Seahawks aren’t late, he thought. We don’t have ten minutes—

  • • •

  It was the shouting that finally woke Marisa. The couch had been disturbingly comfortable, a sign of how tired she really was. The sunlight was breaking through the slats of the window blinds in her office, forcing her to squint until her eyes could adjust, a process that was taking a little longer every year. But the loud voices in the hallway drove her to sit and force her mind to focus faster than she normally preferred to do. There was no coffee in the pot to help this morning. Gonna have to do it the old-fashioned way, she thought.

  She managed to get her feet on the floor just as a Marine sergeant threw her door open. “Report to the back field, now!”

  “What’s happening?”

  “The barbarians finally decided to storm the gates, ma’am. The boys outside hit ’em with tear gas and ran them back, but that won’t keep ’em away long and we don’t have permission to shoot ’em. The last Seahawks are inbound, ETA four minutes. If you’re not aboard in five, I can’t promise you won’t end up on the business end of a long rope,” the Marine told her.

  “Understood,” Mari said. The sergeant turned back to the hall and she heard his boots pounding on the thin carpet as he moved to the next room to make sure it was clear. The chief of station reached for her phone. It would take her sixty seconds to reach the rally point the Marine had identified. That meant she had three minutes to make two phone calls.

  CIA Operations Center

  7th Floor, Old Headquarters Building

  CIA Headquarters

  “This is the senior watch officer,” Drescher announced, pressing the headset to his ear.

  “This is chief of station Caracas,” Marisa announced. “The Marine Security Detachment advises me that the embassy is about to be overrun. I am abandoning the station and will be evac’ed by helicopter to the U.S. Fourth Fleet.”

  “Are all your people out?”

  “My staff moved out last night per my orders and arrived aboard the Harry Truman. We still have our two officers in the field. I’m the last one in station. I will reestablish contact as soon as I’m aboard a U.S. vessel.”

  “Copy that,” Drescher said. “I’ll inform the director. We’ll be expecting your call.”

  “Drescher, I need the director to make a call for me,” Marisa advised.

  “What’s up?”

  “The plan is for everyone to get flown out to the Truman, but I need to stay on-site until we retrieve Burke and Stryker from the field. Vicksburg is the closest ship. I need the director to talk to the SecDef or someone else with some pull and get me out onto that ship.”

  “I’ll mention it to her.”

  “Grazie. Talk to you soon. Caracas out.” The line went dead.

  Drescher turned to the bullpen and pointed at the array of monitors on the front wall. “I want the embassy in Caracas on that screen now!” Everyone in the room scrambled. The senior watch officer had never yelled like this before that any of them could remember.

  Puerto Cabello, Venezuela

  They parked the truck farther out this time, at least three miles from the CAVIM site. The hike to the hilltop would be far longer . . . Jon estimated it would be nightfall by the time they reached the summit and made it back to the truck, assuming the SEBIN didn’t intercept them first. The humidity was no worse than a Virginia summer but Kyra was sure she’d be sweating heavily within the hour.

  “That’s all you brought?” Jon asked. The girl had holstered her Glock and no other weapon was in sight.

  “I left my HK under a rock with the comms gear,” she told him. “I was traveling light at the time. If you’d brought it and the rest of the gear back when you came down, we wouldn’t have to do this right now.”

  “I was also traveling light,” he told her.

  Kyra’s smartphone sounded in the truck’s cab. “I’ll get it,” Jon announced. He jumped from the bed, threw open the passenger-side door, and disconnected the phone from its charging cable. The screen showed a single bar for reception. “Sherlock,” he announced.

  “Sherlock, this is Quiver. The station is about to be overrun and I’m bugging out. I’ll contact you as soon as I reach the fleet.”

  For the first time, Kyra saw Jon reel, his mind s
crambling to answer. “Copy that,” he finally said.

  “You and Arrow—” Jon heard the call drop. He stared at the screen in surprise. No Signal. He lowered the phone, then dropped it on the passenger seat. “We just lost the embassy,” he said, quiet.

  U.S. Embassy

  Caracas, Venezuela

  The line died.

  Marisa looked at the smartphone screen in surprise: No Signal. She dug another phone out of her desk and it delivered the same message. The cell towers are down, she realized. The timing was too good to be coincidence . . . and that meant the mob coming over the wall was under Avila’s control. Anyone they caught in the building would find themselves at the tender mercies of the SEBIN by nightfall.

  “Time to be going,” Marisa muttered under her breath. She ran for the hall.

  The Oval Office

  Washington, D.C.

  “He let them go?” Rostow asked in disbelief. “They killed two U.S. sailors and he let them go?”

  “Sent them back across the red line to port,” Feldman confirmed. “After his chief engineer fixed their navigation system and the ship’s medical officer treated sixteen wounded Venezuelan sailors. No fatalities.”

  Rostow cursed, crumpled the cable report the national security adviser had given him, and threw it across the Oval Office. The director of national intelligence held his peace. “Who’s the captain of the Vicksburg?” the president asked.

  Feldman had to consult a binder for that answer. “Dutch Riley. Good service record—”