The Ethan Galaal Series: Books 1 - 3

by Isaac Hooke

  Al Sifr raised a hand. "Relax, Abu Ghazwan. You are speaking very fast. Too fast. We are family, as I said. Do not be afraid."

  Ghazwan lowered his eyes. "I— I'm sorry."

  "My brother," Al Sifr continued. "I am going to tell you something that may surprise you. It is this: you do not need Abu Rashid."

  Ghazwan seemed puzzled. "But how am I to complete the mission without him?"

  "You will find a way," Al Sifr said. "Here. This may be of use." Al Sifr rose, went to his medical cabinet, and produced a particular pill bottle. He tossed it to Ghazwan.

  Ghazwan read the label in puzzlement. "Ambien?"

  "Yes, it contains Zolpidem, a powerful hypnotic. Dissolve four of those in a man's drink and he will pass out within fifteen minutes. If security or customs finds it, say it's your medicine. Say you have trouble sleeping at night, thanks to all those long flights."

  Ghazwan examined the label and frowned. "The prescription isn't even in my name."

  "Get the label replaced," Al Sifr said. "I've shown you how to make counterfeit documents, haven't I? Labels should be quite easy in comparison."

  "I don't know..."

  Al Sifr leaned forward. "You are the backbone of my plan. Without you, the chances of changing the world become very, very slim. Can I trust in you to be ready to act alone, when the time comes? Can I trust you to avenge our fallen brothers? For Allah, and the New Caliphate?"

  The pilot hesitated a moment longer.

  "Remember what your name means, Abu Ghazwan," Al Sifr said.

  That did it. A familiar gleam shone in those eyes. A gleam that Al Sifr had seen in many other men who were willing to die for what they believed in. It pleased Al Sifr.

  Ghazwan pocketed the pill bottle. "I will be ready, my caliph. We will have our vengeance. We will free the Middle East. For Allah, and the New Caliphate. I swear it will be so."

  16

  Aquitaine Region, France

  10km Southwest of Bergerac

  ETHAN GUIDED the PD-200 X Black Hornet over a vineyard via the custom radio. A nano surveillance drone made in Norway by Prox Dynamics and commissioned by the DIA, the 200 series was similar in shape and function to a fist-sized, four-bladed quadcopter, and had far greater range and maneuverability than the helicopter-inspired 100 series.

  The radio outputted the view from the camera on a built-in display, allowing him to fly the craft beyond line of sight via FPV—first person view. The resolution of the display was mediocre and Ethan had trouble at times discerning the more distant objects, but it allowed him to do what he needed to do, namely surveillance.

  Staring out through the tiny, wide angle camera lens made everything look farther away than it really was, and it took practice to learn the limits of the drone and recalibrate one's spatial awareness. It was like trying to drive a car while looking through a fixed telescope attached to the hood.

  The breakneck pace of drone tech advancement never ceased to amaze Ethan. Already consumers could buy models from the local Radio Shack that transmitted HD video from gimbaled cameras up to two kilometers away to a pair of head-tracking FPV goggles. And yet Ethan was stuck using a clunky, out-dated system like the Hornet. Though he had to give it some credit he supposed. The quadcopter was damn quiet, and so small that it was virtually undetectable above thirty feet in the air. It had some problems in high winds, but that could be expected for something so tiny. Plus it had a built-in thermal imaging camera for night operations. Even so, he would have loved some HD head-tracking FPV goggles...

  This is a job, he reminded himself. Not some game. Leave the head-tracking FPV goggles for when you're at home.

  An alert flashed on the HUD.

  "Battery is getting low," Ethan said. "I'm pulling Carl back."

  Bretta rubbed her eyes, waking from her nap. "All right. I'll get Carla in the air."

  Ethan turned the quad around and when it got close enough, he landed it via visual line-of-sight. He replaced the battery then shoved the drone, base station and remote into the backseat.

  Before he got back in the car, he glanced toward the estate. He could partially see the buildings in the distance through the screen of trees. The main chateau was a sprawling, white-painted, tile-roofed affair. There were four other outbuildings, which, according to the documents Sam had obtained, were: the caretaker's apartment, the guest house, another apartment for temporary migrant workers, and a winery for on-farm processing of grapes. The latter outbuilding was a plank-walled structure about the same length as the chateau.

  If it had been harvest season, the lanes between grapevines would have been full of migrant pickers or mechanical harvesters. But given that it was early summer, the estate was relatively quiet. Ethan only ever saw the French caretaker, a small mustached man who went about his business wearing a denim work shirt and suspender pants.

  The caretaker lived in the chateau, not the apartment. He never left the grounds. A delivery truck arrived once a week, bringing groceries likely ordered online. Another truck, run by a private refuse collection service, arrived every Tuesday to retrieve the trash he set out in the front of the estate.

  The French caretaker delivered some of the groceries to the winery outbuilding, and left with a full garbage bag. It was obvious someone was staying there, but so far neither Ethan and Bretta nor the night crew had seen anyone emerge.

  Ethan had used the drone to peer into the various windows of the chateau, and he'd seen some expensive-looking furniture, but otherwise no other occupants. Unfortunately the windows of the other outbuildings, including the winery, had thick curtains shielding the insides.

  As he stared at the chateau through the trees, Ethan wondered, not for the first time, if he had the right estate. Sam had someone pull the corporate records from the French governmental database; she targeted privately-owned vineyards whose major shareholders were suspicious shell companies, having an operating location within fifty miles of the cluster of Western Union addresses where Iqbal had sent funds. Seven vineyards matched the profile. She gave Ethan and Bretta the daytime task of monitoring one of those vineyards: the innocent-sounding Château Couleurs Du Vin. Sam pulled in other teams throughout Europe to case the remaining six potentials.

  Sam had tasked the NRO—National Reconnaissance Office—with providing satellite photos of the estates. The NRO had assigned two spy satellites to collect the image intel. The satellites took turns passing overhead, so that every three hours the NRO dispatched a fresh picture to Sam. Because of resolution issues, the satellites could focus their telephoto lenses on only two vineyards per orbit, and did so in a round-robin fashion. Sam promised to have the NRO assign more satellites in the coming weeks as they were freed up from other reconnaissance duties. Ethan doubted they would get any more than those two, given that Sam had to compete with seventeen other U.S. intelligence agencies for access. He didn't really see the point of using spy satellites anyway, given that Sam already had ground teams performing surveillance, but he didn't raise any objections.

  Sam also informed him that Iqbal had finally revealed the existence of the suspected terrorist safehouse. As Ethan had guessed, it was located in a condo across the street from the apartment. Unfortunately a search revealed nothing important. Iqbal also admitted to having a roommate—one Ahmed Al-Afghani. Iqbal had worked with a forensic artist to come up with a composite drawing of the man, which Sam sent Ethan's way. Ahmed was six feet tall, of lean build, with a star-shaped mark on his right shoulder where he'd apparently suffered a gunshot wound. A biometrics search in various intelligence databases hadn't revealed any results. Sam had shared his alias, description and composite sketch with several European agencies, as well as Interpol. So far, they hadn't had any hits. Somehow, Ethan doubted they ever would.

  He got back in the car. They always parked the Audi in the same place, on the shoulder of a rural road that ran alongside the property. There was another vineyard on the other side of the road, and similar estates beyond it. You knew you
were in wine country when all you could see for miles around were precisely arranged grapevines.

  They chose that particular spot because of the two trees—a maritime pine, and a birch—that screened the Audi from view of the property. In addition to the drones, they sometimes used binoculars, driving to the edge of the trees to scan the estate and its buildings. Bretta had an off-the-shelf Nikon Coolpix P900 digital camera, capable of 83x zoom, and she occasionally snapped photos of the property through the branches.

  "Buy that yourself?" Ethan asked her one time, distracted by the subtle motor noise from the zoom lens.

  "It's better than any camera the agency gives us," she quipped, then admitted: "Can be hard to focus, though."

  Ethan closed his eyes and napped. For the rest of the day they took turns flying the two Hornets, affectionately titled Carl and Carla, so that when one drone returned for a battery change, the other was in the air.

  When evening came, a black Renault Espace pulled up. The night crew. Ethan and Bretta waved their thanks and departed. Ethan had spoken with the other operatives face-to-face only once so far, on the first day. The men had given Ethan and Bretta the Hornets, agreed on a surveillance schedule, and then wished them good luck.

  He and Bretta rented a suite at a nearby family-owned bed and breakfast called En Blanc Et Noir. They played husband and wife for the benefit of the owners, but in the suite Ethan slept on the couch and gave Bretta the bed. The night crew members were the only other guests, as the remaining operatives in the region used lodgings closer to their assigned vineyards. However, since the night crew was never there at the same time as Ethan and Bretta, the two of them had the whole place mostly to themselves—excepting the locals and tourists who occasionally frequented the outdoor restaurant connected to the B&B.

  That night at the restaurant, Ethan ordered himself Tourin—a garlic soup—and Ballotines De Poulet—chicken stuffed with forcemeat.

  "Can't wait to smell your breath after that deadly combination," Bretta commented.

  "You'll never get close enough, my dear, trust me," Ethan said.

  "Like I want to," she retorted.

  For his shared appetizer with Bretta, he ordered a baked brie with walnuts picked from the Aquitaine region.

  Bretta returned to the room to get a head start on the bug-sweeping process: they checked the suite every night, as demanded by tradecraft.

  While he waited for the food to arrive he watched the owner's kittens and puppies chase each other under the empty tables. Hens and roosters clucked inside a nearby henhouse. Just inside the lounge area, the sounds of a revving engine could be heard as the owner rode his DIY six degrees of freedom motion racing simulator—three large LCD screens attached to a chair powered by windshield wiper motors, linked to a computer game. It was silly to watch, but the movements apparently simulated g-forces. The owner's loud French curses occasionally drifted outside. "Merde! Va te faire foutre!"

  The food arrived in takeaway containers and Ethan returned to the room, helping Bretta complete the sweep. Then they sat down to eat.

  Ethan served himself some brie and, always one to multitask, retrieved the secure sat-phone to check-in with Sam. After he updated her on his progress, he asked if Eight-Blue had learned anything new from Iqbal in Romania.

  "He did tell us a bit more about his roommate, Ahmed Al-Afghani," Sam said. "Apparently Ahmed fought with Al Sifr in Afghanistan during the 80s, against the Soviets. Ahmed and Al Sifr followed someone named Young Falcon back then. I had my CIA contact look into it, and this Young Falcon was propped up by the CIA, big-time. We're talking weapons, logistics support, troops. The CIA had one photo of this Young Falcon on file. It's a bit grainy, but I'm sending it your way. Check your cellphone."

  Ethan's smartphone buzzed. He put down the sat-phone, opened the secure messaging app on the smartphone and enlarged the photo. The picture showed a young, bearded Arab in black headgear, wearing a harness stuffed full of magazines. In one hand he held an AK-47 pointed skyward. His other arm was wrapped around a fatigue-wearing CIA officer. The Arab wore a huge grin while the CIA officer's smile seemed forced.

  Ethan showed it to Bretta, who shrugged.

  He retrieved the sat-phone. "Got it."

  "I'm going to pore over as many old CIA photos from that period as I can," Sam said over the line. "And see if I can I.D. any other members who fought under this Young Falcon. With luck, we might be able to bring some of these guys in and see what they know. That's all I have. Keep me apprised of the situation in France."

  "You know I will," he said.

  "And Ethan?" Sam returned.

  "Yeah?"

  "Be careful."

  17

  Ethan disconnected. He finished the rest of the walnut brie and dove into the main course.

  "So tell me how you got into this line of work," he said between sips of garlic soup.

  "It's a long story." Bretta removed the paper cover from the aluminum container that held her pâté de foie gras and filet mignon.

  "Indulge me."

  "Okay. I'll start from the beginning. I was born in Genoa, Italy. Moved to Israel when I was seven. Did my mandatory two-year army enlistment at eighteen. Graduated with the rank of samal—sergeant."

  "Nice."

  "Not really." She chewed a piece of steak. "In the Israel Defense Forces, enlisted ranks are earned based on time served, rather than any achievement on the part of the conscript. Anyway, after completing my military service I joined the Mossad. When I finished the two year training course, someone decided I would make a good operative for the kidon."

  "Remind me what that is again."

  "An elite clandestine group within the Mossad. The men are mainly recruited from the IDF special forces. The women, well, they come from all over, but mostly they're selected for their intelligence and sex appeal. Kidnapping, extortion, assassination, whatever the ordinary Mossad can't do, the kidon handle. The targets are terrorists, Iranian nuclear scientists, and anyone else threatening the state of Israel."

  Ethan wasn't impressed. "A Mossad within the Mossad."

  "That's exactly what it is. I remember the first day I went out to the base in the Negev desert for training. The very first question they asked me was: 'would I sleep with a stranger if required by the mission?' My naive response was, 'it depends on how cute he is.' The questioner responded by telling me, 'what makes you think the stranger will be a he?'"

  Bretta shook her head. "In the coming months, they trained me in different clandestine killing techniques. How to inject levofentanyl into a man's ear to leave no mark. How to inject succinylcholine between a man's toes to paralyze his entire body and then use a pillow to suffocate him. How to affix tiny explosives to car doors while speeding past on a motorcycle driven by an accomplice.

  "They also made me practice my feminine skills. They would send me to nightclubs and see how many I pulled home. My trainers chose the guinea pigs. Rich men. Married men. Single women. Men whose girlfriends were on their arms. I got extra points for the latter targets, which were usually harder, and for the speed of the seduction. I always ditched the guinea pigs right outside their residences and then returned to the club to pick up my next target. Sleeping with a target was required only on an actual mission, you see.

  "I graduated near the top of my class, becoming one of eight women in a unit of fifty. They sent me into the fray. I joined a team of four field intelligence officers in Yemen. I was the only female on the team. We were tasked with infiltrating an Iranian-backed terrorist cell in Sana'a, a band of Shiite Houthis suspected of supplying arms to Hezbollah. A field officer posted to the online message boards the terrorists frequented, back before the insurgents knew we monitored all of that, and praised the brave men who waged jihad against the Yemeni Sunnis, saying that if any of them ever needed a wife, his sister was ready and nubile.

  "One of the Houthis bit. I went to the KFC in Sana'a with a male field officer to meet him. When we got there, I received a te
xt, telling me to visit the women's washroom alone. I did so. There I met a woman whose face was veiled by a niqab. It turned out to be Sam. She told me I didn't have to whore myself out to gain intel. Told me there was an alternative. She gave me her number."

  "So what happened?"

  "I ignored her advice," Bretta said. "And married one of the Houthis. When my husband discovered I was on birth control pills, he beat me close to death, saying what I had done was strictly haram. Forbidden. It was my duty to bear him children." She paused then, her eyes glazing over as she stared right through Ethan. "Some people think it's glamorous, working as a field officer for an intelligence agency. That it's all James Bond. But mostly it's cold, it's rotten, it's dirty."

  Ethan had no words to console her. There weren't any. He knew firsthand the raw, visceral truth of what she was saying.

  "Sam visited me in the hospital," Bretta continued. "She pretended to be a nurse, and used her disguise to sneak past the field officer who guarded my door. It was the day before the kidon were going to ship me back. She convinced me to stay. Convinced me that I would have vengeance. When I agreed to go with her, she covertly injected the field officer with succinylcholine, then helped me from the room to her car. She nursed me back to health in her small Sana'a apartment.

  "When I was well enough she instructed me personally. Sam's exercise and weapons-training regimes were insane. But they worked. I thought I was good before, but by the time I was done with Sam, I was one of the top ten shots in the world with a handgun. Using a Smith & Wesson Model 41, I could hit inside the ten-ring of a bull's-eye at fifty yards, slow fire."

  "You kidding me? At that range, the target is minuscule." With a pistol, Ethan could strike a mark with reasonable precision up to thirty yards, which he considered above average, as most people had difficulty hitting accurately beyond twenty. "Though, as I'm sure you know, target shooting prowess rarely translates into the real world. Hitting a living and breathing target in the middle of a deadly gunfight takes a lot more resolve than shooting at an unmoving piece of paper from the safety of a gun range."