Special Access

by Mark A. Hewitt

“Not good, Hunter. We’re still about sixty miles out.”

  “It’s not I-95 down there. I think the best they can do is thirty miles an hour. They're still a couple hours away. Friggin’ headwinds aren’t helping our cause. We were in such a hurry to get out of there, I didn’t ask if there would be any assets in the area. It would be nice if JSOC had a Predator to pick up our bogeys. Even an AWACS would help.”

  “Good idea. Can’t hurt to ask.” Lynche spun radio knobs until the assigned encrypted frequency appeared in his night-vision goggle capable-LED window. “Mary Kay, Holeshot.”

  “Holeshot, Mary Kay. Go.” The encryption made Jill’s voice sound like she was underwater.

  “We were wondering if there are any big eyeballs in our area. Looks like our chickens have flown the coop and have about an hour’s head start. I’m afraid we may not be able to overtake them. The headwinds aren’t cooperating. Over.”

  “Let me check. Hold one, Holeshot.”

  They waited for four minutes. “Holeshot, Mary Kay.”

  “Mary Kay, Holeshot. Go.”

  “Regret no buzzards or other Predators in the area. I’m sorry. Anything else I can do for you?”

  “We thought as much, but it was worth a try. How about a weather update? We’ve hit much higher winds than forecast. Over.”

  “Standby, Holeshot.”

  That time, she took ten minutes to come back. “Holeshot, Mary Kay.”

  “Mary Kay, Holeshot. Go.”

  “First base is reporting thirty knots at 180 gusting to forty-five with blowing dust. At one-zero-zero, sixty knots gusting to seventy. Over.”

  It was Hunter’s turn to say, “Shit.”

  “Thanks, Mary Kay,” Lynche replied. “See you on the flip flop. Out.”

  Hunter lowered the nose and descended to 7,000 feet AGL. Twenty minutes passed. “Reminds me of my time with the Border Patrol,” Hunter said, “when our pilots went out on what they called fire watch. You can see all the little campfires of the goat herders in the NVGs. During the winter, our pilots would launch after midnight in a Super Cub with NVGs, look for campfires made by illegal aliens, then guide agents to the fires. I never would’ve guessed there would be dozens and dozens of campfires out there.”

  Thirty minutes later, on the horizon, they saw the lights of the city of Zaranj.

  “Greg, eleven o’clock, two vehicles. What are the chances?”

  Lynche slewed the big FLIR and zoomed the image to maximum. “Two vehicles that are probably Landcruisers. Your Marines are wonderful.”

  “All Marines are wonderful.”

  “Yeah, right. What happened to you?”

  Hunter wanted to roll the Wraith on its back and shake the rudders to get Lynche's attention, but they were late and heading toward Iran. A gust of wind nearly flipped the airplane over.

  Hunter fought to keep the YO-3A tracking toward the two Landcruisers headed to Iran.

  Then the modified fuzz-buster automotive police radar detectors mounted on either side of the glare shield lit up with a row of red lights and squealed into their headsets. Hunter flipped the plane on its back and pulled the cyclic to four Gs, pointing the nose to the ground before rolling the little airplane back upright at 5,000 feet AGL.

  “What the fuck is that?” Lynche asked, shouting to be heard over the squealing radar detectors.

  “They’re painting us with their radar. I’m trying to break lock and get low and lost in the clutter. I’m looking for a missile launched our way.”

  “I’ll try to keep tabs on the trucks,” said Lynche.

  “Bird in the air! Shit!” The surface-to-air missile came off the rail from Iran. In Hunter’s NVGs, the SAM’s engine heat started as a flare in the distance that grew with each second. He reverted to his twenty-five-year-old training to avoid incoming missiles, but this time in a prop plane.

  A pilot in a combat situation must be aware that under certain circumstances he may place himself and his plane in a dangerous situation. A pilot didn’t want to turn away and lose sight of the bogey, because that meant he would be dead soon. Hunter wasn’t a man to retreat, but of all the options he had available, masking the airplane in ground clutter was the only viable alternative. They needed to get down on the deck to defeat the missile, which was rocket-powered and had a head start. IBM’s Blue Gene would still be trying to find the best solution. He had to turn his back on the missile.

  “Hold on!” Hunter shouted.

  The aircraft was in one-G flight as Hunter slammed the throttle to idle, rolled the plane aggressively on its back, and pulled. He fixated on the G meter and programmed the stick to his belly until the needle stood on the tick mark between six and seven. His NVGs slipped over his eyes under the high Gs. Taking his hand off the throttle, he held the goggles in place.

  In his old F-4 days, he would’ve used the throttle hand to grab the oxygen hose connected to his face mask to guide his head and eyes to keep in sight of the bogey, because his head and helmet weighed six times normal, and no one’s neck muscles could keep himself upright and focused on the bad guy under that load. Lynche's helmet slipped over his eyes, as he strained to hold up his head.

  Halfway through the reverse Immelmann, the front radar detectors stopped flashing and squawking, and the aft pair took over. Halfway through the turn, Hunter checked his instruments. Lynche, completely unaccustomed to even short bursts of six Gs, tried to breathe and stay conscious. His vision narrowed and blackened to an unfocused spot the size of a softball. He hyperventilated through his nose, his teeth gritted and tightened, while straining his stomach muscles as hard as he could. He knew they would die in a few seconds, blasted from the sky.

  Looking straight down with a missile inbound, the radar altimeter was off, and the barometric altimeter unwound like a spinning top. Without a horizon or depth perception, Hunter kept the G on the aircraft, deployed the speed brakes, and unfeathered the prop.

  As he acquired ground and leveled off barely ten feet above the dirt, a flash behind the airplane rocked both aviators.

  Lynche's tunnel vision quickly disappeared. Black returned to color, as the G forces relaxed. He was still hyperventilating and finally managed to control his breathing.

  “Fuck it. Let’s get the hell out of here.” He didn’t want to admit the adrenalin rush loosened his bladder a bit.

  Ten minutes passed, then Lynche said, “Shit. I think I wet myself.”

  “We’ll both need clean flight suits and new seat pads after this op.”

  Lynche wanted to laugh, but nothing came out. He barely responded to anything Hunter said. Hunter, recognizing shock symptoms, allowed Lynche time to recover.

  Halfway back to Kandahar, Lynche finally spoke on the intercom. “That was some fancy flying, Sir. That’s why I thought I’d need a fighter pilot for this kind of work, but I never really thought we’d have to avoid missiles. I couldn’t have done what you did. I’m grateful you saved my life.”

  “I was worried you’d beat my ass for bending 007. There was a period when I thought the wings would snap off. We may’ve lost the speed brake. It doesn’t seem to work anymore.”

  “Did that…? How…how’d you get that missile to hit the ground?” Lynche spoke quietly, because he had a splitting headache due to the post-adrenalin rush.

  “From my old Top Gun notes,” Hunter said nonchalantly, “nearly all missiles have a rate bias built in that leads an aircraft. It’s the same thing you do when you lead a duck with a shotgun, and you let the duck fly to where the shot will be. Same principle. Missiles have a proximity fuse, so when it gets close to something hard, it blows up.

  “I just hoped it would track us…I’m sorry…lead us as we were heading toward the ground. It guessed where we’d be. That dumb Russian missile guessed wrong, or it flew into the ground. Either way, we’re still alive and flying.”

  “That was too fucking close. I’m starting to think you need a new sidekick.”

  “I thought I was the sidekick.” Hunte
r inventoried his systems and scanned his instruments. “Greg, it wasn’t that close.”

  “It wasn’t that close? Are you shitting me?”

  “We probably had another half-second, maybe a full second. Good thing this baby handles like a little fighter. Otherwise, we would’ve been toast. Besides, I couldn’t do this without you. We’re a team, and you’re the man. Don’t you forget it.”

  “You’re incorrigible, Maverick.”

  “Incorrigible would be my middle name if I could spell it.”

  After Hunter took evasive action and recovered, the aircraft didn’t handle the same. It was more challenging to fly and was a little squirrelly on landing. Bringing it down safely, he taxied to the white shelter at the end of the field.

  When he and Lynche got out, they were shocked to see how the frame had oil-canned. It was twisted, and several metal panels were warped and rippled. Strips of speed tape and several rivets were missing, while others were loose. Shrapnel shredded part of the speed brake, which hung by one attachment bolt.

  Bob and Bob shook their heads in amazement, as they inspected the airframe and engine. YO-3As were prototypes and not production, fully-tested aircraft; they were designed for stable flight in cool night air, not for acrobatics or violent evasive maneuvers. From their days in Vietnam, no YO-3A had ever taken as much as a bullet during nighttime missions. 007 looked as if it had been on the losing end of an inadvertent Lumshevak.

  After a quiet debrief and dinner with Jill, Hunter and Lynche entered the hangar, as Bob and Bob disassembled 007 and secured the wounded wings and parts in the container for its trip home.

  Hunter, arms crossed, talked to himself. “We were set up. Someone leaked the mission.”

  Lynche's head jerked toward his friend. “What?”

  “We were set up. They knew we were coming and targeted us before we were close to the border.” He stared at the work being done in the container.

  Lynche didn’t like it when Hunter knew something and wouldn’t share. It was serious, and Lynche never considered the obvious answer. He steeled himself to ask, “Do you know who?”

  “I have a pretty good idea.”

  “Who?”

  Duncan’s tone was neutral. “It might be Nazy.”

  Lynche placed his hand on Hunter’s shoulder and gave him a shove. “What? Are you nuts? She’s as loyal as you or me. Besides, she doesn’t know about Wraith unless you told her. Then there’s the fact that she loves you and would die for you. She’d never betray you. None of that makes sense. Nice try, but find another answer.”

  “Someone knew we were coming. It has to be someone at your old place. I thought the DCI, but that’s impossible. That leaves a very thin thread back to Nazy. She doesn’t know about Wraith, but maybe she does. I’m having a hard time coming to grips….”

  “You aren’t making sense, Mav. Take it from the top.”

  “Greg, Nazy isn’t happy with me. She didn’t like what I did to get her divorce. She has more sympathy for that bastard deceased husband of hers. She seems to have more feelings for him than any of us. I don’t understand Nazy Cunningham anymore.”

  “Whoa and stop! I don’t know where that came from, and it’s hard to believe anything other than she loves you. She’d die for you. She would never betray either of us.”

  “Something isn’t right. The timing is too coincidental.” Not wanting to talk about it anymore, he shook his head before turning away.

  Listening to his friend and reading his body language, Lynche finally understood what had been driving Hunter for the past several months. As Duncan Hunter walked away and disappeared into the night, Lynche gritted his teeth and clenched his fists—the only way he could vent his frustration with Hunter without losing his composure.

  As Bob and Bob lashed 007’s bent, buckled wings in their padded cradles, Lynche went up to and extracted the satellite phone from its yellow case. In a minute, the connection went through.

  “Connie, we have a problem.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  1000 October 22, 2010

  NE Division SCIF, CIA Headquarters

  Nazy Cunningham sat at the head of the small oval conference table, tapping the end of a pencil against the hardwood. She was deep in thought. It was six months since she claimed to have located bin Laden’s hiding place. The directors of the National Clandestine Service and the National Counterterrorism Center just left with their horse-holders in tow, caustically letting her know their surveillance of the alleged bin Laden compound in Pakistan had not yet yielded a single photograph of the world’s most-wanted terrorist.

  It was true three of bin Laden’s wives and several of his children were in the compound. It was also true there was no obvious clue that Osama bin Laden was there or had ever been there. Their collective frustration boiled over, as every Agency asset was leveraged to determine the probability that Osama bin Laden was hiding in that compound.

  After six months, the probability still remained at 90%, which was better than anything the intelligence community had come up with in nine years of looking in every haystack for the needle that was Osama bin Laden. Nazy didn’t know, but she assumed several groups of special operations people were practicing assaults for that compound. She knew the President had been briefed and directed the DCI to keep developing the intelligence. The CIA had to provide better odds. It had to give a definite, positive ID that Osama bin Laden was in that compound before the President would authorize a raid into a foreign country and invade an ally.

  Convinced there was nothing else they could do other than continue surveillance on the unique compound, Nazy Cunningham pushed back her chair and stood. She collected her files and CIA-emblem-embossed notebook and left the SCIF. As she reached for her pager, it startled her, vibrating and chirping in her hand.

  Looking down, she recognized Connie Lynche's private cell phone. A sense of dread swept over her. She sluggishly walked toward her office, fear of the unknown and the creeping feeling that Duncan was in great pain spurred her to hurry.

  She flicked the door behind her, as she rushed to her chair. The door slammed shut, an unusual occurrence for the NE Division office. Dialing an outside line, she punched in the Annapolis number.

  Connie answered on the first ring. The four-digit caller ID meant the call came from Langley. She immediately pressed the Talk button and said, “Meet me at the Ritz Carlton, Tysons at 1230. It’s urgent.”

  “Just a minute, Connie. I have a mission debrief this afternoon. I can’t just leave here.”

  “Nazy, this isn’t a request. If you have any residual feelings for Duncan Hunter, you’ll be there.”

  Before Nazy could reply, Connie hung up. Nazy redialed, but the call was immediately sent to voice mail. Nazy slowly shook her head in disbelief. What was it about? Was Connie now interfering in Nazy’s love life?

  Convinced that Connie’s instructions indicated that Duncan was probably physically all right, Nazy shook off any thoughts he might be injured or dead and reevaluated her schedule. Fingers flew on her keyboard, followed by a rapid mouse, urging her calendar in Lotus Notes to load. She noted the debrief scheduled for 1300 with the DCI had been canceled.

  Stunned, she stared at the screen. “What are the chances of that happening?” she asked softly.

  While the cancellation left her free to meet Connie, she shunted aside thoughts of missing a rescheduled meeting with the DCI while she was at the Ritz Carlton. The DCI was too mercurial to call, cancel, and reschedule staff meetings all in one day unless he was traveling.

  She checked the time and comforted herself with the thought that she could accomplish other time-sensitive work before leaving Langley for the hotel. It would also take her mind off Connie Lynche and what she might have to say about Nazy and Duncan. She habitually scanned her office. The safes were locked, the desk clear, and she quickly logged off her computer.

  She stood and went out the door, taking the stairs to the fifth-floor SCIF, heels clicking on the old ti
les, her blue badge swaying with each step. Once at the entrance, she saw the warning in huge red letters—Electronics Prohibited. She removed her pager, placing it in the wooded cubby outside, then patted her pockets to check for other electronic devices.

  Her hand went into the biometric hand-reading device, and she turned toward the camera with her ID card up so the software could read her iris. A flashing green light accompanied the opening of the electronically actuated door locks. She pushed down the door lever and stepped into the special-purpose SCIF.

  As the door closed behind her, she called, “Anyone here?” When no one answered, she stepped between two massive shredders and tan cubicle dividers to her work station in the corner, her high heels crushing thousands of tiny chads that layered the carpet near two massive shredders.

  She recently returned from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and hadn’t fully completed transcribing her interrogation of two al-Qaeda terrorists brought in from Pakistan and Yemen. Ever since the new administration reversed the protocols for interrogating the most-hardened terrorists with what the press and DOD defined as “enhanced interrogation techniques,” the Executive Order restricted CIA personnel to use the rules contained in the US Army Field Manual—Human Intelligence Collector Operations.

  With the new rules in place, as anticipated by intelligence executives, al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners completely stopped talking and refused to cooperate with military and Agency personnel. Nazy suggested to the Deputy Director of the National Counterterrorism Center she might get them to open up better if an Arabic woman with an Arabic accent asked the questions. After a few hours, even the hardiest men were so infuriated; they lost control or whimpered in her presence.

  Arriving at night in a black abaya, Ms. C entered the interrogation rooms like a ghost and left like a conqueror, soon gaining a reputation as a secret weapon in the interrogation wars.

  Nazy shook the mouse to wake the computer and logged onto the system. In moments, she accessed the database from which hours of audio between the two men and her had been loaded into the system. Placing headphones over her ears, she listened to herself talking with the terrorists.