Praise for
“Spy fiction has a new superstar, F. W. Rustmann Jr., a retired twenty-four-year veteran of the CIA’s Clandestine Service who it turns out has a terrific talent for fiction. I loved False Flag and you will too. One wishes Rustmann were running the CIA in his spare time, when he isn’t writing!”
—Stephen Coonts, bestselling author
“With False Flag, Fred Rustmann presents another case for convincing James Bond wannabes to keep their day jobs. CIA work isn’t all high-balls and exotic climes. It’s dangerous, dirty, tedious, and requires nerves of tungsten. Rustmann learned it the hard way—twenty-four years in the field—so that readers can experience it in a comfortable chair. Rustmann exposes the Agency’s underbelly and its ripped six-pack. False Flag is a damn good yarn—or is it from his personal history? We’ll never know.”
—Phillip Jennings, author of Nam-A-Rama and Goodbye Mexico (with a bit of combat time and Agency experience of his own)
“Warning! You’ll lose sleep with this one. Former CIA clandestine ops officer Rustmann states up front the book is fiction, but the plot and fast-paced action brims with the latest tradecraft and knowledge of real-world intelligence operations, which makes for late-night page-turning to see how it all turns out, and wondering, ‘Did this really pass CIA censors?’”
—Gene Poteat, President Emeritus, Association of Former Intelligence Officers
“False Flag is a compelling contemporary thriller by a former member of the CIA’s Clandestine Service. Not a movie director’s version, this is the real version of what happens when dedicated operatives endeavor to rescue a key American asset from a terrorist stronghold. It’s up-all-night reading at its best, penned by a pro in the business.”
—Karna Small Bodman, former Senior Director, White House National Security Council
“Veteran CIA operations officer Fred Rustmann’s novel False Flag is a unique blend of edge-of-your-seat suspense and the sort of reality you can’t get without participating in intelligence service operations yourself. I highly recommend it to all thriller readers, and even to readers who don’t like thrillers—this book will change their minds.”
—Keith Thomson, bestselling author of Once a Spy
Copyright © 2018 by Frederick W. Rustmann Jr.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, website, or broadcast.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.
The CIA’s Publications Review Board has reviewed the manuscript for this book to assist the author in eliminating classified information, and poses no security objection to its publication. This review, however, should not be construed as an official release of information, confirmation of its accuracy, or an endorsement of the author’s views.
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Also by F. W. Rustmann Jr.
The Case Officer
Plausible Denial
For Carolyn
With Gratitude
“Used to be . . . dignity and courage
were the measure of a man . . .”
—From the song Used to Be by Charlene and Stevie Wonder
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
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
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
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
POSTSCRIPT
PROLOGUE
It happened every time she returned to Beirut; that sense of trepidation, fear, excitement, risk. The part of her job she loved and feared the most. Like a receiver standing alone in the end zone during the opening kickoff of a football game.
The ferry from Limassol slowed and settled down into the water as it neared its berth. The sun sank low on the horizon, falling below the distant mountains of Lebanon and casting a red glow over the waters of the Mediterranean. Red at night; sailors’ delight. If the old adage were correct, it would be a beautiful day tomorrow.
She was among the first to disembark, hurrying through the cursory customs check, pulling her luggage straight toward the taxi queue outside the terminal. The ride along the corniche to her pied-à-terre apartment took a little over thirty minutes. She felt safer when she entered her apartment and latched the door behind her.
Tomorrow would be a big day.
She awakened early the next morning and dressed casually in faded, torn jeans, a long-sleeved blouse, and tennis shoes. She brewed a pot of coffee and ate a cup of yogurt from her nearly empty fridge as she began preparing herself mentally for the operational task that would follow.
The brush pass was scheduled for exactly 11:43 a.m. on the third-floor, center aisle of the Galleries Lafayette department store on Hamra Street. Prior to the meeting, she would need at least three hours to run her surveillance detection route—a morning of shopping designed to lull any possible surveillance team to sleep. Her contact, a female case officer assigned under official
cover to the United States Embassy, would be doing the same thing. Each would be carrying an identical white envelope containing a passport and other identity papers—pocket litter. The photos and descriptions on both sets of documents were of the same woman.
At exactly 11:42 a.m., she turned the corner into the center aisle and examined a selection of pots and pans. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted her contact entering the aisle from the other end. She began walking slowly up the aisle, examining the housewares on her way. Her contact did the same. When she was abreast of the other woman, they switched envelopes and continued on their way toward opposite ends of the corridor.
She could breathe easier now.
She continued to shop leisurely along Hamra Street until a little past one o’clock in the afternoon. Confident she was not under surveillance and that the brush pass had gone unnoticed, she realized how hungry she was. She stepped into a café and ordered a quiche and an iced tea for lunch.
While devouring her lunch she removed the envelope’s contents—a Jordanian passport, driver’s license, two credit cards, and various club membership cards—and placed them carefully into a red leather billfold. The billfold then went back into her purse.
She paid the bill and continued her stroll toward her apartment. She was done for the day. Mission accomplished.
Two blocks from the corniche, she stopped at a busy intersection. While she was waiting by the curb for the light to change, a dark van turned in front of her. The van’s door slid open and two men jumped out, startling pedestrians waiting to cross the street. The men surrounded the woman, grabbed her from both sides and pushed her into the van.
The van sped off leaving the pedestrians gawking.
CHAPTER 1
The drive from Belmopan to the central prison of Belize in Hattieville, affectionately known as the “Hattieville Ramada,” took almost two hours, mostly on narrow, dusty jungle roads. The seventeen prisoners, each one handcuffed to his seat, bounced along in an old, gray school bus with dead shocks and springs.
Culler Santos was in a foul mood. The prisoner sitting across the aisle from him, a heavily tattooed young man of mixed race named Aduan, would not stop glaring at him. Santos had heard about Aduan in the Belmopan jail. He had a reputation for being a psychopath, the worst of the worst.
Although he was only a few months past his nineteenth birthday, Aduan had admitted to killing six people, including one of his uncles. The latter murder, the killing of a close relative, had elevated him in the ranks of the Crips. Each of the murders, with the exception of the last one, which landed him in prison, was recorded on his chest in a row of tattooed, half-inch circles.
The Crips and their archrival gang, the Bloods, were strong in Belize, having immigrated there from Los Angeles in the mid-eighties. And nowhere were they stronger, or more heavily represented, than in the Belizean prison system.
Santos decided it was best to ignore the kid, so he concentrated on looking out the window at the passing jungle scenery. But each time he looked over, he caught the kid staring at him.
He didn’t need this. On top of everything else, he was still wearing the jeans, tennis shoes, and sweat-stained, white polo shirt he had been wearing when he was taken into custody. He had not had a proper shower or shaved in the four days since his arrest. He knew he reeked because the stench of the other prisoners reminded him of a horse barn.
The kid was dressed in rags like most of the other prisoners. He wore stained, khaki cutoffs, a pair of worn out flip-flops and an Army camouflage tee shirt. The sleeves of the tee shirt were cut off to better display his powerful, tattoo-covered arms. He sported a head full of long, filthy dreadlocks, a stringy Fu Manchu mustache, and a braided goatee.
They reached Hattieville at the two-mile marker of Burrell Boom Road. A guard walked down the aisle unlocking handcuffs. The prisoners were led out the door in single file, through the main gate of the prison and into the prison yard. It was surrounded by stained, two-story, white-cement-block buildings, which housed the cells. A chain-link fence topped with hoops of concertina razor wire surrounded the entire 225-acre plot of land. Guards armed with AK-47 automatic weapons patrolled along the roofs of the buildings and stood in towers in each corner. The entire facility stank like a barnyard.
After a short “welcome” speech from the warden, who laid out the usual warnings about the consequences of escape attempts, the group was split into smaller groups and led to their cells in the “Remand Section” of the prison. There they waited for trial. Some of them had been there for more than five years. The judicial system in Belize was in no hurry.
Santos was led to a cell on the ground floor along with four other prisoners from the bus, but not before each one surrendered his belt. All other pocket litter had been confiscated at the Belmopan jail. He assumed the belts would be added to those other belongings. After the surrender, some of the men had to walk with one hand holding up their drooping pants. Santos reflected on the “low pants” tradition that was common among young blacks in American ghettos. This is where it all began—in prisons. Why those kids wanted to emulate prison inmates was totally beyond him.
One of the prisoners in his group was Aduan. Santos cussed his luck and immediately began to think about how he would neutralize this obvious threat. Aduan was hugged and high-fived by several other inmates when he entered the cell. This macho display added to Santos’s dismay.
The filthy, twenty-by-twenty-foot cell was already filled with more than a dozen inmates. Santos counted the double bunks that lined two of the walls—there were four. That meant eight beds for about sixteen smelly men. This is going to be cozy, Santos thought.
All of the bunks were occupied, so he looked for a place on the concrete floor where he could stake out a space. Grabbing one of the bunks was out of the question. It would have meant an immediate confrontation, and he was not ready for that. Not yet.
In one corner of the room, he noticed a plastic milk carton cut in half and realized it was being used as a toilet. Better stay as far away from that as possible, he thought. He found a spot near the corner on the other side of the room, plopped himself down between two other inmates and put his head on his knees.
Hurry up, Mac. Get me out of here. Please hurry . . .
The crowded cell was a cacophony of smells and noises. A few of the prisoners, like Santos, sat quietly with their eyes closed and arms folded around their knees, trying to block out their surroundings, submerging themselves in their thoughts.
It did not take Aduan long to saunter over to Santos’s side of the cell and stop in front of him. He stood there, swaying back and forth, glaring down at the American. The cell suddenly became quiet. Three other heavily tattooed prisoners, all with long dreadlocks, moved across the room and converged alongside of Aduan.
Santos sensed the arrival of Aduan and his fellow Crips and watched them from the corners of his eyes. He sat there quietly for a few moments and then looked up and locked onto Aduan’s threatening stare. He knew now that confrontation was unavoidable, but he was not afraid.
His thoughts centered on how best to neutralize the four thugs. With one attacker, it would be simple: take him to the ground and dislocate his arm with an arm bar. That was the quickest and easiest way to neutralize an opponent. But in this case, there were too many of them. He needed to remain on his feet while sending them all to the ground. Tactics spun through his mind. He knew he could beat them. It was just a matter of how.
His head rose slowly and he quietly asked, “Do you want my spot?” Aduan threw his head back and laughed heartily. He looked around at his friends and then began to reply.
As soon as Aduan’s mouth opened, Santos unleashed a sweeping kick with his right leg that knocked Aduan’s legs out from under him and dropped him hard on his tailbone. There was an audible thud as he hit the concrete floor, forcing the air from his lungs in a gasp.
Santos spun to his feet in one motion and caught the tall Crip to Aduan’s left
with a roundhouse, backhand punch to the side of the head, dropping the thug like a stone.
He turned to his right and confronted the wide-eyed, fat Crip who was swinging a lame roundhouse at his head. Santos blocked the punch with his left forearm, stepped in close, looped his right arm under his attacker’s right arm and, with two hands grasping the wrist, snapped the arm down. An audible pop and a scream told him the elbow was dislocated. He followed up with a sharp right elbow to the temple and the Crip went down in a heap, unconscious and with his arm jutting out at an awkward angle.
Aduan jumped to his feet and attacked. Santos stepped back with his left leg to dodge a right hook, crossed his right leg over his left and launched it screaming toward Aduan’s head. Santos’s foot connected at the ear with a sickening thud. Aduan careened across the room, into the wall and down in a heap.
In a blur Santos spun around and delivered a side kick directly to the knee of the forth thug. The force of the kick snapped the Crip’s knee backwards, dislocating it and sending the thug to the ground screaming in pain. He was no longer a threat.
Santos dodged a kick to the head from the only standing Crip and delivered two sharp blows to the solar plexus, knocking the wind from the thug’s lungs and sending him to his knees. He went down into a fetal position.
Santos stood, panting. He surveyed the carnage. Two of the Crips were permanently out of commission with dislocated limbs. Aduan was unconscious and the other Crip was moaning and gasping for breath in a heap.
He stepped over to Aduan who was lying face down on the floor. He stood over him, brought his leg up high and stomped down on Aduan’s right shoulder with the heel of his shoe. He heard the shoulder crunch, rendering the arm useless.
He turned to the remaining Crip, moaning and lying on his side. He brought his leg up again and brought it down hard on the femur, snapping the bone and eliciting a scream from the thug.
Satisfied, Santos surveyed the carnage he had inflicted. Now all four of the Crips would be taken to the hospital with broken or dislocated limbs, which was Santos’s plan in the first place. They would be removed from the cell and no longer a threat.
False Flag Page 1
