by Sean Wilson
In the meantime, the senior doctor gave Mike a powerful sedative that sent him plummeting into a deep and dreamless sleep, a healing rest that would last for the best part of twelve hours. When he finally woke up, bleary eyed, thirsty and with a nagging ache in his jaw and in his ribs, Mike saw that the drip had been removed from his arm and he also noticed a fresh pack of combat fatigues and boots, neatly stacked by his bed. It was a clear and unambiguous message. It was time for him to get up, get his ass off the cot and get back in the game. He was scheduled to fly back to Washington and the clock was ticking.
Chapter 7
The DIA offices in Washington perfectly reflected their low-profile, clandestine role in the US government’s approach to handling high-risk operations in dangerous environments. On the outside, the building appeared to be completely anonymous, innocuous, utterly conventional and beyond suspicion. The security was low key but still intense. The building had been badged as a software company’s research offices so access was by invitation only. That was only to be expected. The building was staffed by intelligence and planning staffs and it provided a necessary and discrete liaison between the political and military chiefs in Washington and the operational directors of the DIA. Mike arrived there from the airport by cab and was immediately ushered up to the top floor of the building where the senior staff met to discuss their missions.
‘Take a seat, Mike. Glad to see you made it out in one piece.’ The former air force general smiled as he pushed a coffee pot towards his visitor. He had an extensive background in military intelligence and lent a valuable layer of professional experience to the planning and analysis sessions that formed the backbone of every mission.
‘Let’s get down to business, Mike.’ The general was chairing the meeting. They were all in civilian clothes and, beneath the cool professionalism projected by the senior staff, there was an unmistakable layer of tension in the room.
‘We’ve read the reports and liaised with our colleagues in Langley and we all agree that we have a problem here.’
Mike stirred his cup and wondered if it was some kind of perverse military pride that persuaded these able and intelligent men to endure such god-awful coffee. He nodded and listened carefully to everything the senior execs had to say. It was a welcome relief from being de-briefed, from being asked the same questions over and over again. From having the embarrassment of Fatima Trigo’s honey trap shoved down his throat over and over again. Now he was being prepared for a mission that could easily rank as the most important of his career.
‘The medics say that you’ve recovered very quickly from your recent experiences and, frankly, the shrink doesn’t understand how you coped with the stress.’ The general smiled, as if he’d found the Company shrink’s comments on Mike’s psychological profile both amusing and disturbing. ‘But that’s why we want you to head up the mission.’ There was a long pause before the general continued. ‘In spite of your regrettable lapse of judgement with the Russian pussy trap.’
A major leaned towards the general. ‘I think you mean honey trap, General.’
‘I know what I goddamn mean and so does the man who fell into it up to his goddamn balls!’
The general nodded to a colleague and a former army lieutenant colonel picked up the briefing. ‘Mike, the Russians are getting very ambitious and they want to project their influence into the Mediterranean. You can read about it in the daily papers and it certainly isn’t a national secret. Fact is that things are already getting out of hand in the region and the chaos is designed to play directly to the Russians’ strategic advantage. No one wants a full scale shooting war so we need to adopt an asymmetrical approach that hits them where they’re vulnerable. That’s where you come in.’
Mike listened, his cooling coffee congealing in the cup in front of him, absorbing the details and wondering whether the mission wasn’t simply a poorly-disguised attempt to punish him for the Fatima Trigo debacle. To his practised ear, it sounded far too much like a one-way ticket suicide gig and he was having difficulty seeing how he was supposed to get back from the mission with his nuts and his head still attached to his body. Evidently, his concern showed up on his face.
‘What’s the matter, Mike? You don’t look too convinced about the plan.’
‘General, everything looks fine in the comfort of this air-conditioned office here in the great capital of the free world - but I can’t see how any of my team are expected to survive.’
The senior staff looked at him coldly. ‘We don’t do suicide missions, Mike. You know that. We plan to get you and your team in and we plan to get you out again in one piece.’
Mike shook his head slowly. ‘There are a number of significantly increased risks compared to previous missions and,’ he looked directly at the General, ‘if anything goes wrong….’ He left the statement unfinished, the unspoken words hanging in the air. Rescue was always a controversial subject and deniability would always be far more important than the operatives’ lives. The US government was willing to accept casualties as long as the details stayed out of the press. And this covert mission could so easily go wrong. It could spark a war and Washington would bury the mercenaries under a smokescreen of denial so quickly and so thoroughly that their very existence would be open to question. Rescue wasn’t part of the mission if the operation was compromised. Period. The senior staff looked at Mike with stony expressions and tight jaws. ‘We’ve all been at the sharp end, Mike. We know what it’s like when things get noisy. We’ve all lost friends in combat. Don’t sit there looking at us like you’re the first guy ever to parachute into a tough situation.’
The room went quiet except for the hum of the air conditioning unit on the wall.
The General cleared his throat. ‘If you don’t want to take the mission, we can always find someone who does.’
Mike smiled. The same old words, same old games. ‘You know you don’t have to do that, General. I’m just stating facts here and looking for a more reliable probability of surviving once the job’s been done. And you know that’s what I’m talking about.’
He had no intention of turning down the mission. But he was already thinking about a couple of modifications that would probably never be approved by the senior brass. So he decided not to mention them. The General stared at him. ‘Do you accept the mission or not? It’s a simple yes or a no.’
Mike looked the general straight in the eye.
‘The answer’s yes, General. If I can survive this coffee, I can probably survive anything.’
No one laughed.
‘Good. We have to move fast. You’ll meet up with your team tomorrow morning at oh seven hundred at the Company training facility to begin the operational shake-down. Make it work, Mike. Give those commie bastards hell.’
One of the staff members shuffled his papers and leaned forwards to look at the General. ‘Erm, I don’t think you can call them Communists anymore, General.’
The General looked back at his colleague across the table with steely eyes. ‘Bastards never changed, Bob. Once a commie, always a goddamn commie. Assholes still want to take over the world. And don’t you ever forget that.’
The meeting was over though the general’s parting comments never made it into the minutes.
Mike was grateful to get to his hotel room, have a hot shower and hit the sack. His body still needed time to recover and he knew he’d been lucky to escape from the Russians but he felt up to the task he’d just formally accepted at Company Headquarters. It was going to be tough, that was for sure. He was thinking about the changes he needed to make, calculating the adjustments, planning to make sure that he’d live long enough to enjoy the major-league bonus that had been offered to sweeten the job.
Mike didn’t need an alarm call. He was wide awake before sunrise. The mission shake down meant hours and hours of training in a hastily constructed replica of the target building, six-man teams moving in close formation down dimly lit corridors, clearing rooms and shooting targets that
popped up from concealment, memorising the layout and studying the mission details. It was gruelling, sweat-stained, repetitive and tiring but the mission personnel had been selected because of their special forces training and combat experience. They knew their trade. They knew what they had to do. Everyone understood that it was going to be a dangerous mission and a couple of the team members had voiced concerns about the evacuation plan but Mike had smiled and said he was tweaking the details to put the odds more squarely on their side. The mercenaries nodded without knowing anything more about Mike’s back-up plan. If Mike said he was handling the problem, that meant the problem was being handled. He was a natural companion to the art of battlefield improvisation. He was well-known to his colleagues as a man who inspired confidence, a respected and highly capable soldier who stood out amongst the ranks of the mercenaries who signed up with the DIA. He was recognised as being exceptionally good at his job, a man who functioned more like a machine in the pressure-cooker of combat, the kind of guy you’d want at your shoulder in a fire fight, a formidable and unrelenting opponent, a guy who could be exceptionally creative in the face of overwhelming odds, a guy who didn’t quit. Mike was also known as a survivor.
It was well recognised that some mercs took crazy risks. Those were the guys who revelled in the secret desire to die a hero’s death in combat, guns blazing, exposing themselves to unnecessary danger and hoping for some kind of terminal glory and a one-way ticket to the feasting halls of Valhalla. Those guys usually got their wish. They usually didn’t live too long. They were also the kind of guys who could get their buddies killed. They were the kind of guys who needed to be filtered out long before a mission ever began. Mike also had a death wish. But it was aimed specifically at the Spetsnaz bastards who’d slaughtered his squad in the cold night air of the Syrian desert. Mike didn’t appreciate having wanna-be heroes on his missions. He needed guys who could handle the stress, men who knew how to compartmentalise their natural anxieties, soldiers who would follow their training drills and keep a clear head when the lords of chaos descended on the battle field and sowed fear in the hearts of mortal men. These were the guys who were more likely to get the job done and survive to enjoy the cold beers and celebrations back at base. These were the guys Mike Ducane wanted alongside him on the mission. Fellow professionals. Guys who’d looked at death when it was up close and personal. Guys who were willing to go back and look death in the eye again.
There was never enough time. They had five days to be ready and five days weren’t nearly enough. But it was all they had and it would have to suffice. The meter was running and they had to do the best they could and improvise their way round the inevitable obstructions. Mike was glad to be back at the fun factory. He was looking forward to getting back to Syria. He was planning, absorbing all the data and thinking about all the primitive shades of visceral, blood-soaked payback. To everyone’s surprise and despite the growing tension, he was smiling.
Chapter 8
Syria was not scheduled as the DIA team’s first stop. The twelve individual members of the team each took different routes to the Middle East to avoid drawing too much attention to themselves. They met up in Turkey where they were rapidly processed by conventional US army personnel before being freighted in a very uncomfortable US Air Force transport plane to Baghdad. Equipment checked, re-checked and loaded and they were ready to board the military choppers to Syria, flying low and hugging the terrain before swooping onto a sand-blown landing strip on the edge of a small operating camp, far from their normal forward operating base. The DIA brass accepted the fact that their security had been compromised. They’d arranged for a diversionary mission to be flown out of the main camp on the night that Mike and his team were being shipped towards their operational destination. The idea was to distract any observers inside or outside the base with the semblance of a real mission though the Agency’s focus remained firmly fixed on Mike’s team. The diversionary team would fly out to the desert and lay up without any intention of risking contact with ISIS. Logistics didn’t allow for two missions to operate at the same time within the same theatre. The DIA extraction choppers would find it impossible to attempt a simultaneous extraction of two teams, especially since Mike’s mission involved twice the regular complement of men. The DIA brass had also arranged for a cruise missile strike on known ISIS positions about ten kilometres away from Mike’s intended insertion point. It would provide cover for the deployment and distract the enemy during the chopper landings. Mike’s team was committed to a very dangerous search and destroy mission that was more reminiscent of the secret jungle wars in Colombia than an anti-insurgency raid in the deserts of Syria. Their target was the main distribution centre for all the processed heroin that was being trafficked through Syria. They were going to destroy the stock and blow up the nearby processing facility. Mike nodded at the maps and arrows, memorising the satellite imagery and noting the heavily fortified perimeter. He breathed out heavily as he sipped the cold coffee. ‘OK then. So all we have to do is navigate the minefields, sneak into a desert fortress, by-pass all the guards, the dogs and security, blow up the storage facility and destroy the processing plant. Oh, and make a clean getaway.’ He added more coffee to his mug. ‘Great! No pressure then.’
On the plus side of the survivability ledger, the mission had been assisted by the latest debriefing notes from a captured ISIS commander. Despite all the advances in technological eavesdropping and round-the-clock hacking into enemy computer drives, human intelligence could still provide startling intel results. Snatching key personnel in covert kidnap operations might produce unexpected dividends. Interrogating known ISIS commanders could reveal vital information about operations, supply routes, logistics, funding arrangements and even how the secret stockpiles of Afghan heroin were being channelled through Syria. The DIA intel guys had learned more than they’d expected when they sat down with a short little ISIS captive who’d been targeted as a possible intelligence resource. He’d been lifted by Mike’s team and helicoptered to a DIA operations camp for close interrogation. Washington was impatient. Washington always wanted results. That’s why they poured so much money into DIA operations.
Once the bearded commander had grasped that he was at imminent risk of being summarily executed and fed to the camp’s ferocious guard dogs, he’d admitted that his prayers and public statements of belief had been more of a convenience than an unshakable article of faith and he’d quickly abandoned his martyr’s prize of seventy-two virgins and agreed to co-operate fully in exchange for his life. In reality, the guard dog handlers had far too much respect for their dogs’ welfare to offer them human meat. But, with a snarling Doberman snapping and salivating at his bare toes, the prisoner hadn’t fully appreciated that subtle distinction. And so he’d talked. And talked. And talked. In the end, his interrogators had difficulty shutting him up.
Despite the apparent sophistication of their military efforts, ISIS commanders and radio operators were frequently guilty of ignoring radio security protocols. Whether on a mobile phone or on a military radio set, they loved to gossip. They chatted about who they knew and they chatted about what they knew. They couldn’t help themselves. It had been one of the incurable weaknesses in operational security in Afghanistan. It wasn’t always easy for Intel to join the dots and understand exactly what the enemy was referring to but the captured ISIS commander had heard plenty of stories about the infidel Russian special forces troops based in Syria. He talked at length about the foreigners who’d been tasked to provide security at a large village in the north of the country. No ISIS troops were allowed to enter the facility. Anyone who came close without a Russian military escort would be cut down in a withering storm of heavy calibre machine gun fire. The perimeter was mined and patrolled. Helicopters sometimes scouted the area. The Russians had opted for high-visibility security rather than camouflage and discretion. The message couldn’t have been clearer: stay out and stay away.
