WHATEVER THE COST: A Mark Cole Thriller

by J. T. Brannan

  Jeb Richards fidgeted in his seat nervously. He had done what he could to suppress useful intelligence, and knew that Mason would have been doing the same, but the persistent rumors suggested that the reason for this meeting was that there had been a breakthrough in the hijacking case.

  Richards could only hope that it wouldn’t interfere with his own plans, his own assurances and promises that he had made to other parties.

  ‘Thank you all for coming at such short notice,’ he heard Abrams begin, morbidly curious to see where this was going to go, ‘but we have received information that we need to work on, fast. In conjunction with John’ – she nodded her head towards Eckhart, the National Security Adviser – ‘and Pete’ – she nodded again, this time at the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs – ‘I have ordered the DEVGRU squadron to our naval base at Sembawang, Singapore, from where they will stage a proposed hostage rescue mission for the crew of the hijacked cargo ship, the Fu Yu Shan.’

  Secretary of State Clark Mason was almost out of his seat by the time Abrams had finished her opening statement, eyes bulging. ‘What exactly’s going on here?’ he demanded as calmly as he could. ‘And why haven’t I been informed about any of this?’

  Abrams regarded him icily. ‘I’m informing you now,’ she said. ‘Time is of the essence here, as I’m sure you appreciate, and I didn’t wish to waste any time informing each and every one of you individually.’

  Mason bowed his head in acceptance, and Abrams carried on with the briefing. ‘We have received intelligence pertaining to the location of the Fu Yu Shan.’ There was a collective murmur from the group, but it ended as quickly as it began as Abrams continued. ‘It appears that the group behind the hijacking was indeed Liang Kebangkitan, and their hideout has been traced to a small island off the coast of Sumatra. Pete will give you all the details later, but suffice it to say that the ship is there, and so are the hostages.’

  Richards grunted. Mason might have accepted the situation, but Richards didn’t mind having a pop himself. ‘Where has this information come from?’ he asked with a concerned expression. ‘I haven’t heard anything about it. What kind of source is this?’

  Abrams held up her hands, soothing the atmosphere. ‘It comes from a reliable source,’ she said reasonably. ‘One that I trust implicitly.’

  ‘Can you tell us what it is?’ Richards shot back acidly. ‘This is the National Security Council, isn’t it? If we’re going to authorize any form of action, then we need to know it’s from a trusted source. And if I haven’t heard anything about it through any agency in my department, then it makes me want answers, okay?’

  Richards watched Abrams nod her head thoughtfully, seeming to weigh things up. ‘Okay,’ she said at last, ‘this intelligence comes directly from one of our operatives, codenamed the Asset.’

  Richards almost choked as he heard this. ‘The Asset?’ he blurted out. ‘But who the hell is he? Can we trust him?’

  There was more conversation around the table now, more heated and open than before, but all heads turned as Abrams cleared her throat.

  ‘We can trust him,’ she confirmed. ‘I can vouch for this man one hundred percent.’

  ‘You think?’ asked Clark Mason, getting himself back into the picture. ‘With all due respect, I believe we’re going to need a little more than that before we launch a military operation on foreign soil.’

  ‘We’ve got more than that,’ Major General Pete Olsen’s voice boomed down the table. ‘Now why don’t you do us all a favor, simmer down a bit and listen to what we’ve got?’

  Richards was shocked by the man’s brusque disrespect to the Sec State, but Mason seemed to fold under the man’s intense gaze.

  ‘Good,’ Olsen said as nobody else dared interrupt him. ‘Now look at this.’

  An image came up on the high-res screens around the room, showing the coast of Sumatra. ‘Now, here we can see the coastal city of Dumai on mainland Sumatra,’ he intoned with his rich bass voice, ‘with the island of Pulau Rupat off to the east. If we look closer,’ he continued as he flicked a button, the image on the screens zooming in, ‘we can see seven smaller islands in the channel between the two. Our interest lies with the easternmost islet, here,’ he said as he zoomed in even closer, highlighting the tiny island, the satellite maps showing a green outline of thick vegetation.

  He clicked another button, and the image switched to direct line-of-sight photographs of a narrow river. ‘This is a riverine channel which cuts through the island,’ Olsen said, pressing the button once more. ‘And here is the entrance to the pirate’s hidden cave, where they are hiding the Fu Yu Shan and its crew.’ Several images flicked by, taken in both daylight and nighttime conditions. ‘And here,’ he said pointedly, ‘is the Fu Yu Shan itself’ – he clicked through to another picture – ‘the cabins used by the pirates’ – another picture – ‘and some of their marine vehicles and other equipment.’

  Olsen looked around the room at the stunned expressions on the faces of the Security Council members.

  ‘When were these taken?’ asked Catalina dos Santos, stealing the words right from Richards’ open mouth.

  ‘Yesterday,’ Olsen replied evenly. ‘And we are getting regular updates.’

  ‘You mean the Asset is still there?’ Richards asked in disbelief.

  ‘Yes,’ Olsen replied with a smile. ‘We’ve got real-time, on-site reconnaissance.’

  Dammit, Richards thought to himself, cursing the agent who had found the pirates.

  Under the table, he started to text his personal secretary.

  Urgent. Find out everything you can about intelligence agent codenamed The Asset.

  ‘Listen up,’ Ike Treyborne announced to Red Squadron, lined up in front of him in an old aircraft hangar at Sembawang naval base. ‘We’re going to get our gear squared away immediately. Night Stalkers are also en route and should be here by morning. After that, we’ll need to be ready to move at an hour’s notice, understood?’

  Jake Navarone, along with the other members of the Red Indians, gave a nod of his head in affirmation. The Night Stalkers were pilots from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne), the incomparable covert ops flyers charged with delivering JSOC special mission units such as DEVGRU to their targets. Piloting advanced aircraft such as the Black Hawk and Little Bird under some of the harshest operational conditions imaginable, they had built a legendary – and well-deserved – reputation for themselves.

  ‘We have maritime elements also en route,’ Treyborne continued, ‘but if push comes to shove and we have to move quickly, we’ve got access here to some suitable vehicles. I’ll discuss that with troop commanders individually at this evening’s briefing.’

  Red Squadron had been called into action more quickly than expected, but the intelligence that they were being fed by JSOC was real-time, and nobody knew for sure how long the agent providing it could stay in place for.

  And the intel was good; photographs of the river, the surrounding area, the cave entrance, the disposition of buildings within the cavern, the Fu Yu Shan itself. Whoever was sending it over must be one hell of an operative, Navarone considered.

  JSOC was even able to patch through to them up-to-date thermal imagery from infra-red cameras that the agent had somehow managed to set up throughout the cavern. A gift of exquisite operational value, it allowed the SEALs to see where each and every person was in the cavern.

  It appeared that the hostages themselves were being held together in a room off the main cavern. It wasn’t clear from the thermal imagery, but Treyborne and the analysts back at JSOC believed that it was likely to be a smaller side-cave, probably sectioned off with steel bars.

  What was clear was that there were eleven bodies in that room – identified as hostages by their limited and restricted movements – whereas the ship had originally had a complement of twenty-two, including its armed security element. Navarone and the other SEALs wondered what that meant for the missing eleven.

 
Navarone could guess about the six men who had been charged with protecting the ship; they had probably all been killed during the initial assault. But the other five? They might also have been killed during the raid, or after – perhaps as an example to the others, maybe because they tried to fight back. Or else they may have died subsequently from illness, dehydration or starvation, or any number of other complications.

  But there were eleven live hostages left, and to Navarone and the rest of the Red Indians, that was a hell of a lot better than none.

  The thermal imaging also allowed the SEALs to track the movements of the pirates; who was on sentry duty, when and where, as well as a wealth of further information about their general habits within the lair.

  The on-site agent was also sending back analysis of the lair’s fortifications and defensive systems, which seemed formidable. JSOC specialists were running through it all now, and Navarone knew that he would probably learn more at the briefing for troop leaders later on.

  But they had an intelligence goldmine, and that would make their work a lot easier.

  ‘I spoke to Commander Lewis before setting off from Subic,’ Treyborne continued, referencing Chad Lewis, the Commander of Task Force 73, Logistics Group Western Pacific, who was the officer-in-charge of the base, ‘and he’s already been setting up an ad hoc training facility based on the general layout of the river and cave system, so we can get some situation-specific rehearsal in.’

  There was a general murmur of approval amongst the man; they couldn’t wait to get started, knowing that time spent rehearsing was never wasted.

  ‘So get yourselves squared away and back here in thirty minutes ready for our first run-through,’ Treyborne instructed. ‘We don’t have the mission green light yet, as it needs approval from above’ – at this there were the expected moans and groans, and Treyborne raised his hands for silence – ‘but we need to be ready when we get the call. Any questions?’

  ‘Just one,’ Navarone said. ‘Who the hell do we have out there? Who’s getting us all this intel?’

  Treyborne shook his head. ‘I’ve got no idea, son, and I probably never will. But if I do ever find out, I’ll be buying him a cold beer, that’s for damn sure.’

  The young woman was pushed roughly to one side as Arief Suprapto sat up in his bed, running a hand through his long hair, head pounding from too much moonshine whisky. There had been plenty of alcohol being shipped aboard the Fu Yu Shan, but Suprapto had never been one for labels, and generally found that he preferred his own concoctions anyway. Besides which, the expensive bottles had already been sold at great profit to a dealer on the supposedly tee-total mainland.

  In fact, most of the cargo had already been sold on, just one part of his deal with Jemaah Islamiyah. He didn’t normally like to sell on the cargo until after the hijacking negotiations had been concluded one way or another – selling products from hijacked ships was one way that his gang could be traced, and he had survived so long by not giving into impatient greed. But the terrorist group had offered him a princely sum – both for the single crate, and to offload the rest of the cargo as quickly as he could – and just this once, Suprapto had agreed to throw caution to the wind.

  He was surprised by the amount offered by his Jemaah Islamiyah contact – a sum far greater than what was typically available for the fairly small regional Islamist group – but had never been a man to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  Although he had agreed to sell the cargo, he had made sure that his men travelled far and wide to do so. Goods had therefore been traded all through Sumatra, as well as to connections in Java, Malaysia and Singapore.

  It had brought Liang Kebangkitan hundreds of thousands of dollars, but Suprapto was not interested in the money; or at least not for its own sake. Money was only good because it motivated his men, and allowed him to purchase equipment that enabled him to go on pirating.

  It also bought all sorts of tasty equipment for his gang’s hideout, including marine radar systems which were used by several of the world’s most advanced naval forces. It was this sort of perimeter security which allowed him to relax in his luxurious private cabin without fear of a sudden raid; any such attack would be picked up a long, long way away.

  He had sonar too, in case of a submarine insertion, and airborne radar to warn him of unfriendly breeches of the channel’s airspace.

  The remote cavern was loaded with means of defending the gang if attacked, too – torpedo launchers and anti-aircraft guns to take care of naval and air assault, and the entire island was rigged with mines and other nasty surprises in case anyone was stupid enough to approach on foot.

  The fact that the Chinese shipping firm hadn’t yet paid the ransom that he’d demanded didn’t trouble him unduly; negotiations like this often took a lot of time, months in some instances. He was aware of the strong line being taken by both the Chinese and the US governments, but he knew – sooner or later, when the ships and her crew still hadn’t been located, and everyone was tired of the story in the world media – they would open up and agree to Suprapto’s terms. Especially if he began sending back pieces of the hostages; a finger here, an ear there, and they would soon pay him what he wanted.

  Not that he was in a hurry; the money from Jemaah Islamiyah was more than enough to tide them over for years to come.

  The hooker in his bed, one of a group he’d brought over from Dumai as a reward for him and his men, reached out to caress his thigh, but he cast her hand away and stood, strolling naked to the bathroom to relieve himself.

  His phone rang then, and he returned to his bedside to pick it up. It was Umar Shibab, his contact with JI. What the hell did he want?, Suprapto thought gruffly as he answered; their business should be concluded.

  The answer came moments after he picked up the call, although the possible ramifications of the information took a while for his moonshine-addled brain to process.

  It seemed that his arms broker had ended up dead in Jakarta, hurled from the top of the National Monument. It might not have seemed so strange in and of itself – arms brokers dealt with some pretty unreputable people, and such instances were not particularly uncommon – but a second body had been found right next to Wong Xiang. This man was unknown, with no ID or distinguishing features, but the rumor appeared to be that he was a Korean agent of some sort. And the bodies of three more Orientals – also thought to be Koreans – had also been found scattered throughout the city.

  It only concerned Shibab – and now Suprapto himself – because the crate which had been delivered to Jemaah Islamiyah had been the one from North Korea which had been loaded onto the Fu Yu Shan at the port of Dalian.

  Was it merely a coincidence? Or had North Korea found out about the link between Liang Kebangkitan and Wong Xiang, and sent men to question him? And if they had, what would they have learnt from the man before his fall from the tower?

  And why had the Koreans been killed? And who had killed them?

  Whatever the answers, Suprapto knew one thing – he would have to increase security measures on his island.

  Pulling on his clothes, he raced from his cabin to find Reza Panggabean and get things organized.

  5

  Jeb Richards stifled a yawn. He and the rest of the National Security Council members had been in the Situation Room for hours now, and it was beginning to grate.

  Sure, they’d had breaks to grab a coffee and use the restroom; and the group had broken up into smaller units on occasion to discuss things independently, to try and win people over to a particular way of thinking in a vain attempt to build some sort of consensus.

  But the bottom line was that they had been at this damned table for most of the day, and a decision still hadn’t been reached about what was going to happen.

  Essentially, the room was divided into those who favored direct and immediate military action, and those who wanted to approach things more diplomatically.

  Richards and Mason belonged firmly in the second camp; Mason beca
use he was a born diplomat, and ordering military action wasn’t really in his nature; Richards because he didn’t want a raid to reveal things he wanted to keep a secret, for now at least.

  And his secretary still hadn’t got back in touch with him with any information about the Asset.

  And so on and on the hours dragged, as Mason and the Attorney General discussed the legalities of operating in a foreign nation, and Olsen and his followers argued back about the primacy of US interests and how they had to strike while they had usable intelligence.

  ‘Look,’ Mason said reasonably, starting another round of negotiations, ‘the fact is that now we know where the ship is, where the crew are. We’ve got the upper hand now. I’ll go back to Jeb’s proposal’ – Richards nodded his head as Mason gestured towards him – ‘to block the channel and surround the island, in order to enter negotiations with this Arief Suprapto and his group. Furthermore, I –’

  ‘We don’t negotiate with terrorists!’ Olsen shot back quickly, cutting Mason off. ‘We never have, and we never will! What are we going to say? Please can we have our citizens back? Pretty please? With sugar on the top?’ Olsen shook his head. ‘You must be out of your mind.’

  ‘We don’t negotiate with terrorists?’ Mason asked gently in response. ‘That’s a naïve attitude, and you know it. We’ve negotiated with every terrorist group in the world at one time or another, when we thought it would serve our interests. Hell, we created the Taliban when we sponsored the mujahedin against the Russians, if you can remember that far back.’

  ‘If I can remember that far back? How dare you, sir! I was fighting Soviet proxies in Granada and Panama back when you were jerking off to the Sear’s catalogue in your mommy and daddy’s bathroom! I –‘

  ‘Gentlemen, please!’ President Abrams interjected quickly. ‘This is not the time or the place for behavior like this, do both of you understand?’

  Olsen nodded his head, his military training instantly making him obey his commander-in-chief. ‘Yes ma’am,’ he said. ‘Please forgive my outburst.’