WHATEVER THE COST: A Mark Cole Thriller

by J. T. Brannan

  It was the Chinese who had managed to trace the arrival of the crate in Dalian as air freight from Pyongyang, and had therefore confirmed the North Korean connection.

  Treyborne had been appalled that this was still not enough for full approval by the National Security Council – apparently engaging with North Korea was diplomatically very dangerous, and a formal cross-border incursion was strongly discouraged in some quarters due to the possibility of military reprisals – but the president and the chairman of the joint chiefs were both adamant in their desire to find out what had been in the crate, and what the ramifications were of its theft.

  And so when deep-cover Chinese agents within the North Korean capital had managed to track the crate even further back to its point of origin – a political prison camp hidden in the remote northern mountains known only by its number, Camp 14 – Treyborne had pushed for a recon mission and finally been granted his wish.

  It wasn’t entirely official – there was still plausible deniability should anything go wrong – but Jake Navarone and his men had been tasked with penetrating the security of Camp 14 and finding out what sort of weapons were being made there.

  Due to the ambiguous nature of the mission’s legitimacy, back-up was thin on the ground; and yet General Olsen had promised Treyborne the use of any vehicles and equipment his men needed for the insertion and extraction, and China had agreed to the use of its much closer airfields.

  Jake Navarone looked across at his men, sitting in silence as they checked their personal weapons and equipment in the back of the stealthy Black Hawk helicopter. Yes, he thought as it rose slowly into the air above the Chinese military airfield that was nestled into the foothills of the Yalu River, the narrow stretch of water which separated China from North Korea; he was nervous.

  He and his men had to penetrate the most secure country in the world, find a remote and secretive prison camp with next to no intelligence on the place, make their way inside without detection, and find something that might be of use to the American government. And then they would have to extract covertly, while not engaging any enemy personnel.

  Navarone sighed as he considered the mission ahead.

  It was going to be one tough son of a bitch.

  ‘So do I take it that you can assure us that no military action is currently being taken?’ Clark Mason asked with a raised eyebrow.

  Jeb Richards watched as Pete Olsen shifted uncomfortably in his chair, finally raising his eyes and locking them firmly onto Mason’s.

  ‘I can assure you,’ the general said in his deep voice, ‘that you have been made aware of everything you should have been made aware of.’

  Mason smiled. ‘Ah,’ he said, hands up, ‘spoken like a true politician. Let me put it another way – is there any truth in the rumor that helicopters from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment have relocated to Dulong Airbase in China, right on the North Korean border?’

  ‘China is a security partner of the United States, Mr. Mason,’ Olsen said reasonably. ‘We are engaged in joint training exercises at all times. And the location of our assets, especially those involved in special operations is – if you’ll excuse me – none of your damned business, and even hinting at such a thing might well be regarded as a violation of national security.’

  ‘A violation of – !’ Mason’s face went red instantly. ‘How dare you! I –’

  ‘Clark,’ Abrams interjected, ‘Pete’s right on this, I’m afraid. The location of our special operations units – even in training – isn’t something to be discussed lightly. I would advise you to move on.’

  Mason grunted. ‘And if some intelligence miraculously becomes available in the near future?’

  Abrams smiled back at her secretary of state. ‘Then we shall all be very happy with our good fortune, won’t we?’

  There was a mixture of stifled laughter and suspicious mutterings around the table, and Richards wondered whether he should bring up the matter of Mark Cole once again. He still couldn’t quite believe the story about the man simply escaping from an island full of Navy SEALs, but Commander Treyborne had been adamant that this was exactly what had happened. He said that he would have given orders for Cole to be pursued further, but with the limited men at his disposal he had apparently decided that securing the pirate hideout was his number one priority.

  And now the Asset – this damned secret agent Mark Cole – was out there somewhere. What else would he find out? And how quickly? He had just decided to get back onto the issue of Cole’s arrest when he checked his watch and thought better of it; he had to be leaving soon, and wouldn’t have the time to be drawn into a protracted argument.

  President Abrams noticed Richards checking his watch and turned to him. ‘Jeb,’ she said, ‘when’s your flight?’

  ‘About three hours,’ he said. ‘I should probably be on my way, actually.’

  Abrams nodded. ‘Of course, and good luck with your meeting. Have you met this minister before?’

  Richards nodded; there was no point lying about it. ‘Yes, I met Quraishi when he was living in the United States. He’s a good man; if anyone can help us find out more information about this Arabian Islamic Jihad, it’s him.’

  With all the recent furor about the cargo ship hijacking, the potential threat of this new terrorist group had been somewhat overlooked. But Richards’ opposite number in Saudi Arabia, Assistant Minister for Security Affairs Abd al-Aziz Quraishi, had recently been in touch asking for a meeting; ostensibly he had some information on the group behind the beheading of Brad Butler that he wished to share.

  Richards was glad to be leaving the rat’s nest of Washington, and the utter banality of these NSC meetings. But as he packed up his things from the conference table, he couldn’t help but wonder what Quraishi really wanted with him.

  3

  Although the exterior of the Saudi National Oil headquarters building in Dhahran was an unappealing mass of concrete, much like office blocks all over the world, inside was a different story altogether.

  Cole entered the magnificent lobby, with its marble floors, priceless artworks and sweet-smelling orchids, and stopped to take it all in.

  On the one hand, stopping to admire the foyer was probably what most first-time visitors would do; and on the other, it allowed him to assess the building’s security, its entrances and exits, and the staff who worked there.

  He was dressed in an expensive Brioni suit, a gold Rolex on his wrist; he didn’t even have to guess what Dan Chadwick would wear, as he had all of the man’s clothes from his suitcases.

  A smiling executive appeared instantly by his side. ‘Mr. Chadwick?’ he said in perfect, unaccented English.

  Cole held out his hand and shook the man’s firmly, Texas-style. He was impressed by the strength of the man; under his tailored suit, the executive was built like a gorilla. ‘Mornin’,’ Cole said in a southern drawl. ‘How you doin’ today?’

  ‘I’m doing well thank you sir,’ the executive said. ‘My name is Abu. Please follow me, and I will take you to your meeting. Would you like something to drink?’

  Abu was already walking, and Cole followed, leather heels clicking on the marble floor. ‘Black coffee,’ he said, and watched as the man spoke into a microphone at his lapel, putting the order through.

  Abu made small talk with Cole about the flight and his hotel as they entered an elevator, which whisked them upwards to the finance department on the third floor.

  Cole was impressed with the place; everything was smart, clean, efficient. Still, he considered as the elevator doors opened to an even more splendid lobby, if a trillion-dollar company couldn’t get it right, then who could?

  Abu led Cole down a corridor which reminded him of the interior of a sultan’s palace, until they arrived in a private reception room. Cole took a seat on a leather couch which had an intricately carved wooden frame, and noticed that there was a black coffee waiting for him on the table.

  ‘Mr. al-Zayani will be with you
shortly,’ Abu said, giving Cole another smile before turning on his heel and marching off back down the long marble corridor.

  No sooner had the man disappeared than a large wooden door opened behind Cole, a middle-aged, well-dressed spectacled man standing there with his arms open.

  ‘Mr. Chadwick,’ he said welcomingly, ‘how lovely to meet you at last.’ Al-Zayani embraced Cole, and then shook his hand as they parted. ‘Your trip was good, I trust?’ he continued, ushering Cole into his office.

  ‘Very good, thank you,’ Cole said as he passed through the doorway. ‘Your country is as beautiful as everyone says.’

  Cole knew that the size of the office shouldn’t surprise him, and yet it still did; the place was immense, and as highly decorated as the lobby outside. It was like the presidential suite at the Four Seasons.

  There was a huge leather-inlaid mahogany desk in one corner, but Al-Zayani led Cole to a more comfortable living area and offered him a seat on another leather couch. Cole smiled as the man took a seat opposite him. ‘This is an incredible place you have here,’ he said honestly.

  Al-Zayani shrugged his slim shoulders. ‘We do what we can,’ he said modestly. ‘It is better than sitting in the heat of the desert at any rate, eh?’

  Cole laughed. ‘You got that right.’ The temperature outside had been over a hundred degrees even though it was still only morning, and the air-conditioned sanctuary of the Saudi National Oil headquarters offered wonderful relief. ‘But I’m from Texas, so I guess you learn to live with it.’

  Al-Zayani nodded his head. ‘Yes,’ he said as a handsome young man appeared, carrying a tray which he set down on the table. ‘I suppose that is true. Humans are amazingly adaptable, aren’t they? It is incredible what one can get used to.’ The man poured black coffee for both of them into the small and intricately designed cups. Cole remembered the coffee on the table outside; he’d not even had a chance to pick it up.

  His hand moved to the cup straight away, and he smiled at the man. ‘Thanks,’ he said, and watched as al-Zayani merely nodded his head, excusing him from the room.

  Was al-Zayani a terrorist financier? The money trail seemed to lead to him, but on the face of it, he didn’t seem the type. Too cultured, too refined; and he seemed to enjoy the luxuries of his position a little too much to lead a second life as a believer of extremist ideals. But then you could never be sure about anyone, Cole knew; he himself was hardly what he seemed, after all.

  Cole’s plan was simple; he had gained access to al-Zayani’s office, and would now try and engineer a situation where the man would have to leave him alone, giving Cole access to his computer. He hoped to find evidence there of who al-Zayani was linked to, and where the money was going.

  ‘Do you play golf?’ al-Zayani asked when the assistant had gone.

  ‘Golf?’ Cole asked, caught off-guard. He’d been mentally rehearsing the hundreds of facts and figures he had memorized for the business deal they would be discussing, and looking for a way of being left alone in the office, and wasn’t sure where al-Zayani was leading the conversation.

  ‘Yes,’ al-Zayani said with a big smile. ‘Golf. It is the national sport of businessmen in your country, no? Don’t they say that more deals are done on the fairways than in all the boardrooms of America?’

  Cole laughed. ‘They do say that,’ he said. ‘And it’s true. Yes, I admit we’re guilty of that at Texas Mainline too.’

  Al-Zayani’s smile beamed even wider. ‘Excellent,’ he said happily. ‘Have you ever played at the Colonial Country Club?’

  Cole nodded. If he remembered correctly, Dan Chadwick had a much-valued membership there. Cole had learnt the game during his semi-retirement in the Caribbean, and had enjoyed it. It had been Sarah who had taught him initially, coming as she did from a moneyed family for whom golf was a way of life; but he cut off his thoughts about her immediately, before they rose too far to the surface and put him off his game.

  He hadn’t ever played at the Colonial himself, but knew enough about the place to be able to lie effectively if he needed to. ‘I have,’ he said, ‘in fact I play there regularly, I’m a member there.’

  Al-Zayani looked impressed. ‘I love that course,’ he said. ‘I’ve played there myself when I’ve visited other companies. A wonderful place,’ he said wistfully. ‘We have a course here,’ he continued after taking a sip of his coffee. He replaced the cup on its tiny saucer and held out his hands apologetically. ‘Nothing like the Colonial of course, but we get by.’

  ‘I’m sure you do.’

  ‘So,’ al-Zayani said with a raised eyebrow. ‘Shall we?’

  ‘Shall we . . . ?‘ Cole asked, raising an eyebrow of his own.

  ‘Have a game?’ al-Zayani asked, Abu coming through the door at the same time, as if linked psychically to his boss. ‘Abu here will escort you back to your hotel to change, and we will meet at the course in’ – he checked his watch – ‘shall we say one hour?’

  Obviously, al-Zayani wasn’t about to take ‘no’ for an answer, and so – with a last longing look out of the corner of his eye at the computer which lay on the huge desk behind them, just out of reach – he nodded his head in confirmation. ‘Sounds like a great idea,’ he said happily, rising from the couch and allowing Abu to guide him out of the office. ‘I’ll see you there.’

  ‘I am looking forward to it,’ al-Zayani said, and Cole couldn’t tell if the man suspected something and wanted Cole out of his office, out of Saudi National Oil headquarters altogether, or if he actually did just want a game of golf.

  But either way, Cole knew he was going to have to change his plans.

  The wind whipped through the Black Hawk’s open doors, the sky dark and the mountain forests below even darker.

  Jake Navarone nodded to his men, who stood ready by the jump doors. This was it; soon there would be no going back. It was into the lion’s den, the forbidding mountain fortresses of North Korea.

  The chopper’s infiltration of the paranoid nation had gone well so far, or at least it had appeared to; the stealthy bird with its reflective black paint and its muffled rotors hadn’t been picked up by radar or human eyesight, and it had followed its winding, circuitous, nauseating route through valleys and canyons at a height the SEALs could scarcely believe; it was literally hugging the tree-tops, and Navarone was sure he’d heard the scrape of branches on the undercarriage more than once.

  Navarone had to trust that they were unobserved, that the North Koreans weren’t tracking them in order to arrest them as soon as they made it to the ground.

  But now they were approaching the drop-zone, and Navarone had to ignore such feelings as he and his men got on with the job at hand.

  Instead of parachute insertion, they were going low enough to use fast-ropes, abseiling down to the forest floor at high speed.

  He looked towards the jumpmaster, who held up a hand, fingers spread.

  Five.

  One finger went down.

  Four.

  Another finger, and Navarone did a last minute visual check of his equipment to make sure he wasn’t leaving anything behind.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  The men in front of him stepped out of the now hovering helicopter, and Navarone watched as they disappeared into the darkness.

  And then he felt the jumpmaster’s hand clapping him on the back, and he launched himself out of the Black Hawk, holding the rope with his thick gloves, and rappelling at high speed down to the enemy country below.

  He could see nothing below him, only a few feet of rope before it was swallowed in the dark, but had to trust the pilots had stopped at the correct place – a small clearing in the forest identified by satellite reconnaissance.

  If they’d got it wrong, he would know about it when he hit the tops of the trees instead; his legs would be broken, and the mission would be over before it had even begun.

  But an instant later, his descent slowed and his boots hit the ground. He ins
tantly moved off to let the Chinese liaison officers behind him land safely, and took out his night vision goggles.

  In the eerie green light of the device Navarone saw his men already making a security perimeter, their own goggles on, weapons aimed out at the surrounding forest. And then the last two men landed, and Navarone watched as the helicopter – near silent – lifted off and disappeared into the night.

  Navarone did a quick count of his men, and gave a hand signal to Frank Jaffett, the team’s lead scout.

  Without a word, Jaffett checked his compass and headed off noiselessly into the forest, the rest of the covert SEAL team slipping into the tree-line behind him like silent wraiths.

  Navarone’s nerves buzzed within him, senses so alert, so completely involved in the moment that – despite the danger – there was nowhere else on earth he would have rather been.

  4

  The heat was intense, although Abdullah al-Zayani tried to assure Cole that it wasn’t yet the hottest part of the day. But it was a dry heat at least, and was more tolerable than the incredibly close humid atmosphere of Southeast Asia where he’d spent the past few months.

  The course itself was nice, huge rolling green lawns at once out of place in the desert which made up the majority of the country, and yet at the same time very much in-keeping with the decidedly western Dhahran community.

  It was obvious that al-Zayani had no wish to conduct business in his office, and so Cole had used the time back at his hotel to come up with a new plan. And as al-Zayani signed him in and they strolled onto the fairway, Cole made a start with it.

  ‘I don’t know how you feel about it, but back at the Colonial we normally have some sort of wager on a game,’ he said with a smile that was both friendly and challenging at the same time.

  Al-Zayani nodded. ‘Yes, you Americans like to gamble, don’t you?’ he said chidingly. ‘Of course, gambling is ithm al-kabir, Mr. Chadwick, what we regard in Islam as a very great sin.’