Sheep Dog and the Wolf

by Douglass, Carl;

  She also provided him with a dozen pair of different colored contact lenses.

  “Your eyes are very much too striking, John. Make liberal use of the contact lenses to soften their impact and to make you less identifiable and memorable. Choose the right color for the role you intend to play. Don’t minimize the importance of details and nuances.”

  Hunter could not shut off his mind that night. In his dreams, he frantically applied makeup and disguises and berated himself for his ineptitude.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  White House: Presidential Family Quarters, 0235

  The red phone at President Storebridge’s bedside rang with its irritating unfriendly jangle.

  The president often said to his wife, Afton, that “no good news ever came by telephone.”

  He was pretty sure that this time would not be the exception.

  “Hello,” he said brusquely.

  “Lang here, Mr. President, sorry to awaken you. This is a secure line. NSA Director Miller is on a second line with us.”

  “What is it Director?”

  “Yemen, sir. Since ten D.C. time, we have been intercepting all kinds of traffic from the Middle-East, especially from Yemen and the Saudi-Yemeni border area about a major strike in the offing. It is unclear exactly what the target is, but this sounds like the real thing.”

  “How sure of the authenticity of these intercepts are you, Director Miller?”

  Walter Owen Miller spoke for the first time.

  “About 92%, Mr. President. The signals are in clear Arabic, and in some instances there have been no attempts at encryption. They seem to be communicating, and presumably acting in some haste.”

  “What do we do about it, Director Lang?”

  “An attack seems imminent, Mr. President. Even if the Yemeni government would permit an American invasion, we could not possibly get anything there for three days that would be useful; and we are hamstrung by the probability that the perpetrators are Saudis and are currently on Saudi soil. The Company’s on-the-ground assets think that what we are hearing is still planning, but they are convinced that something big is about to happen unless we can disrupt the planning and logistics of the plan.”

  “Where do you think they plan to hit?”

  “I would bet the farm that it is in Yemen, and it will either be the embassy or a major Yemeni governmental institution, probably the presidential offices.”

  “Director Lang, I see no viable alternative. I want the operatives of Sheep Dog in Sana’a within the next forty-eight hours ready to act. No more discussion of ‘preparation’. Understood?”

  “Perfectly, Mr. President. We have some intel about a major confab being cooked up somewhere in the Rafad region. We should have better information by tonight, and we can make that meeting our main target.”

  “We can’t send in Delta Force or Recon Marines—nothing that shows our colors, remember that, both of you.”

  “We are well aware,” the two directors said at once. “We’ll get it done our own way.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  John I knocked briskly on Hunter’s door at 0322. Hunter was instantly awake. “Come in.”

  “John, get up. It has hit the fan. You will board a jet for your first assignment at 2300 hours, and there is a lot to get done before you do. Hedy and some of her worker-bees will be here in about ten minutes. I have a crew coming in to get your gear packed; so, it will be on the plane when you get there. You ready for the big time, son?”

  “Um-hmmh,” Hunter said, sure that John I could hear his heart thumping.

  He fought to sound casual, and found that his training was kicking in, and, instead of getting more excited, the prospect of moving into the field was actually helping him to calm down.

  Following John I’s directions, Hunter was lying supine on an examination table that had been brought into the house during last night’s heavy meal. Hedy and her crew moved into the house and took over, scarcely speaking to either John.

  “We are going to get a life-cast mold of your face and neck, John,” she said. “You are going to need a very effective disguise for where you are going, my boy, and don’t bother asking; it is not at my pay level to know where that might be.”

  A technician harshly scrubbed Hunter’s face and neck with soap and equally harshly dried them off with a towel with the texture of number two sandpaper. Then he scrubbed it again with rubbing alcohol.

  “Good enough,” Hedy told him.

  Hedy and the tech gelled Hunter’s hair flat then glued a theatrical bald hair cap to the margin of skin under the cap’s edges with surgical glue. They applied protective petroleum jelly to his eyebrows, eyelids, ears, and lips, inserted drinking straws into Hunter’s nostrils then put a thick coat of alginate dental impression material to begin the process of making a life-like mold. As soon as the alginate impression hardened, they applied several coats of orthopedic fracture web plaster bandages with lime to the alginate, waited twenty-five minutes for it to harden into a mask, and removed the perfect impression of his face. Other technicians hurriedly coated the model with release agent, then Hedy and her main assistant covered the model with professional grade plasticene to permit the eventual creation of a flexible elderly face. Hedy carefully scratched multiple wrinkle lines into the plasticene mask in strategic places.

  The team of other technicians set to work on the mold, and Hedy and her assistant repeated the process four more times to make a total of five facial masks. Each mold was then treated to separate the plasticene from the plaster leaving a flexible piece of very believable skin for the artists to work with. The technicians applied surgical glue five separate times to Hunter’s now raw and burning face, cut the prostheses into three large pieces, and applied the prosthetic pieces to his prepared face. Hedy cut a hole in the chin area so that a separate chin piece and separate lip pieces could be attached later. Hedy carefully laid the pieces in place, cut off the excess edges with a surgical scalpel, and glued the edges together. The forehead, nose piece, and neck pieces were glued to the chin piece giving Hunter a complete, but rather featureless new face. Hedy and her assistant applied lower eyelid bags with tweezers and glued them in place to the rest of the mask. They then gave Hunter a set of wrinkled eyelids.

  Two young makeup artists began applying makeup, one on each side of his new face. First they put heavy amounts of darker colored makeup on toothbrushes and flicked the paint onto Hunter’s new skin to create the irregularities of aged skin. They used several different colors typically found on the skin of the elderly. They smudged those paint spots with their nimble and practiced fingers. Then, they used very thin little brushes to add darkening to the wrinkles in the mask, added some freckles and age spots. Hedy added some subtle color to the aged lips to increase the authenticity and pronounced her work, “superb” in a characteristic piece of Hollywood modesty.

  Hedy fussed over the available choices of wigs and found a neatly coiffed silver- haired one that gave Hunter a completed handsome, dignified, albeit aged, Aryan face. She and her crew worked feverishly to create faces of an elderly woman, a vigorous middle-aged African-American man, and a wind and sun leatherized Arab. The process took twelve hours, one which Hedy told Hunter approached the miraculous, since the usual process took the better part of a month with a single prima donna artist doing everything and closely protecting his or her work. The prima donna charged as much as $10,000 for one mask, and Hollywood producers were happy to pay it.

  “You can bet that the big producers in the capital are glad to give us double that for the production of five masks. That is for each mask. We may be over budget, but we are on time.”

  Hunter was very tired, but was still impressed to see the remarkable transformation the masks provided him. Even he would have been fooled by the disguises he saw in the mirror had he not known that the image he saw was himself. Hedy packed the masks in protective bags. John I had already seen to the removal of his baggage to the airport, and had exited ab
out three hours earlier without so much as a good-bye to Hunter, which caused a pang of disappointment for the fledgling Sheep Dog. As they parted, he gave the diminutive make-up genius a peck on the cheek, and she protested politely and returned his gesture with a firm embrace.

  An envelope lay on his bed. He opened it to read:

  Top Secret, Eyes Only, Sheep Dog

  Report 2230 in the Shoreham Hotel lobby, D.C. to meet handler for operational orders.

  Signed, DCIA, POTUS.

  CHAPTER TEWNTY-SIX

  CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE BUILDING,

  Langley, Virginia, Office of the ADCIA, 2000 Hours.

  PRESENT: ADCIA, CIA OFFICER EDWARD LIAM SALINGER

  Ed Salinger took the seat in front of Assistant Director Prentiss.

  “Time is tight, Ed. Is he ready?”

  “I’d like another three months.”

  “Can he do it? This has become an urgent problem. We have to get him into Yemen by tomorrow and ready to go. Is the Sheep Dog going to prove to be a weak link?”

  Salinger thought for a moment before answering.

  “He’s ready. I guess I just don’t like to send one lone agent into the middle of that hornet’s nest, and I’m being protective. But, yes, he’s ready.”

  “Meet him at the Shoreham; give him his instructions; and get out to Andrews; so, he can be on the flight at ten. You did a great job with him, and now it’s time for him to step up.”

  “All right. I’d better get over there. I’ll let you know.”

  “I’ll need a real time update as often as you can get news to me. And remember that you and I are his only links; nobody—but nobody—gets to know any operational details. Dast-rup gets just the info he needs to assist Sheep Dog—no more, no less.”

  “Neal is a good head. He’ll put two and two together, you know.”

  “Tell him not to stick his nose in. The Company, the U.S., and the president cannot have enough information on this renegade to let any of us get into an international incident.”

  “Good old plausible denial,” Salinger said.

  “You’ve broken the code. Now get on with it.”

  CHAPTER TEWNTY-SEVEN

  Ed Salinger sat across from the shiny mahogany bar in the darkened room. He had chosen a booth in the back that gave him a view of the entire room without letting him be seen by anyone who was not standing immediately in front of him. He fidgeted with his watch—checking the time—trying not to count the minutes. By two minutes to ten, there was no sign of John II, and Salinger was becoming tense. He could see two yuppies and a businessman sitting at the bar, an elderly silver haired gentleman in an expensive tailored suit who sat two stools away, and Oliver Prentiss, who was sitting in the first booth keeping an eye trained in the direction of Salinger’s booth.

  At eight sharp—with Salinger’s nerves beginning to fray—the two yuppies and the older man got up from their bar stools and started walking towards the exit archway. The yuppies continued out towards the reception desk, but the old gentleman snapped his fingers and turned about to return to the bar. Salinger could see that his wallet was still sitting on the smooth shiny surface. Salinger looked away in the direction of the entrance ignoring the forgetful gentleman.

  As a complete surprise, a man’s voice—a familiar one—addressed him. The elderly man was standing right in front of him.

  “Pardon me, sir,” the reedy, well modulated voice said, “I’m new in the city. Could you possibly direct me to a less expensive but still comfortable and safe hotel? You seem to know your way around…If it’s not an imposition.”

  The accent was unusual, but not significantly so. Salinger tried to place it—sounded mostly Scandinavian, but not Danish, Norwegian, or Swedish.

  In a minor feat of mind reading, the speaker said, “I have just arrived in the capital from Reykjavik, and I do not know the city.”

  Finally, it dawned on Salinger.

  “John?!” he said, greatly amused.

  “No, John, it’s Svein Magnus Thorsteinsson,” the Sheep Dog said suppressing a laugh.

  “Sit.”

  The Sheep Dog slid into the booth with Salinger. The senior agent glanced down the barroom and caught the eye of the ADCIA. They shared their surprise at both having been fooled.

  “You got me. I have to admit that. If you had been an assassin, I would be slumped over by now. I am getting lax in my old age. That disguise is just about perfect.”

  “Hedy and her boys are geniuses.”

  “They are. We don’t have a lot of time. Take the mask and the monkey suit with you. Wear it as soon as you get off the plane and as long as you are fully operational. Leave the country in it. You will meet our agent, Neal Dastrup, and his son, Dusty, at The Company’s private airstrip, and they’ll drive you to your take-off point; but they won’t accompany you beyond that because they are too well known. Otherwise, you are not to have the slightest connection with CIA personnel or any other Americans of any stripe while in Yemen.

  “Now, you can be privy to a secret. It may come as a shock; but my real name is not John; actually it’s Edward Liam Salinger. That’s my real name. I want you to call me Ed. Don’t tell me your real name or anything else about yourself. Here is a card with my sat phone number and ID code. You can call me anytime, and The Company will find me. However, don’t contact me unless you have been compromised or are in imminent danger or some other extraordinarily important thing comes up. I will not be able to contact you.”

  Sheep Dog nodded his understanding.

  Salinger handed over a manila envelope.

  “Don’t open it now, but it contains the particulars of your mission. I have sent on a 9 mm sound suppressed automatic hand gun, your Steyr-Mannlicher SSG-69 PII sniper rifle with all of its attachments, the AA-12 Combat shot gun, plenty of ammo, your ghillie suit, a good set of BDUs, running boots, and the best spotting scope you ever saw.”

  “And Dastrup will have all of that waiting for me?”

  “Yeah. Look, John, I wish I could do more. I really wish I could be there with you, but you know I can’t. So, all I can do is wish you good luck and God-speed.”

  “I appreciate everything you have done already. I’ll send you something to let you know of the success of the mission.”

  Salinger liked the positive construction of the Sheep Dog’s last sentence, nothing about the possibility of a failure.

  “Let’s get on out to Andrews. You have an exciting ride in head of you. Ever been on an F-22?”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “Well, all I can say is that you’ll have to buckle up.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  At quarter to nine that evening, Sheep Dog and Ed Salinger reached the private Company hangar at Andrews Air Force Base. Their journey across the extensive tarmac required a two car escort. The hanger was pitch black. Two armed guards stayed with the two visitors all the way into the hangar. Their supervision was transferred to a burly, unsmiling, fully armed African-American Chief Master Sergeant and an equally dour Russian Federation Air Force Generál-leytenánt VVS “aviátsii” [Lieutenant General of Aviation]. The Russian officer—the equivalent of a U.S. Air Force Major General—greeted them.

  “Gentlemen, your State Department and Air Force leaders have asked a great favor from the Russian Federation. We have granted that favor—one of you will be transported to your destination in the greatest air craft ever built. Because of the apparent sensitivity of your mission, we have even agreed not to demand to know the destination. You may direct the pilot, Polkóvnik “aviaviátsiitsii”, Leonid Andreivich Koronski, when you are airborne. Let me tell you this. This aircraft is every bit as secret as your mission, whatever that may be. It would do incalculable harm to Russian-American relations should any information about this aircraft be communicated outside those with an absolute need to know.”

  Both Salinger and Sheep Dog nodded their full understanding and agreement.

  “Then, let us get you situate
d.”

  The general gave an almost unnoticeable signal with his left hand, and two enlisted men—one Russian, and one American—moved out of the shadows and indicated for Sheep Dog to follow. He turned and gave a small wave to Salinger, turned back and walked to a small fenced off area next to the aircraft’s entryway. He had never seen such an aircraft before. It was something from StarWars.

  Ed Salinger left with the two armed guards who had escorted him to the hangar. As Sheep Dog stood in the small enclosure, he was frisked for weapons and ordered to change into full flight gear. His clothing—including the disguise mask—was carefully placed into a flight bag and hoisted into the rear of the plane. Sheep Dog stood uncomfortably by as the enlisted men readied the aircraft. They gave a thumbs-up signal; and a tall, powerful looking Russian officer emerged from the shadows and walked up to Sheep Dog and extended his hand.

  “I am VVS Colonel Koronski, sir. I am at your service. I presume you are not familiar with the aircraft. Your people told me that you were expecting to be taken in a U.S. F-22 Raptor. However—for two reasons—that would not be fitting. First of all, the Raptor has only one seat; and the Sukoi PAK FA—at least this particular experimental model—has two. As a matter of fact, there have been only three units produced; and only this one has two seats. Secondly, your mission is of such importance—we are informed—that only this best airplane in the world would do.”

  He gave a wide, toothy smile—dotted with stainless steel caps—an acknowledgement of his boyish enthusiasm. Sheep Dog laughed briefly to cement the bond of pride among warriors.

  “I really do not exaggerate, my American friend. This is what should be called a sixth generation Raptor, the only plane in the world able to compete with your magnificent F-22. Our Air Force modestly calls it our fifth generation project. This is a T-51, an updated version of the prototype T-50. Your F-35 Lightening II has not yet been cleared to take to the skies, but may someday be a competitor. The PAK FA possesses advanced avionics, stealth capability, a ferry range of 4,000 to 5,500 km, and endurance of 3.3 hours. It is armed with the latest-generation air-to-air, air-to-surface, and air-to-ship missiles, and has two 30 mm cannons. Despite its fairly large size, its stealth capacity is the most advanced for any aircraft yet put into the sky. Under the direction of Deputy Defense Minister Vladimir Popovkin, the fighter has been under development since the early 1990s, and was only declared fully serviceable two years ago.