Troubleshooters (Jackson Chase Novella Book 2)

by Connor Black

  Director Nichols took the baton, continuing to address Sterba’s concern. “Chief, you stopping the attack in Afghanistan was the perfect example. As much as Karzai irritates the hell out of me, his death, and the death of the Afghan General Assembly, would have been a devastating blow to the free world.

  “You didn’t have specific orders to save them. You didn’t have a committee directing you. Hell, no one here even believed you. But you knew it had to be done. You knew it was the right thing to do. And you acted instantly and with conviction.”

  Given that we had spent the past several days being berated specifically for the perseverance we’d shown, I was rather surprised at this sudden turn of events.

  “Sir, I don’t think you addressed the Chief’s question,” I said. “Seems like what you are looking for are spooks. The Commander is probably the closest, given her role in Naval Intelligence. But Sterba is a shooter and I am an aviator.”

  “Your designator may be aviator, but we both know you’re a shooter as well, Jackson.” The Director of National Intelligence paused and pointed at the flaming sword insignia I wear on my right collar, despite U.S. Navy regulations. It was clear he knew what it was and had read my file.

  While I am, in fact, an aviator in the U.S. Navy, my career at one point took a detour with the New Zealand Army. I am a dual citizen by birth which, while hell on my accent, did allow some flexibility in service. To be honest, my first few days in the Kiwi army weren’t the best. I’d been placed there by an uncle who felt I needed a wakeup call following the death of my parents. But I attacked the assignment with vigor. I grew stronger and more determined every day, every month, and every year, eventually being selected to serve in the NZSAS. And though my sand beret and blue belt are packed away, I still wear the insignia bearing the ‘Who Dares Wins’ motto of the regiment on my collar. And on my heart.

  The DNI continued, saying, “You have the skills we need, Jackson. When I was still wearing green, the Army brought a few soldiers up from your former squadron to spend six weeks teaching one of their specialties: tracking.

  “I will always remember those NZSAS troopers. They were the most professional soldiers I had ever met. And they hammered into us the fundamentals of tracking. Do you remember them?”

  “The enemy leaving breadcrumbs?” I replied. I would like to say I immediately regretted being a smart ass, but that wouldn’t exactly be the truth. Needless to say, I did not look at Chen, knowing that her glare would have been stern enough to knock me off my chair.

  The DNI made a humphing noise, though the corner of his mouth did turn up slightly. “Observation, as you well know, is the first. The ability to see everything around you contextually. Understanding what you’re seeing in that little blade of grass, and weighing it against what you see in the field. Against what you see in the theater.”

  I remembered those lessons in tracking vividly. It was one of the areas in which the NZSAS was the best in the world. And while some of it could be taught, a fair portion of it was either in your personal character or not. I knew he would get to this next, and he didn’t disappoint me.

  “The second is self-honesty,” he continued, more for the benefit of everyone around the table than for me. “The tracker has to be able to separate his preconceived notions of what he thinks is happening from what he is seeing. He has to see the information that the trail presents, and make a plan of action based on that alone. He has to leave behind what he expects to see, and see only what is there.

  “What we’re looking for is the same thing: the ability to put what Washington wants to see aside, and see what’s really there. To focus on solving the problem.”

  “Elaborate on that, sir,” I said.

  He took a moment to collect his thoughts. “These ‘troubleshooters’ would handle pressing issues. Opportunities that would dry up if we took the Washington approach of a hundred meetings and position papers. You’ll be sent into harm’s way. Into hot zones where you need to observe, assess, and act in the best interests of the country. This will involve both intelligence and direct action.”

  The Director paused. He looked me directly in the eyes, and said, “Lieutenant, I would like you to lead the team. You, the Commander, and the Chief will be seconded to my office. There will be no new department, no secret agency, just the three of you working directly with Landon and me.”

  I knew this had been coming, but didn’t realize the moment would have such gravity. I swiveled my head, alternating glances at both Chen and Sterba, my eyebrows raised.

  Chen, who had been nearly silent during the entire meeting, looked at me and said, “I will take your lead.”

  I turned to Sterba to see that he wasn’t looking at me. Instead, he was watching Landon withdraw a very thick folder from his briefcase. With the room so silent, all of us looked at the folder. If that was research for us, it sure looked like we’d be doing a lot of homework.

  Since Sterba was seated next to Landon, he had an angle to see the inside edges of the folder. Without warning, he stiffened, and then fixed Landon with an intimidating glare. His head gave a tiny shake from side to side.

  Reading the tension in his body language, I asked Sterba, “What does Landon have there?”

  “Nothing that he is going to share right now, sir,” he replied. His eyes didn’t leave Landon’s.

  Sir? Sterba never ‘sirs’ me. He turned to the Director. In what I like to call his ‘chief’s voice’, he said, “Before the Lieutenant answers your question, I have a few of my own.”

  A chill descended over the room. I found Sterba’s change in demeanor interesting, and wanted to see where this was headed.

  “First, what are the rules of engagement?”

  The Director was not put off by Sterba’s borderline disrespectful tone, and simply replied, “You are authorized to do whatever it takes, including lethal force, if in your judgment you, or the country, are—or will be—at risk.”

  I raised my eyebrows. This was definitely not how things were usually done.

  Sterba continued, his voice growing slightly louder. “Second, who is your foil? We both know a lot of politicians have tried to start their own little armies, and when the castle comes crumbling down, it’s guys like us that get buried in the rubble.”

  I was pretty floored that Sterba had become so direct with a retired two-star now at the helm of the world’s largest intelligence apparatus. Landon apparently was too.

  “Chief, I will remind you that you are speaking to the DNI, and you will show some respect for his position.”

  Director Nichols made a placating gesture to Landon. “It’s OK, Landon. The Chief is playing a chief’s role. He is both illustrating his leadership and fiercely protecting his lieutenant. And, incidentally, showing why this team is ideal.”

  He turned back Sterba. “To be clear, Chief, there are three people outside of this room who are aware of this arrangement. My assistant, Mrs. Rita Hallahan, who will help you with absolutely anything you need. The President is also aware and has authorized this team. Finally, and this may come as a surprise to you, Jackson, Admiral Doug Christie has been read in and will be available to us as needed.”

  This certainly eased my concerns about this little folly. The Admiral had long been a mentor of sorts, especially following the death of my parents. But the Admiral wasn’t involved in Naval operations nor the intelligence community. He was retired, for Pete’s sake.

  “The Admiral?” I asked.

  The Director nodded. “The President has asked him to join the administration as Deputy Secretary of State. It will be announced tomorrow.”

  Sterba nodded, knowing that the best counterbalance to the intelligence community would be the State Department. He carried on. “Third, we will need this in writing, sir. I have seen too many congressional hearings filled with ‘I cannot recall’ not to request this.”

  “Chief, that has already been done. Mrs. Hallahan has a document for each of you ready upstairs. I have sig
ned them and they have been notarized.”

  He paused, offering Sterba the chance to continue. “Will there be anything else?”

  The silence in the room solidified Sterba’s stance. If this folly turned nasty, the instigator would need to face one strong SEAL. He let this thought permeate the room before standing down. “Not at this time.”

  He then turned to me and said, “I’ll follow your lead too, sir.”

  We were, it seemed, back to the original question. I looked at Sterba, then Chen, then the Director.

  “We’re in,” I said.

  The Director cracked a smile. “Excellent.” His finger then pointed in the direction of Landon’s thick folder, and he said to Sterba, “Now, Chief, this was not going to be the carrot at the end of the stick. I think Landon simply chose the wrong moment to pull it out of his briefcase.” He reached across and opened it to reveal a small leather case containing the shoulder boards for Lieutenant Commander.

  The Director addressed both Sterba and Chen, saying, “This promotion is well below the zone, but as I have been told by many people over the past several days, he’s ready. The Chief of Naval Operations approved it this morning. But I think the real approval needs to come from you, Chief.”

  “Sir, I have broken in a few snot-nosed lieutenants over the years,” Sterba said. “This is one of the keepers.”

  He then stood up and said, “Attention to orders!” and with my oath read and hands shaken, I was bumped to Lieutenant Commander.

  So, after six seconds of pomp and circumstance, reality set back in.

  “Now that we have that squared away, we are going to send you on your first mission. Yesterday, there was a bombing in a hotel in Arusha, Tanzania; the fifth terrorist attack there this year. The eighth, if you include three deadly attacks on priests in Zanzibar.”

  “I saw that eleven people were killed,” Chen said.

  Landon nodded. “Yes. Three Americans, one Israeli, three local nationals, and a British family of four,” he said.

  “Your assignment is to find and terminate the terrorists responsible. We do not want this escalating. And we owe justice to the families of those who lost their lives.”

  4

  “What leads do you have so far?” I asked.

  “So close to Kenya, our first thought was Al Shabaab, Al Qaeda, or both operating as one once again. But it could just as easily be one of the many lesser jihadist groups taking hold in the area. You will need to work with the locals. The regional police have taken the lead on the investigation, and the State Department has ensured us they will share their findings. Build on whatever leads they have, find the attackers, and take them out. Send a message that the violence to the north will not spread down to Tanzania.”

  “A lot of other troublemakers are looking to cleanse the world of infidels in the area,” said Sterba. “AQIM and AQAP. That’s a lot of pressure and influence.”

  AQIM, or Al Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb, originally had a focus on Algeria, but their reach had extended across Africa north of the Sahara. They were now hitting European and American targets throughout the continent. AQAP, or Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula, just across the Gulf of Aden, remained one of the most active Islamist militant organizations in the world.

  Landon replied, “You’re right. And given the on-again-off-again relationship between Al Shabaab and Al Qaeda, the insurgent landscape in East Africa is constantly changing. The information on groups in the area and key players is in this briefing packet.”

  He slid a folder across the table, and added, “We didn’t say it would be easy.”

  The Director took the stage again, addressing all of us. In a slow deliberate voice, he said, “In 1998, we were caught off guard with the U.S. embassy bombings in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. And the Benghazi attack in 2012 showed us to be uncommunicative and indecisive.

  “Now we have a string of attacks in Tanzania. We need to stop this, and stop it immediately to show that attacks on Americans will have extreme consequences and we will not allow terrorism to take control.”

  He stood, signaling the end of the meeting, leaving us to put the pieces together.

  5

  We flew out of Dulles, stopping in Amsterdam for a change of planes before making our way to Arusha. The flights were spent reviewing the background on troubles in Tanzania.

  The picture I had in my mind was a country of vast beauty, populated by Masai villages and every form of exotic wildlife. The briefing materials we’d received supported this, even adding a profile of your average Tanzanian as being welcoming, kind, proud, and industrious. The section of the briefing packet describing religion indicated there were three major religions practiced, but the mixture was described as ‘harmonious’ on some pages and ‘unstable’ on others. I imagined analysts in a basement somewhere conspiring to make sure their report could be seen as accurate no matter what.

  Masai native beliefs focused on the myth of a dual-natured god, and were often discounted as they didn’t fit the typical religious checkboxes. Close to half of the country followed Christian beliefs, undoubtedly the result of years of Western influence. Islam was the third major religion, with Zanzibar—the islands previously a nation unto their own—being predominantly Muslim. The three religions had found a balance in Tanzanians’ everyday life. But Islamic militants were fraying the edges of the country’s very fabric, with the threat of tearing it to pieces a very real possibility.

  Islamic extremists on Zanzibar had in recent years been stirring the Muslim population from a position of religious observance to one of action. Just last year, over the course of only a few months two Christian priests had been shot, and a third beheaded. The actions had emboldened local jihadists, creating a snowball effect that continued with acid attacks, where priests and even several foreigners were assaulted.

  Pressure coming from across the border with Kenya was mounting as well. Al Shabaab attacks, from bombings to full-scale sieges such as that on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, showed that the Al Qaeda-linked group was making its way south. Arusha, situated near the Kenyan border, was not immune. A recent attack on St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church had left three people dead, and over sixty injured.

  The attack had encouraged local terror groups, and they’d recently shifted their focus to the tourist centers of Arusha. Just weeks ago, an improvised explosive device had been thrown through the window of a restaurant popular with foreigners, wounding eight people. And now this hotel bombing showed that Tanzania was edging ever closer to a precipice from which it might never recover.

  Part II

  Arusha, Tanzania

  6

  Chunks of rubble and glass crumbled beneath our boots as we approached the Meru Grand Hotel in Arusha. Looking up, we saw that the linear institutional facade was simply gone from half of the building. What remained was a jagged grid of smoke-blackened squares that were once hotel rooms for businessmen, diplomats, and tourists headed on safari.

  It looked like the back of a dollhouse, with each room an open-ended compartment into which you could reach and move the furniture and dolls around. Only in this case, the furniture was in splinters and eleven of the dolls were dead, killed when a bomb had been detonated in the hotel’s first floor.

  All around us, workers sorted through the debris, moving pieces of rubble to the lawn in front of the hotel where they were sorted by size and material. Some small tractors were in use, but largely it was a manual effort. Hands, shovels, wheelbarrows, and strong backs. And while the machinery did make some noise, the workers were otherwise quiet. They spoke only through their expressions, which were a mixture of grief, pity, and resolve.

  Across the front portico, strands of yellow caution tape fluttered in the light breeze. The twists and curves danced back and forth the in the sunlight, ignorant to the fact that their warning had come far too late.

  “Mister Chase?”

  We turned to see a man walking briskly towards us. Arab rather than black, he
was of average height and rather overweight. A ring of tightly-cropped salt and pepper hair surrounded a bald patch that bore beads of sweat.

  “I am Jackson Chase,” I said, extending my hand. “And this is Joe Sterba and Haley Chen.”

  “Nice to meet you. I am Naseeb Aman. Your embassy has asked me to be your guide in Arusha.”

  The CIA chief of station in Dar es Salaam, Ron Burke, had messaged us to say he didn’t have a case officer operating in Arusha, but he would have one of his men find a fixer for us. Typically, fixers are locals that serve as a translator and guide. More than a tour guide, their purpose focuses on steering people through local customs and red tape. The better fixers also provide some manner of security and connections to local organizations, both official and unofficial.

  “Thank you for your help, Naseeb,” said Chen, the sincerity in her voice a product of the scene around us.

  He gave her a bit of a forced smile, making me wonder if he disliked Chen because she was female. Maybe he was simply grumpy about having to show up at work today.

  “Tell me about the hotel,” I said, curious as to why this particular hotel had been targeted.

  Naseeb turned to the building. “This hotel is used mostly by westerners coming to Tanzania for safari. They arrive and spend the night, visit the market in the morning, and then leave for Kilimanjaro, Tarangire, Ngorogoro, or the Serengeti to see wildlife. This hotel is very good, and therefore receives most of the visitors to the area.”

  Sterba turned to me and said, “Targeting ‘western infidels’?”

  “Given the recent attacks here, that’s my assumption as well. Let’s get a closer look.”

  We followed Naseeb across the scattered piles of rubble that covered the crescent-shaped drive in front of the hotel. Workers moved about with brooms, shovels, and wheelbarrows, sorting the debris into piles. Mangled metal pieces clumped together like giant insects. Chunks of concrete and cinderblock were gathered in dust-clouded piles. And while the scene around us was one of dirty sadness, the small fragments of glass that refused to obey the coarse brooms sparkled in the morning sun. Like the caution tape, their shimmer was attempting to provide a hint of hope.