Rigged

by James Rosone

  Deuce held on to the edge of the helicopter as his feet dangled below the lip of the cargo bay. The helicopter picked up speed and banked hard to the left, cutting down another valley as it neared the target location just across the Kosovo border into Serbia. The other helicopters in their entourage were doing the same, following them as they flew just feet above the bare trees of the valley below.

  “Three minutes!” shouted the crew chief over the roar of the whooshing air.

  Their objective was located in a small mountainous village just north of the Muslim enclave of Presevo. It had been rumored that this area was controlled by an Albanian Muslim extremist group. It was also a site where a number of different atrocities had been committed by both the Serbian MUP forces and the Albanian terrorist groups that dominated the area. The animosity between the Orthodox Christian Serbs and the ethnic Albanian Muslims had boiled over dozens of times there, resulting in some horrific atrocities by both parties.

  The crew chief turned around to face the operators again. “We’re coming up on the target now!” he shouted. The two gunners swiveled their M134 miniguns toward the nearby buildings that were rapidly coming into view.

  The nose of the helicopter flared up as the tail boom dropped, rapidly bleeding speed off as the helicopter went from traveling more than a hundred miles per hour to a near hover over the targeted landing zone. In seconds, the helicopter was on the ground and the operators were launching themselves from the metal beast to the ground. They raced toward their target, a small cluster of buildings that made up the center of this small little village.

  Deuce brought his weapon to bear and ran toward the building. The rotor wash blew brownish leaves and loose dirt everywhere as the pilot applied power to get the helicopter back in the air.

  Seconds later, Deuce and his team were practically to the main door when the first target emerged, a young man in his early twenties wielding an AK-74. Deuce squeezed the trigger once, sending a short burst of fire into the man’s chest, hurling him back against the door he had just emerged from.

  The operators continued their relentless charge toward the targeted building, knowing that speed was life in this situation. They needed to hit the building now, while the occupants were still confused by what was happening and before they could get organized and repel their attack.

  Deuce was now practically to the front of the building. His two comrades moved to the left of the front door while he moved to the right side, near a bay window that allowed the occupants to see outside.

  A hundred meters to their right and left, the other two Blackhawks were landing, dropping off the sixteen Army Rangers who would focus on securing the perimeter of the village.

  As Deuce neared the front of the building, the window closest to him exploded. AK-74 rounds shattered the glass and tore through the wall above, below and to the right and left of the window frame as the shooter sought to kill the men trying to assault their building before they could breach the entrance.

  Deuce reached for one of the M-84 flash-bang grenades on his vest. Clenching it in his hand, he pulled the pin and tossed it into the destroyed window. More bullets tore into the wall inches from his face and body as the occupant inside tried to kill him.

  BOOM.

  The grenade exploded, and the shooting momentarily stopped. Spider, Deuce’s partner, had managed to slap a strip of det cord to the outer edge of the door. As soon as the bullets were silenced, he blew the door open. Deuce and Larry rushed in, sweeping for threats. The lone shooter who’d been desperately trying to kill them moments earlier was writhing in pain on the ground, still feeling the effects of the stun grenade and the door being blown in.

  Larry ran up to the downed shooter and kicked him hard in the groin with his steel-toed boot. Then he dropped down to a knee, turned the man over and zip-tied his hands with the flex cuffs they’d brought for this purpose.

  Deuce ran past Larry with Spider hot on his heels. They raced up to the second floor of the building, in search of their HVI. Just as they were about to reach a turn in the stair, the wall in front of them exploded in splinters. A shooter on the second floor peppered the staircase with bullets.

  Deuce dropped to a knee as a string of bullets flew right over where his head had just been. Spider quickly tossed another stun grenade up to the landing.

  BOOM.

  As soon as the grenade went off, Deuce was back up on his feet, running up the rest of the stairs three at a time. When he reached the top, he found the shooter sitting motionless with his back against the wall, his AK-74 sitting in his lap. Deuce kicked the man’s weapon out of his lap and then pounced on him. He punched the guy as hard as he could with his right hand and then forced the man over onto his belly. Yanking the man’s hands behind him, he grabbed the flex cuffs off his vest and cinched them tight on the man’s hands, immobilizing him.

  While Deuce manhandled his shooter, Spider had already bounded past him and burst into one of the bedrooms. Deuce heard a string of bullets being fired and raced to help cover his comrade.

  He came through the entrance just in time to see Spider launch himself at a man, knocking his rifle loose from his hands. The two of them tumbled onto a bed. Spider kneed the shooter as hard as he could in the groin, then rolled him over onto his belly. He grabbed for his flex cuffs and got them on the man, cinching them tight on his wrists and neutralizing him as a threat.

  Just as Deuce began to think that Spider had the situation under control, he saw a figure skulking toward the back door.

  Crap, Shicri is about to escape, he realized.

  BAM.

  The door blew inwards, throwing Shicri into the wall behind him. He slumped down to the ground, holding his chest. The concussion of the blast had likely knocked the wind right out of him.

  One of the other operators busted in through the hole in the wall, throwing Shicri onto his belly. The man had him zip-tied before he had any chance to respond. He coughed several times, trying to regain his breath, and the man sat his new prisoner up.

  Deuce smiled at the success of their mission, and then he thought about the view Shicri had. He was staring at a soldier with a close-cropped beard, tactical helmet and ballistic glasses, body armor covered in hand grenades, stun grenades, magazine pouches, and another pair of flex cuffs for good measure. Then his eyes focused on the camouflage Velcro Punisher patch just above another Velcro patch with his blood type, O positive.

  Deuce chuckled. He’s probably asking himself who in the world we are, he thought.

  After making sure the situation was secure, Deuce grabbed the man from the top of the landing and helped guide him down the staircase, so they could get the house cleared and start to search for anything of value that might help the intelligence guys track down the remaining terrorists in the US.

  Spider had his prisoner behind him and was doing the same. When they reached the ground floor, they moved the two men out the front door to where the other members of their team had the other prisoners from the building sitting Indian style on the ground.

  With two of the operators guarding the four prisoners, the rest of the team was inside the building, grabbing everything that might be of intelligence value. At this point, the Army Rangers had moved in closer to their position and reported spotting no additional threats.

  A handful of civilians who lived in the immediate area cautiously came out of their homes but kept their distance. The operators must have seemed like a mystery to them because, unlike the Serbian MUP or other police units they might have seen in the past, Deuce and his fellow soldiers were heavily loaded down with weapons and equipment. They quietly mingled with each other.

  A few minutes went by relatively uneventfully before the familiar sound of helicopters returned. The first to appear were the two Apache helicopters, which stayed in a low hover on opposite ends of the village, making their presence known and ensuring no one decided to take a pop shot at them. Next came a series of Blackhawks and a lone Chinook. The Chinoo
k landed first, which allowed the operators to load up their four prisoners and the half dozen large black bags of evidence they’d grabbed from the building. The six Delta Force members hopped in the bird as well to escort their HVI back to Bondsteel.

  Next came the two Blackhawks, which would collect up the Rangers. When the last helicopter lifted off and was safely out of the village, the two Apaches turned away and followed their charges back across the Serbian border into Kosovo.

  Deuce smiled. This was what he lived for—it had been a successful mission with no casualties and only one terrorist killed.

  *******

  Seth looked at the naked, shivering image of Tahir Shicri as he sat there, tied to the metal chair with a black hood over his face. They hadn’t placed the sensory deprivation equipment on him just yet. Seth wanted to save that for later, when he wanted to make his prisoner believe he’d been held for far longer than he really had. Right now, it was far more important for him to be unsure of where he was being held and what was about to happen to him next. Unfortunately, Seth and Smith didn’t have much time to get the information they needed to stop the next set of terrorist attacks.

  Seth nodded to one of the two guards standing in the room to remove the black hood covering his face. As the hood came off, Shicri crinkled his eyes a bit, trying to adjust to the poor lighting of the room. Seth had readjusted the setting for his purposes; a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling was barely illuminating the place with its yellowish glow. Ominous shadows filled in the rest.

  Seth stepped forward to allow himself to be illuminated and waited for Shicri’s gaze to settle on him. When his prisoner finally made eye contact, Set saw the look of fear and anger in his eyes.

  “Are you thirsty?” Seth asked. “Would you like some water?”

  Shicri opened his mouth as if to say something but then quickly closed it. Seth had seen this before. His detainee didn’t want to admit he needed anything. Seth took a bottle of water and placed it on the table in front of him anyway.

  Seeing that Shicri’s arms were still zip-tied to the chair, Seth signaled to one of the guards to cut him loose. He obliged, pulling out a knife and quickly cutting through the plastic ties that held him to the chair. Then the guard sheathed his knife and stepped back into the shadows, out of sight but ever-present should he be needed.

  Shicri stared at the water bottle, unsure of whether he should take it or not.

  “Drink,” Seth commanded, miming the action with his right hand. The interpreter, who sat in a chair behind the prisoner, also hidden in the dark, echoed Seth’s instructions.

  Reluctantly, Shicri grabbed the water bottle, unscrewed the cap and then proceeded to drain most of it in several large gulps.

  “Would you care for something to eat?” Seth asked.

  Shicri looked at him quizzically.

  Before his prisoner had a chance to decline, Seth waved a hand and the door to the room opened up, allowing a stream of light from the hallway to shine in. A lone figure appeared in the doorway, and a man walked in, holding a tray with eight chicken wings, some olives, and some fresh-cut fruit. He placed the tray down in front of Shicri and walked out.

  The prisoner looked at the plate of food longingly and skeptically, obviously unsure if the food had been spiked with something or what to make of it all.

  Seth smiled. He knew that when Shicri had been captured, he’d fully expected to be tortured, not fed and taken care of; his campaign of confusion was having the desired effect.

  Suddenly, Shicri began to shiver. Then he looked down at himself. It was as if he rediscovered that he was naked, sitting on a metal chair in a room that had an ambient temperature of about fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit.

  “I’m sorry for your initial treatment, Shicri,” said Seth comfortingly. “They shouldn’t have stripped you naked like this. You are still a human being, and you should be treated with respect.”

  Seth snapped his fingers, and one of the guards brought over a blanket. “Stand up,” he ordered. When Shicri had complied, he wrapped the blanket around the man, and then he sat back down, visibly more comfortable.

  Seth observed his prisoner staring at the food again. “Eat,” he said. “I’ll wait until you’ve had your fill before the two of us talk.”

  Shicri’s instincts took over and he began scarfing down the food as if he hadn’t eaten in two weeks. Seth observed the man as he ate, looking for signs that the drugs he’d injected into Shicri’s water were having the desired effects. His eating had slowed a bit, and he began to fumble with his plastic fork.

  Excellent, Seth thought.

  His prisoner was oblivious to what was happening to him, but his mind was being lulled into a place of tranquility and peace. A sense of euphoria would start to take over as any inhibition he had would start to fade away.

  During the next five or so minutes, Seth made casual conversation with the man sitting before him, asking him if he had made the pilgrimage to the Haj, and sharing his own story of the pilgrimage experience he’d had several years prior. Given, Seth’s pilgrimage had been done for covert reasons during an operation he was a part of in Yemen, but he was still able to share some of that experience with Shicri, who now showed a bit more respect to Seth than he had just a few minutes prior. Sharing the same experience created a bond that Seth could build on.

  In his life back in the States, Seth actually attended a Baptist church, but he knew enough about Islam that he could easily pass himself off as a Muslim when the situation required, like right now, during his interrogation of this terrorist mastermind.

  Now that Shicri had finished his food, he asked, “How can a Muslim, a brother in the faith, work for such a godless atheist government? How can you work against us? We are doing the work of Allah—what are you doing?”

  Seth nodded at the question. “We all do the work of Allah in our own ways, Shicri. We all bear His burdens differently.”

  “You should be working with us, not against us for these infidels,” his prisoner countered.

  Seth shook his head. “You have it all wrong, brother. While you wage the smaller jihad against the West, I wage the great jihad, the jihad against the mind, the body, which is far more difficult than the war you wage against flesh and blood.”

  “You are just trying to warp my sense of honor, my sense of purpose,” Shicri replied angrily.

  “Brother, the West will be defeated in the coming decades when the Muslim faithful outbreed these infidels. There is no need for violence when through procreation we will outnumber them, elect leaders that agree with our interpretation of Sharia and our values and way of life. It is only a matter of being patient, brother.”

  Shicri sat there looking at Seth for a moment, almost dumbfounded by what he’d said. He seemed to be mulling over whether or not what the man before him said could possibly be true.

  Now that Seth had Shicri thinking, and he was sure that the drugs were having the desired effect, he began to lay his foundation. “Look, we know your terrorist group is planning to carry out an attack in America during the election. I could torture you to get the information I’m looking for, but why? I don’t want to torture a fellow Muslim, a brother in Allah. In the end, Allah will defeat the West, but He’ll defeat them through peace and showing them His love, not His hate.

  “I want you to tell me what you are planning to do. How many of your followers are involved, and where will these attacks take place?”

  Seth leaned in. “We can’t defeat the West through Allah’s love and by outbreeding them if we cause them to fear Allah and lash out at His followers. Please see that you are imperiling a much greater jihad in the West by carrying out an attack that will only hurt the rest of our Muslim brothers and sisters.”

  Then, very softly, Seth asked, “Do you understand?”

  Shicri stared at Seth with an unsure look. The drugs were clearly causing him to have a hard time thinking. After a moment, he shook his head. “No. No, I cannot betray my people,�
�� he said. “We’ve trained too long and too hard for this day. This is our chance to strike at the heart of the great Satan.”

  “How is your strike at the great Satan going to be any different than what has already been done? Is your group just another copycat of the previous groups?” asked Seth.

  Shicri snickered at the comment. “Oh no. We are no copycat. We’ve been given help to make sure that our attack will be bigger and better than any previous attack.”

  Seth smiled as he asked, “Then tell me, one Muslim brother to another, what it is? Tell me so I can rejoice in your triumph and share in your joy.”

  At this point, Seth had reached across the table and gently took hold of Shicri’s hands as he looked into his eyes with about as much joy and excitement as a child would have when he saw his family’s Christmas tree fully decorated and surrounded by beautifully wrapped gifts.

  A smile crept across Shicri’s face. “OK, fine. I’ll share with you one of the attacks, but you’ll have to wait for the others. They’re a surprise…”

  Chapter 17

  Birth of a New World Order

  New York, New York

  United Nations Headquarters

  Secretary-General Johann Behr of the United Nations sat in his office, looking out the large windows at the great city of New York before him. From his perch, he could see much of Manhattan and the surrounding harbor and waterways. As much as he loved the energized scene before him, he despised the nation it belonged to. To him, the United States was a parasite, a leech that was bleeding the world dry. Its never-ending thirst for energy and resources and its perverse belief that somehow its people were more important than those of any other nation made it a dangerous scourge.