“I’d heard of him; that’s why I signed up for one of his courses. When I first arrived at the school, someone must’ve said ‘hi’ to me, but I didn’t notice, and even if I had, I wouldn’t have known it was Hickok because I’d never met him before.”
“Why are you talking to me about Ron Hickok?”
“That asshole kicked me out before I even started training—just because I didn’t return his greeting. My boss tried to smooth things over on the phone, but Hickok refused to accept me.”
Chris gave her a patient smile. “I’m assuming there’s some point to this.”
She made a punching motion. “He’s lucky I didn’t give him optic surgery.”
“What he lacks in personality, he more than makes up for with firearms talent.”
“Guess so. Victor learned under him.”
Chris sat up in his chair. “So that’s the point. This is about Victor.”
She nodded.
“You ever hear of Flash-Kill?” he asked.
“Yeah. That’s Hickok’s move that kills his target so fast that the rest of the world seems to slow down. He was legendary for using it in Iraq.”
Chris leaned toward her and lowered his voice. “Did he ever teach it to Victor?”
“I heard he never taught Flash-Kill. The only one who ever used it was Hickok.”
“So why are you telling me all this?”
“Because Victor is dangerous.” There was a slight quiver in her voice. “And I don’t trust him.”
Chris nodded. “I don’t know him enough to trust him, but I don’t know enough to like him, either.”
“Do me a favor,” she said. “If he somehow manages to stab me in the back, kill him.”
“Love to.” He spotted Victor ambling to the gate and smiled at him. He knew she didn’t literally mean stab her in the back, and he knew that she was joking when she said kill him. At least he hoped that was the case.
Victor arrived and stopped next to Chris and Hannah. “What were you two talking about?”
“Nothing,” Hannah said.
“You were both just exercising your lips?” Victor said.
“Are you infatuated with my lips?” Chris asked in a friendly tone, teasing him.
Victor stared at him. “No.”
Jim Bob arrived then, and when he saw Victor arguing, he scolded him in his fatherly tone. “Play nice, Victor.”
Chris wasn’t looking forward to the sixteen-hour trip, wishing he could use the time for more shooting practice. While he sat on the plane getting softer, the tangos would be out running and gunning and getting harder. It was frustrating.
Just after 1630 hours, they boarded their plane. Jim Bob had a carry-on bag, but he couldn’t lift his arms above his head to put it in the overhead compartment, so Victor helped him.
Chris and Hannah sat down, the seats around them still empty. “What’s wrong with Jim Bob’s arms?” Chris whispered.
“He was captured by Hezbollah, and they tied his arms behind his back in torture positions,” Hannah replied.
“So his arms are normal except for motion above his head?”
She nodded. “Jim Bob stalled, giving them false intelligence and unclassified information.”
“How was he released?”
Hannah snapped her buckle into place. “He wasn’t. He escaped.”
Impressive. “How’d he do it?”
“He faked appendicitis, and when two guards came in to look at him, he snatched one of their weapons and shot his way out. Before escaping the compound, he came across Victor’s cell and freed him.” Hannah opened the in-flight magazine and looked at the schedule of movies.
“Hmm…” Chris made himself as comfortable as he could. He wasn’t interested in watching a flick, though. He had other things to do. While he couldn’t physically practice shooting, he could visualize himself shooting, increasing his biological performance and helping him to close the gap between the shooter he was now and the shooter he could be. Russian scientists had learned about the technique when they’d performed an experiment on three groups of Olympic athletes. The first group received only physical training, the second group received seventy-five percent physical training and twenty-five percent mental training, and the third group received half mental training and half physical training. After the training, the third group performed the best.
Chris closed his eyes and went into a monk-like trance, thinking about his combat mind-set—switching on the killer instinct he’d learned in the Teams, from Ron Hickok and during actual firefights. He imagined the basics of marksmanship: stance, draw, grip, trigger control, sight alignment, follow-through, reloading, and clearing malfunctions. Then he practiced tactics in different locations—plane, building, car, grove of trees—where he used movement and cover to his advantage. He continued visualizing each part of the triad: combat mind-set, marksmanship, and tactics. Chris became so absorbed in his training that he missed the in-flight meal. When he needed a break, he called a flight attendant to bring him his food. She obliged him with his meal and a Swiss smile. Chris returned the friendly expression before chowing down.
9
_______
As Jim Bob had mentioned, they weren’t flying directly to Syria. Instead, they boarded an Agency yacht in Cyprus. An Adventure Tours flag flew from its mast. Chris and the others went below to check their gear. The Agency had already loaded their weapons, communications equipment, and other covert items into hidden compartments concealed by secret panels. His Camelbak was in plain view, though, as well as some other survival gear that would go well with his cover as adventure guide. And help keep him alive.
Chris located his compact Glock pistol in its Raven Kydex holster. He made sure the weapon was loaded before attaching his pistol holster so it rode on one hip with two magazine holders on the opposite hip. He concealed both with his untucked shirt. The others concealed their pistols, too. They kept their rifles and other black gear stored in the hidden compartments, out of sight until they were needed. If this were an overt assault, they’d be bristling with armor and other heavy assault equipment, but this was a covert infiltration, so they traveled light—such was the tradeoff of weapons and tactics.
Once everything was accounted for, Chris and Victor climbed up to the main deck. “Cast off the stern line,” Victor ordered.
Chris didn’t like the cold tone of voice he used with him. It contrasted sharply with the respectful attitude he showed toward Jim Bob. Even so, he cast off the line. They still had a job to do.
Hannah and Jim Bob joined them on the deck, and all four entered the bridge, where a debonair pilot in his seventies steered them away from the dock. The hair on his head was darker than his distinguished grey beard, and he wore a classic nautical captain’s hat.
Hannah kissed him on the cheek.
“Hannah!” the man exclaimed with a smile that was beyond big.
Her kiss and his smile made Chris feel a twinge of jealousy, but he brushed it off.
Jim Bob turned to Chris. “Mr. Wolfeschlegelaltona, here, is The Most Interesting Man in The World,” Jim Bob said proudly, quoting the phrase from a Dos Equis commercial. “He can make dead men tell tales.”
Chris couldn’t remember the man’s name, let alone pronounce it, so he only focused on the first part. He nodded and smiled.
Wolf spoke, his voice a deep baritone, “I don’t always pilot boats, but when I do, I drink Dos Equis.”
Chris was amused by Wolf’s jovial attitude, and if Hannah trusted him, Chris figured he could trust Wolf, too.
Once everyone was properly introduced and settled, the team rehearsed their false identities and played poker for several hours, until the yacht came within twelve nautical miles of Syria, west of Latakia. Wolf called Latakia Radio in Arabic. “We are at point Sierra Charlie and have a reservation with the Syrian Yacht Club and wish to approach Latakia.”
Getting the go-ahead, Wolf proceeded into the harbor. To the north, part of a sunken ship
stuck up from the sea. After passing the wreck, Wolf steered toward a tall black and white building on the shore. There were a handful of yachts and a dhow in the harbor; the rest were mostly fishing vessels. Meanwhile, Chris and the others checked their cell phones to make sure they all had comms with each other. When the yacht reached the dock, two armed Syrian immigration officers were waiting. Both were muscular and had serious expressions on their faces. The older-looking of the two had a thick moustache.
After Chris and Victor tied the yacht to the pier, the immigration officers came aboard, and Wolf handed Moustache his passport and some paperwork. Chris, Hannah, Jim Bob, and Victor handed over their passports so Moustache could compare the passport photos with the real faces. He stopped at Jim Bob and asked, “Did you visit Israel before this trip?”
Answering in the affirmative would be grounds for not being admitted into the country. “No, sir,” Jim Bob said politely. “Was I supposed to?”
Moustache shook his head. “What is the purpose of your trip?”
“We’re with Adventure Tours. We serve an elite clientele who are willing to pay large sums of money for unique travels filled with adventure around the world. Now we’re scouting Syria, hoping to include it in one of our tours.”
Moustache turned to Wolf. “Show me your logbook.”
Wolf calmly led Moustache to the bridge and showed him the book. After examining it, the officer went below. Chris and the others followed. Moustache opened their luggage and rifled through the contents. As he was making a mess of Hannah’s suitcase, he found something that made him stop.
Moustache homed in on one section of Hannah’s suitcase and examined it—her undergarments. He has an underwear fetish!
“You can have one, if you want,” Hannah said. “But you can’t have them all because I need something to wear.”
Moustache frowned then abruptly left the stateroom and ascended topside. He collected their money, stamped their passports—good for fifteen days—and attached an entry/exit card before hastily departing with his partner. Customs and immigration only came to the yacht club by appointment, and when their business was done, they didn’t stick around. Moustache and his partner hopped in a government car and departed.
Chris’s team arranged for Wolf to stay on board, and the other four climbed down a ladder and onto the pier. The warm, familiar scent of kebab halabi filled Chris’s nostrils, fresh tomatoes and Aleppo pepper wafting together. He inhaled deeply, dragging in its comfort, and a mass of Arabic voices filled his ears like sweet honey. The air was dryer here than in Dallas, relaxing him. He’d forgotten how much he liked it here. Syria could be poster-perfect. And scrotum-shrinkingly scary. He refocused his attention on his teammates.
Hannah, Jim Bob, and Victor joined Chris, stepped off the pier and walked across the beach with him. Although the customs and immigration officials worked for the Syrian government, the marina was privately owned and operated. The private security guard staring through his office window might intimidate hooligans and thieves, but he didn’t intimidate Chris. Behind the office area was a restaurant, the source of the palate party aromas.
Minutes later, two taxis picked up the four of them and their luggage. The taxis dropped them off at the entrance to the front lobby of the Afamia Rotana Resort. “We’ll check in before meeting in my villa,” Jim Bob said.
After checking in and picking up their card keys, they carried their bags into two adjacent two-room villas. Chris and Hannah shared one villa with separate rooms, and Jim Bob and Victor shared the other.
Chris and Hannah walked into the wide, well-lit space, passing a marble bathroom. Hannah continued to the window and looked out over the terrace. “With this view of the Mediterranean Sea and temperatures in the seventies, it’s perfect for a vacation,” she said.
It was ironic that he was with such a fearlessly gorgeous woman at a beach resort and yet they had such a dangerous job to do. “The Mediterranean looks better with you here.”
Delight spread across her face. “It’d look even better with both of us in the water.”
Chris smiled. “Syria would never be the same.”
She set her bags in a corner of the bedroom. “Sometimes I wish we could put the world on pause.”
Chris put his luggage in the opposite room and met her in the living room. “I was just thinking the same: What if we could put this mission on pause and just go for a swim?”
She picked up the television remote control and pressed a button. She laughed, but it seemed forced and cut off. If the look in her eyes meant the same thing he felt, it was an unresolved longing.
She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she reopened them, the look was gone. “We better get going.”
It saddened him, but he dutifully packed the unresolved longing back in its box and pushed it to the back of his mind. Consciously, he focused on the positive: being with Hannah on a mission was better than no time with her at all. “Yep.”
They left their villa and walked toward Jim Bob and Victor’s. As Chris and Hannah neared the other villa, Victor’s voice drifted through the thick shrubbery surrounding its terrace. Chris caught a glimpse of Victor through the foliage. He stood alone, talking quietly into his cell phone, but he wasn’t speaking English. They must’ve taken the wrong way, reaching the back of the villa instead of the front. Victor spotted them and stopped his conversation. Chris and Hannah changed direction and headed to the front.
“You recognize what language he was speaking?” she asked in a hushed voice.
“It sounded like he said Ras al-Basit, the name of a town near here,” Chris whispered. “The rest sounded Chinese. Why would he be speaking Chinese?”
“He seems to show more goodwill toward his Chinese phone caller than you. He’s been acting like you’re interrupting something. Thank you for agreeing to help me out on this one.”
Being around her delighted him. “Thank you for asking.”
They knocked on the front door of the villa. Jim Bob answered it, invited them in, and handed Hannah and Chris each a set of keys. “I’m giving both of you sets of keys to the SUV, courtesy of the Company. Inside are hidden compartments for your rifles and other goodies. Victor and I will take the van. We’re going to take a look at the mountain area near Tishreen Lake where reports say the Switchblade Whisper went down.”
Chris nodded, intensifying his focus on the mission.
“Then tonight, we’ll go back to retrieve it,” Jim Bob continued. “And Chris, you’ll blow up what we can’t carry out. Hannah, you’ll protect Chris while he blows the demo. Victor and I will carry the drone back to our vehicle. From there, we extract as planned.”
Chris and Hannah agreed.
Soon they were outside, and Hannah took the wheel of the SUV, and Chris sat shotgun as they followed Jim Bob’s vehicle out of the parking lot heading east until they turned right on Sports City Road. On their left, buildings rose high into the sky. A light breeze swayed the palm trees and alfa, Esparto grass, on the median dividing traffic lanes. To their right lay the ocean under an azure sky. They turned left onto Al Mahabba before reaching a roundabout and exiting to Route 1. The number of concrete high rises decreased, and farms appeared. The vehicles turned right and continued northeast, passing through a small town. After five klicks, the road narrowed, and they reached a military roadblock.
“Syrian Army,” Chris said. He felt uneasy, but he didn’t show it.
Jim Bob halted his van.
Hannah pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. “Not a good sign,” she said.
Jim Bob appeared to be trying to negotiate his way through the roadblock.
Chris continued to display a poker face, but his gut twisted. This could all go south very quickly.
“Maybe they already found the Switchblade Whisper,” Hannah said.
Jim Bob turned his vehicle around.
She followed him as he headed back. “We need to get farther up the mountain,” she said with a hint of
frustration in her voice.
Chris’s gut continued to churn. Even so, he maintained a positive attitude. “We just have to find another route. There has to be more than one way to the top of this mountain.”
When they reached Route 1, they drove northeast, looking for another way to the top. Nine klicks later, just after Route 1 narrowed, they found a paved road to the east and turned onto it. After a few curves, the road straightened out, leading them to the base of a mountainous area. When the paving ended, they continued along the dirt road, climbing in elevation for a klick until Jim Bob slowed, pulled off the road, and stopped. Hannah parked behind him.
Jim Bob and Victor stepped out of their van and joined Chris and Hannah in the SUV. “This is about as close as we’re going to get by vehicle,” Jim Bob said. “We can wait until nightfall to retrieve the Switchblade Whisper and hope it is still up here. The darkness will cover our movement, but if anyone catches us, no matter what story we give, we’re going to look suspicious. Or we can go now and use our Adventure Tours cover until we reach the Switchblade Whisper. Of course, if the Syrian Army catches us with it on the way back, smooth talking won’t do us much good. We’ll need to do some smooth shooting.”
“Let’s go now,” Victor said.
Jim Bob looked at Chris.
“I’d rather do a nighttime op than a daytime op, but it’s your call,” Chris said, meeting Jim Bob’s gaze. Whatever the decision, he hoped there’d be no need for shooting. He still hoped for a perfect op.
“I’m easy,” Hannah said. “Whatever you guys decide.”
“All right,” Jim Bob said. “Saddle up. We’ll pick up the Switchblade Whisper and go straight to the yacht.”
Jim Bob is a brave man. Or an idiot.
10
_______
“It should be about four klicks east of here,” Victor said with a nod. He looked back down at the GPS tracker and gestured to the others to follow—Jim Bob, then Chris, and Hannah bringing up the rear. Wearing their green Adventure Tour polo shirts and brown slacks, they still carried their concealed pistols. They stepped through long grass and wildflowers, passing myrtle bushes flowering with small explosions of white.
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