The Mercenary Option

by Dick Couch

  As they weighed the eighth pit, the two men left the viewing port, and a sphere of highly enriched uranium found its way into the compartment. Moshe and Allama finished their task and removed the scale from the vault, another routine of testing complete.

  The following morning, two wooden boxes marked “Electronic Test Equipment, handle with extreme care” left the A. Q. Khan Research Laboratory for a calibration lab in Islamabad. When the crates arrived, two men in robes stood behind the dry-mouthed proprietor as he signed for the consignment. The two men carried the wooden crates through the facility to an old Toyota pickup truck waiting behind the building. At the A. Q. Khan Laboratory in the explosive storage area, four plaster hemispheres rested in the U-17 and P-18 containers alongside the authentic demolitions in other numbered containers. Across the grounds in the nuclear materials storage vaults, two hollow lead spheres waited with their nuclear lookalikes for the call to action.

  Early Thursday morning, November 14,

  Villefranche

  It was well after midnight when Pavel Zelinkow arrived back at the villa. He had shed his tuxedo jacket, and the bow tie ends draped down the front of his pleated shirt. Dominique, carrying a glass of seltzer in one hand and her shoes in the other, had wandered down the hall toward the bedroom. He stepped into the office. There were several voice mails on his secure line. Even so, they were in coded phrases. He listened to the last one and then quickly tapped the playback function key.

  “Good evening, Mr. Dumas. This is a reminder that the cartridges for your printer have been shipped from the manufacturer and that the empty cartridges you sent us have been returned to the factory. Let us know how we may be of further service.”

  Zelinkow smiled, turned off the antitampering devices, and clipped on his computer. He then began to bring up his e-mail files. On confirming that the materials to configure two nuclear weapons had been successfully removed from Kahuta and were in hidden in Islamabad, he sent a cable to Riyadh. On the agreed-upon transfer of more funds, he would put the next phase of the plan in motion.

  Zelinkow went to the sideboard and splashed a dollop of tawny port into a cut-crystal tumbler. Returning to the desk, he took a cautious sip and reflected on the project. There was a great deal of uncertainty ahead, but a major component of the plan, his plan, was now in place. Now it would be up to Mugniyah and Khalib to carry it off, with his help of course. Imad Mugniyah and Khalib Beniid; the elusive terror master and the mountain fighter. They were both, Zelinkow admitted, the very best in the world at their chosen professions. That was all to the good, and he would need them both if his bold plan were to succeed. And why shouldn’t it? he thought. Am I not the very best in the world at my profession? He considered this a moment with detached, unemotional objectivity. Then he returned to the bar to pour a measure of port in a second tumbler and set off in search of Dominique.

  Saturday, November 16,

  central Afghanistan

  David Wilson stood on a gentle rise and reviewed the desolation around him. The surveyor’s markers they had placed only a few days ago had been carried off, but that did little to affect the project. Their track through this trackless wilderness was governed by satellite imagery and GPS fixes. The colored stakes had been there to help his engineers and planners get their visual bearings. What did bother him were the land mines that had to be found and disposed of along the route. And even more bothersome was the fact that some of the mines had been placed there only a few days ago. He had asked the army to send out patrols ahead of them to deal with this development, but this had not been done. It had been an issue of some debate. Finally, he was forced to agree with the colonel that it was probably just as easy to neutralize them as they moved across the wasteland. So far, they were all antipersonnel mines. An armored D-9 Cat simply cut an eight-inch-deep swath along the route, exploding any ordnance in its path. And the patrols were needed to secure the camp and the completed sections of the pipeline.

  “Can you believe that anyone would want to live here, let alone fight for it?” the man at his elbow shouted above the turbine whine.

  “It’s what makes them such a hard lot. Pity the poor guys in uniform. After we go, they get to stay and guard it.”

  A man in sunglasses and a baseball cap approached. “We’re ready when you are.”

  Wilson nodded and led the small group of men back to the helo that was turning a short distance away. Once aboard and strapped in, Wilson signaled to the pilot, and they lifted off in a cloud of dun-colored dust. They quickly spiraled up to twenty-five hundred feet. None of the helos had experienced ground fire, but it was prudent to stay at a safe altitude. Ten miles from the moving construction site they called Site South, he could see the dust cloud from the activity on the ground. Scrapers, haulers, concrete trucks, and cranes all buzzed about the area. To the north a solid dark line marked the completed section of the pipeline. At the other end of this line, another crew worked at Site North to take the pipeline north toward the Turkmen border. The work was moving rapidly on both ends. The technology was basically the same as with the Alaskan Pipeline, and many of the old-timers working in Afghanistan had spent time on the North Slope as young roustabouts. For the most part, the crew chiefs and skilled technicians were American. Most of the seven hundred “internationals” were Americans, but there was a liberal sprinkling of Brits and Aussies. Three hundred carefully selected Pakistanis and Afghans made up the rest. It was a hardy, professional crew.

  As a young engineer, Dave Wilson had helped build the Alaskan Pipeline and had been called from retirement to build this one. He and Trish had been retired to a small resort town in Idaho. They were into skiing and fly fishing, and Dave had begun to dabble in local politics. He was recently elected mayor of Sun Valley. Then Unocal had come to him and made him a good offer. He had made what he felt was a ridiculous counter, and they had accepted. Central Afghanistan was not central Idaho, but he had to admit that he loved it—or at least, he loved the engineering challenge. The terrain and environmental factors were less formidable than those they had to deal with in Alaska, and there were no labor unions to contend with. There were, however, the remnants of the al Qaeda and Taliban forces, but those were not his problems. That was for the Army to deal with. Well, almost. Several nights ago they had been mortared, but no one in the camp was injured. He had not heard the krump of mortar rounds since the days when he was dug in with his Marine platoon near Khe Sanh. However, this had been the only attack on the camp. The attacker’s position had quickly been calculated by radar cuts on the incoming rounds. A Hellfire missile from an orbiting Predator drone had made short work of the mortar team. They found the baseplate, part of the tube, a few sandals, and a few body parts. All were left undisturbed for their al Qaeda brethren to see. Wilson thought of the sensors, active minefields, and passive listening devices along the completed pipeline corridor, and he shuddered. It was suicide to approach within two hundred meters of the completed pipeline, and nearly as lethal, as the mortar crew had found out, to use standoff weapons. There would be men to guard the completed pipeline, but most of the sentry duty would fall to sensors and robotic firing devices. Sensors and the robots were always alert, and they never slept.

  When the helicopter set down at the site, Trish was waiting for him. Part of the ridiculous counteroffer he had given to Unocal was that Trish be hired onto the project at an equally obscene salary. Actually, he mused, she was probably more valuable to the project than was he. He only ramrodded the crews; she managed the administrative side of Site South.

  “You know, I get really nervous when you’re flying around out there,” she said as they walked back to the trailer. She handed him a clipboard with a fat sheaf of messages and material requests.

  “I like to know what is ahead of us and get a feel for the territory. You didn’t seem to mind when I flew around when we were on the Slope.” He quickly thumbed through the paperwork; she had already highlighted and circled items for his attention.
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br />   “They didn’t shoot at us up there,” Trish replied. “In Alaska we only had to contend with polar bears, grizzlies, and an occasional rampaging moose. I feel a lot better with you on the ground.”

  The site was a beehive of activity as six-foot-diameter sections of pipe were hoisted into place and welded to the preceding section. Ahead along the route, the concrete and steel cradles made their way ahead of the pipe-section cylinders. A steady stream of trucks brought material and fresh pipe sections up from Karachi along a recently constructed, unimproved highway they called I-5. I-5 served Site South and continued north along the pipeline corridor to resupply Site North. Once or twice a day, convoys of trucks escorted by an armed escort of Humvees rolled in or through the site. The pipeline consumed vast quantities of material. Wilson and Site South were making better progress than their counterparts to the north, but then he didn’t have to contend with the mountains of northern Afghanistan.

  “I get the feeling that you’re having fun,” Trish said when they got back to their trailer. It served as their office and home on the project, and was an oasis from the dust and the noise.

  Dave smiled. “You weren’t ready for full-time retirement, and neither was I.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I kind of thought you liked the leisure life.” She pulled a plate of cold cuts from the small refrigerator and began to make sandwiches in the small galley-alcove. “Tennis and golf in the summer. A little fishing. Skiing in the winter.” She smiled wryly. “And however will the city council get along without you?”

  “They’ll simply have to squabble among themselves until I get back,” Dave said as he grabbed her and pulled her onto his lap, “just like they always do.” She was on the short side of sixty, and he was just on the long side. They were fit, a little gray, sunburned, and full of life. And they both knew how to live on the trail.

  “We can do all that shit when we get old. Hell, we got a pipeline to build. What could be better?” She smiled at him and rubbed a smudge off the side of his cheek. Then he said on a more serious note, “I have to fly up to Site North for a meeting tomorrow.”

  She frowned. “Can’t they come here?”

  He shook his head. “They came here last time; my turn to go.”

  She sighed. “You know I won’t rest easy until you’re back. You’re not staying overnight, are you?” It was a good question. Site North had experienced a rocket and a mortar attack.

  “I’ll be back at sunset. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Happy?”

  She looked out the window, through the dust film to the rocky, desolate plain that stretched as far as the eye could see. Then back at Dave. She pulled his yellow Caterpillar baseball cap off and ruffled his thinning hair.

  “I’ve asked you not to wear this in the house, and yes”—she smiled—“I’m very happy.”

  Sunday evening, November 17,

  Oahu

  Joseph Simpson rose when Steven Fagan walked into the Palm Terrace at Turtle Bay. Simpson had been in Honolulu for a fund-raiser and had asked Fagan to join him on Oahu for an evening. Steven had taken a flight over from the Big Island that afternoon and caught the limo out to the big hotel complex on the north shore of the island. Simpson had visited the site on Kona, but only once. Both had agreed that for security purposes, the project would be better served if Simpson had little physical contact with the site or the Big Island.

  “Steven, it’s good to see you. Come, sit down.”

  It was early evening, and the gentle swishing of the palms could just be heard over the distant boom of the famous North Shore surf break. There were tile floors, candlelit tables with crisp linen and elegant settings, and an abundance of flowering plants. The tasteful and serene surrounding seemed at odds with the enterprise that brought them together. Both were dressed in light slacks and patterned shirts. Steven wore a brimmed straw hat that he removed as soon as he reached the table, which was situated in a private alcove.

  “Thank you, sir. It’s good to see you again as well.”

  They both ordered iced tea and Simpson a plate of caviar. Simpson asked politely about Lon and the home in Waimea, and Steven drew Simpson out about the recent work of the Joseph Simpson Jr. Foundation. They talked about the administration’s growing problems in Iraq and about the pipeline in Afghanistan.

  “Well,” Simpson began after the drinks and caviar were served and the waiter withdrew, “if the project goes as well as you look, things are coming along just fine. Your reports would seem to confirm just that. I’d say congratulations are in order.” He raised his glass, as did Steven, and they both drank to the toast.

  “We’ve a long way to go, but I have to admit that we are ahead of schedule, and the ‘lads’ as Garrett calls them, are doing quite well. We’ve been training for a little over a month and have our full complement now—a total of twenty-eight Gurkhas. All of them are professional soldiers, so it not so surprising that they have come together as a unit so quickly.”

  “So they are happy with their new quarters and their new situation?”

  “Very much so,” Steven answered, “but then you would have to experience a British Army garrison posting to understand why they are so pleased to be with GSI. Yet it’s more than that. Bijay Gurung has selected only the finest Gurkhas for us. They are splendid men in all respects, in the barracks and in the field. By their normal standards, they are being very well paid, but pay for a Gurkha, as I’ve come to learn, is secondary. Bijay has an immense hold over them. I have never seen men in or out of uniform respect someone as much as they do Bijay Gurung. Nor have I seen men so willingly respond to such a rigorous training program. Garrett has them working around the clock. The physical regime is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Three days ago, they walked under full pack to the top of Mauna Kea. They soldiered up 10,000 feet to a 14,000-foot summit. But then Garrett and Bijay train right alongside the younger men. And those two—well, I’ve seen some hard men in my travels, but they are in a class by themselves. And I’ve been privileged to serve with some very seasoned military professionals, both in and out of the service. I have never seen the likes of these two. They and the lads simply have the right stuff.”

  “Any problems?”

  “Not really.” Steven continued, “However, I know Garrett would like to see them shoot a little better. Oh, they could qualify as expert in any Western military outfit, but Garrett has some very demanding combat-shooting standards. They are improving, and Garrett has set up some interesting and challenging instinctive-fire courses.” A smile came to Steven’s tanned features. “If they do not maintain a certain average on the marksmen courses and the combatshooting drills, he makes them wear their khukuris under their blouses. He could never ask a Gurkha to remove his khukuri, but to display it on his belt, he must shoot well. Any evening you go into the barracks, you will find Gurkhas practicing magazine quick-changes or dry-firing their rifles. God help whomever they face, because we have a magnificent fighting force in the making.”

  “You seem to put a great deal of stock into what Bijay and Garrett have been able to accomplish. So you believe that if we put the Gurkhas in the field against a determined foe, they will prevail?”

  “In the field, without a doubt,” Steven replied. “But this is a small unit in transition. Gurkhas are light infantry. They were all trained by the British in light-infantry tactics—fire and maneuver, direct assault, operations in support of a main-force army. Garrett and Bijay are training them to fight as a special operations force. This involves long-range patrolling, strategic reconnaissance, the use of special demolitions, developing sniper teams, and the like.” Steven smiled. “One of the most difficult things we’ve had to do is to get them to let their hair grow. Many of them have no beards to speak of, and they are uncomfortable with long hair. We also make them train in a range of tribal and ethnic garb, but they are much more comfortable in uniforms. You go into the barracks or the mess hall on any evening, and they are all wearing their un
iforms. They love to be in uniform, and they absolutely hate turbans. But that said, they are coming along better than we expected.”

  “Have weapons and ammunition been a problem?” Simpson asked.

  “The permits we have obtained are in keeping with that of any law-enforcement training school. The amounts of ammunition are probably greater than that used by the entire Hawaiian state police force, but no one has raised a question. What weapons we were unable to obtain through legal channels come from arms dealers prepared to look the other way if we can pay a premium. For the most part we are using the standard special-operations weapon, the M-4 rifle with the Picatinny Rail System. This system can handle a number of sighting modifications and night-vision optics. It’s a small rifle, perfect for the Gurkhas. The sniper rifles are commercial competition-grade weapons, much better than military issue. As for explosives, our priming charges, firing assemblies, and time delays are standard military demolitions. We have limited ourselves to quarter-pound blocks of C-4 so as not to attract attention. If we ever formalize an understanding with the U.S. Navy, it would be nice to get the lads over to Kahoolawe for some tactical demolitions work. We do most of the weapons training at the camp. We also have teams scheduled to train at the John Shaw School in Memphis and at Blackwater in North Carolina. These civilian shooting schools are, in Garrett’s opinion, the best in the world. They have what are called kill houses where they train for urban battle. These schools train federal and local law enforcement organizations as well as private security firms, and their facilities are first-rate.” Steven paused to frame his words. “Garrett has the men broken into four squads, or teams, of seven. By traveling to these various training sites, they get used to traveling and moving as a small group on commercial airlines. He also wants to put them in as many different shooting situations as possible. So he will be accompanying them on these training trips, a squad or two at a time.”