The Mercenary Option

by Dick Couch

  Suddenly she fell silent. Grummell rose quietly and walked around the desk. He eased himself into a chair next to her.

  “It’s just what?” he said gently. “Please, I want to hear it.”

  “It’s just a feeling, really, that’s all. But I’ve come to know Imad Mugniyah over the years. I think I understand something of how he thinks. It’s not like him to give this job completely over to only one person, even someone as good as Khalib. Two bombs and one route to the target. That’s not like Mugniyah. The cell-phone intercepts and the satellite imagery are not conclusive, but they support my suspicions. From the start, I’ve been uneasy with the idea that both weapons would take the wilderness route across Iran to Afghanistan. It never quite made sense to me. There is some logic that the two weapons were designated for the two pipeline crews, or even that both of them would be headed for a single crew. But I began to think about it—from the perspective of the Iranians. It would be a strange thing indeed if our old friend Yunisi at the MIS did not have a hand in this. There’s bad blood between Iran and the Musharraf government, and we know Ali Yunisi is something of a fox.” Yunisi was the head of the Iranian Ministry of Internal Security, and often operated without the knowledge of his government. “He would love nothing better than to cause a break between Pakistan and the United States, and to erode Pakistan’s status as a nuclear power. A nuclear detonation in Afghanistan and perhaps a second one in Pakistan would do just that. With Pakistani nukes loose internally and externally, the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna would ask for full United Nations sanctions against Pakistan, and Congress would back such a measure. They would be branded a rogue, just like Saddam’s Iraq. India could roll into Kashmir, and we will have little to say about it. My guess is that it would cause Pakistan to implode, and there would be a Taliban-like government to replace Musharraf. There’s also the chance that we would no longer be able to restrain the nuclear forces of Pakistan and India. And Iran will sit on the sidelines and watch.”

  She sat back and demurely folded her arms. “At first it puzzled me that Yunisi did not extract one of the nuclear weapons as a tariff for allowing Khalib and Mugniyah to operate in Iran. But nuclear weapons can be a liability. They invite Western intervention.”

  Armand Grummell was thoughtfully polishing his glasses. “Secretly developing nuclear weapons and then presenting them to the world with a test explosion, as India and Pakistan did, is one thing. But to be involved in stealing one, well, that is something else altogether. It might invite a response such as the one we’re contemplating in Iraq. Yunisi plays a little more thoughtful hand. Iran’s involvement in this venture is completely deniable; they stop the pipeline and destabilize, perhaps even disarm, Pakistan.” He was silent a moment before continuing. “So where do you think this other weapon may be headed?”

  “My guess would be Karachi, or perhaps to the port that will serve as a terminus for the pipeline—possibly even along the supply route from Karachi that serves the construction crews. It’s my understanding from our nuclear experts that the Pakistani uranium weapon represents the more rugged and stable of the two weapons that were taken. It is by far the most suitable for transport across a mountainous region toward the pipeline. The plutonium weapon is equally destructive if the detonation results in a nuclear explosion, but plutonium is a deadly contaminant. The amount of plutonium in that warhead, if atomized by conventional explosives in a nonnuclear event, would present an immense cleanup effort, not to mention the sickness and death of those exposed. In some ways, the nonnuclear effect of a plutonium weapon in an urban area could be more psychologically damaging than a nuclear blast.” She shivered involuntarily. “This whole thing worries me deeply. I would like to be proven wrong, but my every instinct tells me that a second nuclear weapon is headed for southern Pakistan.”

  Grummell was silent for several moments. His job was to report specific intelligence to the executive branch of the government, and to other agencies and institutions as directed by the executive branch. It was not to make policy, nor was it to make executive decisions. But time was running out.

  “Elizabeth, within the next few hours, we may just know if weapons are in central Iran headed for the Afghan border and how many. I want you to assume that there is a second weapon headed back into southern Pakistan. Find out where it is and where it may be going. And thank you for staying with this problem. You kept us from following a decoy once before, and it appears that you may be doing us that service again.”

  After he saw her to the door, Grummell walked quickly to his desk. For a moment, he thought about waiting for the IFOR team in Iran to report with a confirmation on the weapons. But only for a moment. He punched the intercom on his desk.

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Would you put through a call to the President on the secure line as soon as possible?”

  “Right away, sir.”

  “Then I want to see the DDO, Jim Watson, the Near East Division Chief, and the senior Pakistan desk officer in my office immediately.”

  “Sir, I believe the DDO is over at the Pentagon at the moment.”

  “I see. Please, send word that I want him to drop what he is doing and return to Langley immediately.”

  Grummell knew that keeping his Deputy Director for Operations in the dark about IFOR had its risks, especially since his deputy, Jim Watson, knew everything. Well, so be it, Grummell said to himself. He had given his word, and that of the President, that the knowledge of IFOR would be restricted to those at the highest levels. He would honor that pledge. While he waited for his call to the President to go through, he sat deeply in thought. What can we do to stop a rogue nuclear weapon that may be headed for southern Pakistan?

  Early Friday morning, January 3,

  central Iranian plain, north of Juymand

  “You should be seeing them at any moment now.”

  “Understood, standby…. Okay, we got a thermal print…two of them, both very similar. Got to be them.”

  “Good luck, First Base. Call when it’s done, break, Second Base, you copy this.”

  “I have a good copy, Home Plate.” Even over the encrypted satellite link, Bijay Gurung’s precise, measured speech was clearly discernible. “We are mounted and now moving to the First Base position. ETA about ninety minutes.”

  “Understand ninety minutes. Home Plate, clear.”

  Through the good offices of Jim Watson, one of the Predator drones being flown out of Qandahar on a routine surveillance of the completed pipeline had been handed off to Dodds LeMaster, who under the guise of a military special-operations ground unit controller, took the drone high over the Afghan border and about ninety miles into Iranian airspace. At night it had been an easy task to pick up two IR blooms on the road from Deyhuk to Ferdows. LeMaster was able to track the two vehicles through Ferdows to Juymand, and followed their progress when they turned north. The two Explorers had made good time, trying to get to Torbat before sunrise. That meant Garrett, or at least Garrett’s Gurkhas, had drawn the lucky straw. With the terrorists headed their way, they would be most likely to whet the appetite of their khukuris.

  Garrett put aside the thermal imaging device and slipped on his night-vision goggles. Then he took up his rifle and watched the two vehicles as they approached. He and his six Gurkhas waited for them on the far side of a shallow dry wash. The gravel road dipped into the wash from a flat plain and crawled back up a ten-percent grade to the flat. The Gurkhas were deployed in a shallow “V” ambush formation on either side of the road. There was little cover for them, save for the rise as the road rose out of the wash. There were three claymore mines tied to rocks and well camouflaged along the side of the road. Duhan was in charge of the demolition element. From his position on the top of the rise, he knew that when he saw the top of the first Explorer, it was just past the center of the kill zone. He waited a second to allow for the trailing vehicle to come into range.

  “Ho!” he called loudly and squeezed the clacker tha
t electrically fired the claymores.

  At Duhan’s call, Garrett and the other Gurkhas hugged sand and covered their eyes and ears. The explosion was deafening. Over two thousand steel, ball-bearing-like pellets shredded the two Explorers. A few of the men in the Explorers may have known what hit them, but the others had no idea. About half of them were killed outright or mortally wounded by the claymores. The first vehicle slumped on four flat tires in a cloud of steam as the water from the vented radiator sprayed onto the hot engine. The Gurkhas were on their feet immediately, three men in each leg of the “V.” They swept down either shoulder of the road, firing rhythmically into the passenger compartment of the lead vehicle. Garrett advanced with them at the apex of the shallow “V.” Two Gurkhas stayed with the lead vehicle while Garrett and the other four advanced on the second vehicle.

  The trailing Ford Explorer had not been damaged so severely as the first. The man in the front passenger seat was killed instantly and the driver mortally wounded. But their bodies shielded Khalib and Moshe Abramin, seated in the rear. The SUV stalled and rolled slowly back down the hill on two flat tires, then slewed off the shoulder of the road and tipped onto the passenger side. The four Gurkhas continued their assault, firing steadily, pausing only to change out the empty magazines in their M-4 rifles. They approached the Explorer from the underside and cautiously rounded the vehicle. Two of them closed on the battered passenger compartment while two of them swung wide so as to avoid being in a crossfire. The wounded driver managed to get his hand to his pistol and started firing wildly. The muzzle flashes were like large firecrackers in the night-vision goggles of the Gurkhas. The one closest to the driver went down, but the other sent a half dozen rounds into the now inert form at the wheel.

  “Cease fire, cease fire,” Garrett called in Gurkhali and leaped up on the side of the wounded vehicle. He kicked in the rear-door window, weapon ready to fire down into the rear passenger compartment. The man on the downside of the rear seat struggled, trying to pull a pistol from his belt, but the lifeless form of his companion now on top of him restricted his movements. Garrett instantly recognized Khalib. He pulled open the door and dropped onto the two men. Khalib had finally managed to shoulder the inert Moshe aside enough to get his hand to the butt of his pistol when a heavy boot pinned his forearm to the door of the car. His eyes followed the boot, up the man’s leg and torso, then to his face. He was an American.

  “I know you do not fear death, my friend,” the man said in halting Arabic, “but it does not have to be now and in this way.” Khalib had a good command of Arabic. His eyes narrowed, then he managed to spit on the man’s boot before he fainted from his wounds.

  They worked fast, as it would be dawn in a few hours.

  “Okay, got him; go on to the next one.” Janet Brisco glanced at a name and biographical readout on the adjacent monitor. “Christ, it’s beginning to look like who’s who in the al Qaeda Mafia. That’s good, hold that one a second…. Okay, next one.”

  One of the Gurkhas was moving from dead man to dead man with a digital camera while another held or turned his head so the camera could frame it. A thin transmission cord connected the camera to the radio on the Gurkha’s back. The radio made a line-of-site connection to a satellite communications set in one of the jeeps. A datalink transmission to the GSI vans on Diego Garcia was almost instantaneous. Occasionally one of the Gurkhas would wipe the features with a rag so they would be more recognizable, but it wasn’t necessary. The Viiasage face-recognition software could read and calibrate more than a 180 facial-recognition features in a nanosecond. Only one of the slain al Qaeda members was not in the database and not instantly identifiable.

  “Hold it there,” the cameraman heard on his earpiece and froze. “Great. That accounts for one of our nuclear scientists. Abramin will not be stealing any more nuclear weapons. All right, next one.” The Gurkha cameraman stepped over to a man who had been laid out on a poncho liner with his head slightly elevated. He focused on the harsh, lined face. Janet Brisco almost jumped back when the eyes fluttered open.

  “Well, well,” she said to the cameraman, as well as to Steven Fagan and Dodds LeMaster, who hovered over her shoulder inside the comm van. “Looks like we have Khalib Beniid with a little life in him. You with us, First Base?”

  “Right here, Home Plate,” Garrett replied.

  “Don’t suppose he’s been of any help to us.”

  “None at all. I know the type; he’ll die without saying a word.” Garrett stepped away from where Khalib lay. He would die soon anyway if he didn’t get medical treatment; it might too late already. One of the Gurkhas gave him an injection that would relieve some of his suffering, but it also included a drug that would both stimulate and confuse him. “Second Base is twenty minutes away. Recommend we extract and have the second element do a follow-up operation. It might work and it might not. It shouldn’t take more than a half hour in any case. Do we have the time?”

  Janet looked up at Steven. He nodded. “Go ahead. Got a confirmation on the weapons yet?”

  “Standby,” Garrett replied and walked over to where Janos was carefully examining the two cases removed from one of the wrecked Explorers. He wore a miner’s light bungeed to his forehead and carefully unpacked the encased nuclear materials. He moved deliberately, sniffing at the cases with a probe that registered low-level gamma emissions. Garrett had the detection equipment provided them by Jim Watson in one of their jeeps, but Janos preferred his own gear.

  “I hate to rush a guy who’s handling atomic bombs,” Garrett said softly, “but we can’t stay here much longer.”

  “About got it,” Janos replied without looking up. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure, but let me get through this next seal…okay, got it.” He sighed and slumped back onto his heels. “It’s an HEU weapon, and it’s still in pieces. It’s completely harmless, so we can take it with us.”

  “You sure?”

  Janos finally turned from the cases in front of him and peered at Garrett over half-moon reading glasses. “I was pretty sure it wasn’t a plutonium weapon, but sometimes they’re shielded in such a way as to fool you. But now I’m sure. It’s a uranium weapon, and there is only one. It’s not assembled, so there is no chance of detonation.”

  Garrett exhaled sharply. “You’re positive there’s only one?”

  Janos nodded. “Me and the boys searched the vehicles thoroughly; this is it. I’ll have it packed up and ready for travel in about five minutes.” He pointed to a metal suitcase. “The timing device and explosive materials are in there. Bring that too?”

  “Bring it all, and hurry.” He stepped away from Janos and keyed his radio. “Home Plate, this is First Base. We have only one egg, confirmed; repeat one egg of the HEU variety, over.”

  There was a moment before Janet’s voice came over his earpiece. “Understand one HEU egg. Your chariot will be to your posit in about seven mikes. You can pick him up on channel four.”

  “Roger channel four; thanks, Home Plate. First Base, out.”

  Garrett adjusted his radio to the proper frequency. “Boomer Lead, this is First Base, Over. How copy, over?”

  “Lima Charlie, First Base. We’re about ten clicks away from you and closing. We have a green deck?” Six miles out, two MH-60 Pavehawks hugged the floor of the Dasht Lut, heading for the ambush site.

  “Wait one, Boomer.”

  Garrett quickly checked that the Gurkhas had completed their tasks and were ready to leave. Janos indicated he was finished. Duhan was with the Gurkha who had been wounded in the one-sided skirmish. He still had a 9mm round in his thigh, but could hobble with some assistance.

  “Okay, Boomer, I want you to send in your trail bird to pick us up. Guide on my IR beacon. Repeat, trail bird only, over.”

  “Understand, one bird. You copy Boomer Trail?”

  The second helo pilot’s voice came on the net. “Boomer Trail, good copy. I’ll be there in three mikes…I have your beacon. Standby, Trail out.”

&nb
sp; Just over the horizon, the lead Pavehawk peeled itself from the desert floor and banked away. The trail helo continued on at a hundred knots and fifty feet. The flight from Herat, some two hundred miles to the west, had taken them just under two hours. The lead MH-60 throttled back to ninety knots and began to trace a comfortable orbit over the sand. The second helo homed in on the flashing infrared blip. Both pilots wore night-vision goggles, one flying and the other searching the barren desert for any signs of trouble. The Pavehawk rocked back on its tail, bleeding away airspeed. When it had almost stopped, it pitched forward to a level hover and settled onto the desert floor. It sat there turning while a file of dusty figures made their way to the turning chopper. All carried a heavy pack, and one of them helped another who half ran, half hopped to the helo door. Suddenly the two Ford Explorers burst into flame. The corpses of the former occupants could be seen in the glare of the fire, scattered across the dry wash. Garrett walked over to where Khalib now lay, his head cushioned by a drop pad. He was a safe distance away from the burning vehicles. Awake now, Khalib coldly regarded Garrett. There was no fear in his eyes, only pure hated.

  “Pig!” Garrett said in Arabic. He then spat in Khalib’s face and gave the wounded man a vicious kick in the ribs. Garrett turned on his heel and walked to the waiting helicopter. The pain almost took Khalib—almost, but the intense hatred for this tall, arrogant American kept him from passing out. Khalib glared after Garrett and watched as the helo dissolved in a cloud of dust and noise. They were gone, and he was finally alone, and the desert was quiet.

  7

  Friday morning, January 3,

  Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

  Amir Sahabi had been sitting in the comfortable anteroom for close to an hour. It was humiliating, to say the least, but he had no choice. He had come to the capital the night before so he could be first on his calendar and had arrived immediately after morning prayers. He had done what he could to quiet the fears of the extended royal family about this gamble, but they had grown increasingly anxious over the past few weeks. Although there was no direct connection, nor would there be, he felt sure the anxiety reached all the way to the crown prince. Now he had been summoned to one of the lesser palaces and made to wait. Sahabi glanced at his Rolex President—it had been more than an hour. Patience, he told himself. You are dealing with rich, arrogant and not terribly smart people. And they are becoming nervous, which is sure to make them more difficult.