TALISMAN: A Shadow Warriors Short Story

by Stephen England

  TALISMAN:

  A Shadow Warriors Short Story

  By

  Stephen England

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2014 by Stephen England

  Cover art by Louis Vaney

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Views expressed by the characters in this story are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the author.

  TALISMAN: A Shadow Warriors Short Story

  9:32 P.M. Local Time, March 19 th

  Hotel De Paris

  Monaco

  There was nothing particularly remarkable about the young man seated across Le Bar Americain.

  Nothing to indicate that he would be dead by the time the sun next rose over the harbor of Monaco.

  A diamond-encrusted Rolex encircled his wrist, glittering in the lights of the bar, his tailored shirt open at the neck to reveal sun-bronzed skin. A smile crossed his swarthy face as he reached forward, picking up a sparkling flute of champagne from the table in front of him—holding it between manicured fingers as he raised it in a toast to his date, a woman at least ten years his junior if she was a day. No more than nineteen at most. Her presence was…a complication, at best.

  Death. The watcher knew everything there was to know about death, everything that could be known—an occupation that had taken him around the world and back again.

  His obsidian-black eyes darted around the bar of the Hotel de Paris as he sipped at his Perrier, seemingly engrossed in the décor, the lavish appointments of the old hotel. But never losing track of his target’s every movement.

  There was an art to watching… .without watching, and the man was good at his craft.

  He lifted a barbajuan to his mouth, his attention shifting to the two men seated at the table directly across from the couple, themselves watchers.

  Bodyguards.

  He masked a grimace as he bit down, the mixture of cheese and spinach pervading his mouth. One of the security detail had a handgun tucked into an inside-the-waistband holster, the weapon printing ever so faintly against his tailored suit.

  His fingers came up, brushing lightly across the Bluetooth headset protruding from his ear. Knowing that his next words could change everything they had worked so hard for over the last two months. “TALISMAN is not alone.”

  10:36 P.M. Local Time

  U.S. Embassy—Palazzo Margherita

  Rome, Italy

  Not again. That was the first thought to enter Ron Carter’s mind. For seven weeks, they had stalked their quarry. Drawn up plans only to discard them as his patterns shifted—as variables interjected themselves into the equation.

  “Variables” like this, all too often. Their target was an unapologetic ladies’ man.

  He glanced over his shoulder at Jim Holbrook, the CIA’s Station Chief in Rome. Holbrook had been with the Agency a long time…back to Lebanon in the early ‘80s. He’d been there under Haas, helped bring the Beirut Station back on course after Buckley was taken. A legend within the intelligence community, Holbrook found himself now on the verge of retirement.

  He returned Carter’s glance with a shake of his massive head. “That’s a risk we’re going to have to take, Richards,” the analyst replied, keying his headset mike. “TALISMAN will be leaving for home tomorrow…gonna make it a whole new ballgame. He goes down tonight, according to plan.”

  9:38 P.M. Local Time

  Hotel De Paris

  Monaco

  According to plan, Richards thought, listening to the voice in his ear. A lie, that’s all that was. Nothing ever went according to plan—not out in the real world.

  He’d been named Jack at birth—long ago and a world away, but he was known as “Tex” to his friends. What few there were of them.

  “She’s an American,” he added, choosing his words with accustomed care. “College kid, probably not out of her teens.”

  “Oh, crap,” Carter responded, and he could hear Holbrook cut loose with profanity in the background. “Are you sure?”

  “New Yorker, by the sound of it. Sending you a picture.” Of course he was sure. Richards’ dark eyes narrowed as he glanced across the bar at her, picking idly at his food.

  She was beautiful, of that there was no doubt—the lights of the bar glistening off her golden-brown hair, the light sundress doing its best to compliment her lithe, tanned body. He raised the phone in his hand cautiously, careful not to attract attention with the movement.

  Beautiful…and too young to understand the dangers in which that placed her—from people like the man at her side.

  Prince Yusuf ibn Talib al-Harbi, or TALISMAN, as he was known to the CIA. The twenty-nine-year-old Saudi was a billionaire in his own right, heir to one of the elders of the powerful al-Harbi clan. Money he used to fund a lavish lifestyle of vacation homes, planes, and yachts like the one moored off Monaco, thirteen miles out—just far enough to be out of the principality’s territorial waters.

  He watched him lean closer to his date, a glint in his eyes as he whispered something in her ear—his lips spreading into a smile as she laughed. Charm.

  Fast cars. Faster women. And jihad…there was that. Perhaps that was his way of atoning for his sins.

  He’d helped fund the Christmas Eve attacks on Las Vegas only months before, the storming of the Bellagio resort that had ended in a hostage stand-off, the clock ticking down.

  Tex lifted the Perrier to his lips, remembering the chaos—the gunfire filling the theatre, the smell of death. Everything had changed in that night.

  “We can’t allow her to board the yacht with him,” the voice in his ear asserted. The voice of reason—of confidence.

  The voice of a man who wasn’t there.

  “How?”

  Silence. It was always easier to say what must be done than to figure out a way to accomplish it. At length, Carter cleared his throat. “I don’t know…yet. Stay on them—the Scranton will be coming on station within the next eighty minutes.”

  11:13 P.M. Local Time

  U.S. Embassy—Palazzo Margherita

  Rome, Italy

  This just wasn’t right. Two months after the op had been launched, and they suddenly seemed as far away from its resolution as they had been when they started.

  “He’s right,” Carter announced, re-entering the room. “Her name’s Rachel Ellen Mancuso, eighteen years old—just accepted at Cornell last fall. On spring break in Monaco with two of her classmates, Heather Rogozinski and Nicole Forstchen.”

  He reached for the remote on the table in front of Holbrook, aiming it up at the bank of plasma screens covering one wall of the small operations center. It wasn’t anything compared to what he had access to in the nerve center of the Clandestine Service back at Langley…but he’d make do. “Judging by their Facebook pictures…they’ve really been enjoying the relaxed drinking restrictions here in Europe.”

  Holbrook murmured a curse, rubbing a hand through his thinning, ash-gray hair. “What type of parent lets their kid go halfway around the world for spring break?”

  “The modern type, I’m afraid,” Carter responded, clicking to the next picture. “Her dad’s an investment banker in Manhattan. Her mother…lives in California.”

/>   The CIA station chief shook his head. “So let me get this straight—we’ve got a mixed-up American teenager going to bed with the terrorist we’ve been ordered to kill?”

  “That’s about the size of it,” came the analyst’s reply. “And our clock is running out. Trudeau will be bringing the Scranton to comms depth within the hour to receive the final go-mission.”

  10:19 P.M. Local Time

  Hotel De Paris

  Monaco

  It was the bodyguards, Richards thought, eyeing his quarry as they rose from their table. Without their presence, the solution would have been simple.

  Easy enough to palm his own wallet and slip it into her purse—angrily accuse her of theft as they left. Better she spend the night in a Monaco jail cell than get caught in the cross-fire of what was about to happen.

  But the Saudi’s security team made getting that close impossible. Unacceptable risk.

  He followed them out of the hotel, maintaining a safe distance as a valet brought Prince Yusuf’s Maybach Exelero around, massive tires turning slowly as it came to stop at the curb.

  An amazing piece of German machinery…Tex moved closer, letting his curiosity in the sports car serve as an excuse. But his eyes weren’t focused on the car—or the young woman, as the valet held the door for her, letting her slide onto the black leather seat.

  His callused fingers worked quickly over the touchscreen of his phone, tapping in the numeric code Carter had given him. Ten digits—then another five.

  The door closed on the girl and he could see her throw back her head, laughing at one of the Saudi’s jokes.

  Bluetooth accessed, read the message on his phone’s screen. He tapped in another command, glancing up to see one of Monaco’s many security cameras staring him in the face.

  They were unavoidable, which is why they had made no attempt to take Yusuf out on shore. His fingers moved over the touchscreen’s menu, toggling Microphone on.

  A woman’s excited laugh came over his earbud, almost drowned out by the thunderous roar of the Exelero’s V-12 engine. And then a man’s voice responding, a daring charm in his tone.

  Tex replaced his phone in his pocket, heading for the Suzuki motorcycle parked another twenty feet down the Avenue de Monte Carlo. “We have ears on TALISMAN.”

  10:32 A.M.

  The USS Scranton

  The Mediterranean

  There were moments when being short had its advantages. Making one’s way through the narrow, cramped corridors of a nuclear attack submarine was one of them.

  Didn’t mean he had to enjoy it, the man thought, making his way down another dirt-brown corridor toward the Scranton’s control room. They’d been at sea for two weeks since leaving Crete—two weeks too long where Mitsuo Nakamura was concerned. He’d spent ten of his forty-three years in the US Army, jumping out of airplanes as part of the 2nd Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment.

  Ten years. A tour in Iraq and two in Aghanistan. At five-foot-four, he’d been the shortest man in his platoon. And one of the most deadly—he’d earned a Bronze Star with the combat “V” during a Taliban ambush.

  And then the CIA had come knocking, recruiting for the Special Operations Group of their Special Activities Division. SOG and SAD, more of the acronyms that everyone within the D.C. Beltway was hopelessly enamored with.

  Five years later, leading the SOG’s Bravo Team…well, he was spending entirely too much time locking out of submarines.

  It took him a moment after reaching the control room to spot the Scranton’s CO, Captain Casimir Trudeau, standing on the far side of the room—a microphone in his hands.

  “Engineering, conn, make our course three-five-two, engines ahead two-thirds, increase speed to fifteen knots.”

  Nearly due north. Heading dead into the target area. The speakers crackled with a burst of static.

  “Conn, sonar, we have a surface contact about twelve kilometers out—near the edge of the convergence zone, moving this way at eighteen knots. Designating Sierra-22.”

  “What are you seeing?”

  “Library confirms her signature as that of a Leygues-class ASW frigate. Likely the same one from before.”

  Two weeks ago, he wouldn’t have known what that particular acronym meant…but you learned a lot by spending fourteen days in a steel coffin beneath the ocean waves. Anti-submarine warfare.

  They had encountered the Leygues twice before—factored it in among their operational variables…but tonight it was early. By two hours.

  “Is that going to present a problem, captain?” Nakamura asked, his voice studiously neutral. He knew the answer even before he opened his mouth, but he had to hear it.

  Trudeau turned to face him, his face that of a man who had spent his life at sea. And so he had—word had it that he’d first set foot in a Los Angeles during the waning days of the Cold War.

  “At that speed, Sergeant White,” the older man replied, “she’ll be on top of us in twenty minutes.”

  “So you’re saying we won’t be able to establish communications on schedule?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  10:48 P.M.

  Monaco Heliport

  It was a drive that should have taken seven minutes—ten minutes with bad traffic. TALISMAN had managed to stretch it into nearly thirty—powering the Exelero down nearly every back street in Monaco, the throaty roar of the V-12 engine rattling windows with its thunder. The amusement of a playboy.

  “Whatever you’re doing, Ron, it’s not working,” Tex observed, staring through the visor of his motorcycle helmet toward the heliport that served as the principality’s only aviation facility. He’d pulled the Suzuki to a stop well outside the perimeter fence. Far back enough to keep from rousing suspicion. Or at least that was the idea.

  A curse filled his earpiece. “I spoofed her friend Nicole’s phone—sent her a text to ask what she was up to.”

  The Texan remained silent, waiting for Carter to go on. “She responded by turning off her phone. She’s not coming out willingly.”

  “Copy that. What else can you give me—what are you picking up from the audio?”

  “That he likes Barry White?” the analyst offered. “Sorry, that’s about all we’re getting. Can you get to the helipad?”

  He pushed up his visor, lifting the small monocular to his right eye as he glassed the field. “Negative. Not without authorization for overt action.”

  He didn’t explain himself—there was no need for it. He was the man on the ground. His call. There was a pause before the analyst replied, “That won’t be forthcoming. You’re not in the ‘Stans. We’ll have to find another way.”

  There was an edge to Carter’s voice. As if something else was already going wrong. As if there was something he wasn’t being told.

  “We still have audio, right?”

  “Roger,” the analyst replied tersely. “You never truly turn one of those things ‘off’. At least not without removing the battery. As long as she keeps the phone on her person, we’ll have ears.”

  “And if she doesn’t?” Tex asked. In the glow of the heliport lights, he could see the girl’s slender figure by the door of the luxury EC145 Eurocopter, being helped up into the seat by her prince.

  No doubt having the best night of her life. The last night of her life, if they didn’t play their cards just right.

  “Then things are going to go sideways. More so than normal.”

  11:03 P.M.

  The USS Scranton

  They were drifting now, nearly a hundred meters beneath the waves of the Mediterranean—their speed reduced to just a couple knots.

  “Sonar, conn, what’s the read on Sierra-22?” It had only been three minutes since the last time Captain Trudeau had asked, but it was clear that something was out of the ordinary.

  “Still with us, sir. Steaming back on a bearing of forty-two degrees. As if she’s executing a search grid.”

  It wasn’t good news, Nakamura thought, his eyes
sweeping the screens. His face betraying none of the emotions sweeping through him.

  He was out of his element here, and he felt it keenly. His fate in the hands of the Scranton’s crew.

  They didn’t get much quieter than a Los Angeles-class, but that wasn’t the same as saying they couldn’t be found. An experienced sonar operator knew to look for what wasn’t there. A black hole in the midst of the sea.

  “What’s going on, Mitt?”

  A glance into the corridor behind him revealed the face of Nate Carson, Bravo Team’s medic. Eight years Nakamura’s junior, Carson had earned his maroon beret as an Air Force PJ, the pararescue flash bearing the words, “That others may live.”

  “Hard to say,” Nakamura replied, “but I think we’re gonna be late for our date.”

  12:19 P.M. Local Time

  U.S. Embassy—Palazzo Margherita

  Rome, Italy

  “What’s the verdict?”

  Holbrook replaced the Secure Telephone Unit back in its cradle, glancing over at Carter. “COMSUBLANT has no reports of anything being broadcast on the SUBSUNK frequency. As far as they can tell, the Scranton is still in the fight.”

  “And thirty minutes overdue,” the analyst replied, looking at his watch. The plan had been simple—the Los-Angeles class sub was supposed to come to periscope depth to receive final orders, then proceed northward, another fifteen miles into the target area, before locking out the CIA strike team onboard.

  A strike team which would swim north to the Khaybar, overwhelming Yusuf’s security team before they could react—mobilize. Get off a distress call.

  Simple enough. Or it had looked that way on paper. “What do we have in the sky?” the station chief asked.