by Dalton Fury
“I must do my duty as well,” Kang said.
* * *
Kolt Raynor lifted the dark green .50-caliber ammo can a few inches off the tile floor, felt the weight to gauge how much ammo he had left, then placed it back on the floor. He opened the can’s hinged top, confirming that the contents matched the can’s yellow paint pen mark denoting 5.56 mm rounds by seeing close to a thousand loose and brilliantly shined brass-and-copper-jacketed bullets dumped inside, and refastened the top.
Next, Kolt turned to his HK416, opening the battery compartment on his EOTech day optics and his new ATPIAL/LA-5 High Power Advanced Target Pointer Illuminator Aiming Laser, and swapped the batteries for fresh ones. He pulled his PSQ-36 Fusion Goggle System, the latest in combined night vision and thermal imaging, from his Ops-Core helmet and replaced those batteries as well, ensuring he was all set for his solo night fire on range 19C.
Kolt locked his team room’s vault, threw on his Multicam fatigue top, and headed for the squadron bar. He opened the large refrigerator, pushed the various foreign and domestic beer bottles out of the way to get to the partially frozen entrees in the back, grabbed a Red Bull from the door rack, and moved to the microwave.
Three minutes later, Kolt wolfed down the turkey and broccoli in a half-dozen swallows, slammed the last bit of energy drink, and made tracks for the Spine, headed to the Unit cafeteria. He was late for the Unit Informal, as usual, and since it wasn’t quite dark enough for his liking, he knew Webber would frown on him not making an appearance.
Kolt entered the cafeteria, took a few hard stares from some of the boys for his tardiness, and spotted Slapshot and Digger near the keg. Heading their way, he shook hands with a couple of former operators, old-timers in town for the annual get-together, and nodded to several others, knowing he’d get over to them to say hello soon.
It was standing-room only, jam-packed with type-A males either in civvies or fatigues, both current and former operators and support personnel. Near the back windows, Kolt spotted the big hair-salon do of Webber’s old lady, who, after catching Kolt’s eye, waved him down like she was flagging a cab in Times Square.
Kolt cringed. Damn!
Typically, the occasion was reserved for Unit members, not necessarily their better halves, but as everyone learned years ago when Webber took command, his wife not only liked to buck the system, crash the party, and throw her husband’s rank around, she liked to spike the punch and hug the keg.
“We were wondering if you would ever grace us with your presence, Kolt,” Mrs. Webber slurred, grabbing Kolt’s left arm as she tried to balance herself in her heels.
“Yes, ma’am,” Kolt said, catching an invisible headwind of barrel-aged cocktail before helping her from making a scene on the floor.
“I’m expecting you again at this year’s Unit picnic,” she said. “The kids always love the pool and you are my best lifeguard.”
“Uh, yes, ma’am,” Kolt said, catching her from stumbling a second time and immediately wondering how he could pawn that duty off to some other schmuck this year.
From behind, Kolt heard Colonel Webber. “Lilian, dear, can you excuse us? I need to speak to Major Raynor for just a moment.”
Mrs. Webber grabbed the colonel’s arm and spoke rhetorically. “Lighten up, Jeremy, it’s close of business already,” practically falling into him, before peeling off and turning to the nearest group of mingling operators.
Webber smiled and looked at Kolt, shrugging his shoulders as if to say Women!
Kolt couldn’t tell if Webber’s brush contact was the prelude to crushing news or happy, happy, happy. Going in the Atlantic last month during the training exercise hadn’t been Delta’s fault. Taking over the mission from Gangster in Syria and killing the Butcher was another matter. Yes, a wanted war criminal was dead, but would the higher-ups reward him for that or punish him for yet one more “irregular action”?
“The SMU board results are in,” Webber said.
Kolt nodded. Here it comes.
“Congrats, you’re taking a sabre squadron.”
Kolt was ready to say fine, to hell with them anyway, so hearing he’d been selected caught him off guard.
“Say again, sir? A sabre squadron?”
“No one is more surprised than me, except perhaps Mason, but you got it.”
Kolt could only imagine how much Admiral Mason was surprised. Asshole is probably having a coronary right now. Kolt smiled.
“I’m guessing you had more than a little to do with that,” Kolt said. He knew his track record was far from standard, but that’s what you got when you jumped in the shit as often as he did.
Webber shrugged. “Your DA photo bullshit was a little much, but I just helped the board see past some of your rough edges.”
Kolt nodded. “No easy feat, I’m sure. Thank you, sir.”
Webber’s smile vanished. “Your squadron just deployed to Ukraine.”
Kolt blinked. He knew they’d deployed, but he didn’t know why.
“The agency has a bead on Marzban Tehrani,” Webber said. “Intel sounds legit, both Iranian scientists are with him as well, they say.”
Kolt shook his head. Iranian scientists in the Ukraine with a terrorist like Tehrani could only be bad fucking news.
“Wait a second, my squadron?” Kolt said. “The alert squadron? Noble Squadron? That’s Gangster’s command.”
Webber looked Kolt dead in the eye and paused. “Was Gangster’s squadron,” Webber said. “You are the new Noble Zero-One.”
“He lost his command? Shit, sir, was that because of Syria?” Kolt said. Relieving troop commanders during wartime was one thing, but replacing a squadron commander was entirely uncommon.
“Wasn’t your call, so don’t sweat it,” Webber said.
“Look, things got fucked up, but we accomplished the mission in the end,” Kolt said.
Webber hesitated before speaking again. When he did, his voice was lower. “Kolt, bad news doesn’t get better with time. Most of the building knows by now, but Noble’s entire chain of command has been relieved for cause.”
Kolt whistled quietly. “What the hell is going on?”
“Syria. The Butcher hit. The four men that day, they were innocent. Agency intel was incorrect. But they weren’t the first.”
Kolt nodded. “I wondered why squat was said at their hotwash about the hit on the house.”
“The target house was not correct. The CIA asset’s info was faulty, and no weapons were found,” Webber said.
Kolt shook his head, rubbed his hand across the top of his head.
A peal of laughter followed by a roar made them both turn. Lilian Webber was regaling several operators standing around her with a story that clearly tickled their funny bones.
Webber rolled his eyes. “As I was saying, the target house was wrong. This is why, despite your charming lack of orthodoxy, you get the command.” Webber’s voice was growing in volume again. “Your instincts were bang-on on that mission. The culture of Noble Squadron has deteriorated in the past few years. It has to change.”
“So what am I up against, coming in behind Gangster?” Kolt asked. Suddenly, getting command of a sabre squadron didn’t sound so appealing.
“Kolt, it’s bad; I’m not putting you in command without full knowledge of the scope of the problem. The entire squadron was privy to the sketchy killings, lifting gold and cash off targets, random vandalism,” Webber said. “Gangster was giving out cash awards for the most kills on each rotation to the box.”
Any sympathy Kolt had had for Gangster evaporated. “Bloody pirates,” Kolt said, shaking his head. “How? How could they have slipped through the assessment and selection process? That’s supposed to weed those guys out.”
“I don’t have the answer for you, Kolt. I wish I did, but I don’t,” Webber said. “But I do know we have been at war a long time. Not an excuse, just fact.”
Kolt took a deep breath. “I’m not sure I am the right guy, sir.”
<
br /> “I understand the hesitation, Kolt, that’s natural,” Webber said. “I’ve given this a lot of thought. Bottom line is we need you to fix the problem. You’ve been down range more than most guys. If anyone can relate to the ugliness of war, it’s you.”
“I know Noble has lost more operators than any other squadron, but this is something entirely different,” Kolt said. “It’s not about turning targets, it’s about integrity and a lack of respect for basic humanity.”
“Look, Kolt, I can’t force you to take the command, but I did go to bat for you at the SMU board, as did Captain Yost,” Webber said. “There are things brewing, besides Ukraine, something in North Korea, and others that can’t be shared just yet. Suffice it to say that not only does Noble need you to take the squadron, but the entire Unit does as well. It’s isolated in Noble, it’s not prevalent in the Unit.”
“That asshat, Yost?” Kolt said as he smiled ear to ear, almost ignoring Webber’s last gloomy comment.
“He referred to you in a similar way as well,” Webber said. “But you impressed him in Bosnia way back when, and he never forgot.”
That surprised Kolt. He had a tendency to think everyone took a dim view of his actions. Maybe they were able to see beyond that. It made him realize his own impressions of people were too often immediate and set in stone.
“If you see him before I do, sir, please pass along my thanks.”
“Can do. Now, I need to hear it from you. Will you accept command?”
Kolt was about to say yes when a thought occurred. “Sir, who is my squadron sergeant major going to be? I want Slapshot.”
Webber looked hard at Kolt. “You can have Slapshot, and I need you to take Hawk, too. If she gets through Whistle-stop and the board she’ll need a commander that will give her a good and fair test.”
That surprised Kolt. He hadn’t seen Hawk in months and wasn’t exactly sure where the two of them were at.
“Sir?”
“You’ve operated with her the most, and the pilot program deserves an honest and thorough assessment,” Webber said.
Kolt tried and failed to come up with a good counter, mainly because there wasn’t one. Kolt knew Cindy “Hawk” Bird was solid, proven, and as brave as any male operator. He knew Webber’s pilot program to knight a female as an operator had many critics, not just inside the building with the old-timers, but even inside JSOC. And Webber had stuck out his neck for Kolt at the SMU board. That couldn’t have been easy.
Kolt nodded. “Throw in Digger, sir? I need a master breacher and he has the language skills.”
“Deal,” Webber said.
Kolt’s smile was ear to ear.
“Sir, it is my honor to accept command.”
Webber smiled back. “You’re damn right it is.”
He held out his hand and Kolt took it. For better or worse, he’d just gotten what he wanted.
SIX
Joint Defense Facility, Pine Gap, Australia
Carlos Menedez II closed his eyes and worked his jaw until his ears popped. After an interminable twenty-four-hour flight with a four-hour layover at LAX, his Virgin Australia International flight, 6862 from ATL, was finally making its descent into Brisbane, Australia. Leaning forward in his seat, Carlos opened his eyes and strained to get a visual on Pine Gap, the National Security Agency’s prime Southern Hemisphere intelligence collection center, from the air.
As director of Tungsten’s Department for Special Services, the blackest of black U.S. counterterrorist organizations, Carlos knew the facility, though he hadn’t had a reason to visit since the Cold War, some thirty years earlier. That he had reason now was both troubling and intriguing. You didn’t request the presence of a busy Tungsten director for trivial things. Few in the intelligence business even knew of Tungsten’s existence, for that matter.
Carlos nodded when he caught a glimpse of the giant golf-ball-looking objects that cut through the middle of the Pine Gap compound. Requiring unobstructed line of sight to orbiting satellites, the massive golf balls were impossible to hide. These were no weather radar units, no matter what the official statement said. These were state-of-the-art omnidirectional radome antennas that helped the National Security Agency pull metadata from the secret global surveillance networks ECHELON and PRISM.
If of suspicious mind—and after the Snowden affair, that was a given among large swathes of the public—it would be hard to miss the strategically located but shady defense spy facility that conspiracy theorists blogged about. They swore it was jointly run by the CIA, NSA, and National Reconnaissance Office, the NRO, and in that sense they weren’t entirely wrong.
Carlos sat back and closed his eyes. Twenty-four hours in an aluminum tube to travel around the world in the age of Skype and FaceTime. This had better be worth it.
Two hours later, Carlos walked toward an empty chair in a small conference room inside Pine Gap with no clearer idea of why he was there.
“The place has changed,” Carlos said.
“Yeah, we have to fight for funding every year,” Stephan Canary said. “NSA wolfs down funding like it’s candy; we get the crumbs left over.”
“I meant not much of a secret these days,” Carlos said. “Google is all over it.”
“We can thank Snowden’s big mouth for that.” Carlos chuckled at the Snowden comment before taking a seat in the maroon-colored leather chair, taking a sip of his coffee as he slid closer to the table. He placed his cell on the tinted blue glass table next to the facility-provided blank notepad and pen. The pen engraved with JOINT DEFENSE FACILITY PINE GAP was another sign that keeping Pine Gap a secret was long out of the barn.
Canary took a seat across the table, nonchalantly reached up to yank a cable from the sleek black video teleconference speaker, and tapped a few buttons on the ivory-colored portable keyboard.
“Can I get you to power off your phone, sir?” Canary asked politely, not hiding his reverence for a man that many in community considered a pioneer in covert communications.
Carlos obliged, tapped the screen a few times, and turned it toward Canary to show a dead screen. The sign on the wall out in the hallway was hard to miss.
“Twenty-first-century bugs,” Carlos said as he placed it back on the table. “I’m surprised you guys even let them inside Pine Gap.”
“We didn’t use to,” Canary said. “One of those convenience things. It’s a pet peeve of our director these days.”
Carlos nodded. He understood. He stared at the flat screen on the wall and watched as Canary skillfully drilled down through a half-dozen code-named file folders. The screen was oddly placed, high on the wall and not centered, almost as if some annoying interior decorator had insisted the screen hide the only wall electrical outlet. The angle from Carlos’s chair, coupled with the wicked glare on the screen from the flat ceiling lights, obscured at least half of what he could make out clearly.
Canary settled the arrow cursor on a folder obviously titled with a computer-generated code name. Carlos thought he read “Satin Ash” before Canary double-clicked, but he couldn’t be sure.
“How long you been here?” Carlos asked.
“Third tour, twelve years total now,” Canary said.
“You haven’t picked up the Crocodile Dundee accent.”
“I’m lucky if I get out of the basement twice a day.”
“Just the two of us?” Carlos said. “No offense, young man, but I dropped everything for a twenty-one-hour nonstop in coach. Figured I’d at least be seeing the vice, or maybe the director of ops.”
“My apologies, sir,” Canary said, “the director and ops officer are in Washington, D.C. Vice Director Fontaine planned to be here this morning, but with the latest developments, he said he might not make it.”
“Fontaine? Derrick Fontaine?” Carlos said, raising his eyebrows. “Big fat guy? Dirty blond hair?”
“Um, you are on Vice Director Fontaine’s itinerary immediately after lunch, though.”
Carlos saw Canary look qui
ckly at the door, obviously concerned someone might barge in at the wrong time, then look back as he held his bladed hand near his mouth. “He was body-weight challenged but just had Lap-Band surgery. No longer dirty blond either,” Canary said just above a whisper. “His major comb-over is shiny gray now.”
That ass clown Derrick Fontaine. Can’t believe he is even allowed in a place like this, much less running the place.
Carlos wanted to ask Canary a little more about Fontaine. Maybe ask if he was still as much of a self-serving jack wagon as he remembered him to be. See if he had lightened up a little over the years or if he was still as rigid as a nun in a whorehouse.
“Got it!” Carlos said. “Fontaine and I go way back.”
“Yes, sir!” Canary said before turning toward the flat screen and drawing Carlos with him. “Does this gentleman look familiar?”
Carlos locked on the screen. A fussy black-and-white of a twenty-something Asian man filled the center. His hairline pushed down his forehead, full thick black hair combed up several inches and off his forehead, cropped just above the ears. The man’s eyes were narrow, ice dark, and slightly menacing, topping a proud, square jaw. His mouth was frozen slightly open, as if caught mid-thought when the camera snapped, maybe questioning his decision to become a traitor. Two oversized front teeth were obvious. The top three buttons of his too-big white collared shirt looked unfastened, letting the collar hang open, the upper neck rim of a ribbed, probably soiled, tank top undershirt just showing.
Everything about the man told Carlos that he was either a caricature artist’s wet dream or some asset that had been recently compromised and likely smoked. He looked vaguely familiar, but Carlos couldn’t place him.
“Is he supposed to?” Carlos asked without taking his eyes off the screen.
“I believe you took the picture, sir,” Canary said, showing a little unease, “using a covert matchbox camera in the fall of 1985. Same one the OSS used during World War II, right?”
Carlos’s head jerked forward. He rubbed his dark gray slicked-back hair from his forehead back to the locks just touching the collar of his pearl-colored, pressed dress shirt. His eyes narrowed, bunched tight, as he squinted hard to get a better look. He stood, took a few steps around the first two chairs to get closer to the screen, and pulled out his custom wire-rimmed eyeglasses from his denim blazer pocket. He quickly seated them on his ears and the bridge of his nose, and studied the screen from only a few feet away, as if he had seen a ghost.
