Scorched Earth

by George Galdorisi

  * * *

  The other kidnappers were all asleep as Amer and one of the men who had grabbed Jay Bruner sat at the kitchen table in the old farmhouse. It was close to midnight, but the summer Maryland heat and humidity was still sucking the life out of them, as well as what little patience they had left.

  “Why do we have to stay holed up here, Amer? We’re sitting ducks. The police or whoever was chasing us will find us eventually, then what?”

  “I don’t know!” Amer snapped. After his initial call to his contact, he’d been told to wait for further instructions. Several hours later, his contact called him and told Amer to come to this house where he’d find the key under the doormat. He was told to garage the van, get the hostage into the house, and not use their phones again for outbound calls or leave the house until they were told to do so. Amer had even taken the extra step of collecting the phones from the other men and turning them off.

  “Look, we’ll never get him out of the country now; the Americans aren’t stupid. And you’ve seen the local news reports—every damn police force in the area is going to be looking for us. It’s insane to just sit here!”

  “I’m just telling you what I was told. If you want to take charge of this and have a better idea, here, you call our contact,” Amer said as he pushed his phone across the table.

  The other man simply pushed it back, got up, and stormed upstairs.

  Twenty feet from where the two men were arguing, Jay Bruner lapsed in and out of sleep. He was all but numb with fear, and he had long ago given up hope of trying to bargain with his captors. Thoughts of rescuers coming to his aid flew in and out of his head, and each time he became more certain they’d never come.

  * * *

  The C-5M Super Galaxy had been airborne for several hours and the constant drone of the aircraft’s four General Electric F138-GE-100 engines had lulled Dale Bruner asleep. The Galaxy had been in service in the Air Force for nearly half a century, and the 400-ton behemoth was still going strong. This flight was bringing tons of cargo and a number of passengers to the American military forces operating at Al Muthana Air Base at Baghdad International Airport. An active-duty Navy SEAL who said he had orders to travel to Baghdad was a priority passenger who bumped other pax.

  Dale Bruner was traveling in uniform—a requirement for all military personnel on the Air Force Mobility Command flights—but he would shed that soon after arriving in Baghdad. He knew he was doing what he needed to do to rescue his dad, but it pained him that he had lied to his mother and sisters, telling them he was going back to his command in Coronado.

  * * *

  In their compound in Mosul, Mabad al-Dosari sat with his number two, Shakir al-Hamdani. Al-Dosari always counted on al-Hamdani’s counsel, and he needed it now more than ever. Nothing was going right.

  After the American airstrike had destroyed his last remaining SA-15 Gauntlet systems, leaving him naked to further air attacks, he had had his fighters range far and wide in areas they controlled, as well as areas where they could attack successfully, trying to steal anti-air batteries. But there were none to be had, and while the Americans and their so-called coalition—along with the Iran-backed Shia fighters—had been busy trying to push the Islamic State out of the increasing number of cites they controlled, the air attacks on Mosul continued. He had had to shift his compound several times in the last few weeks alone.

  Worse, as he retreated to more northerly sections of Mosul, his ability to threaten the Mosul airport had essentially disappeared. Now many flights a day were landing there, delivering supplies to the forces aligned against his fighters. And with few new fighters arriving from other countries—they were profiling young Muslim men and not giving them visas—the reinforcements he had always been able to count on in the past were no longer coming.

  But what troubled him most was the bungled attempt to get this Admiral Bruner smuggled out of the United States and delivered to him as he had ordered. When he had first cooked it up, al-Hamdani had described the plan as “foolproof.” Well, the fools had made hash of it. That made him nearly blind with rage. He knew he needed to give his number two a chance to redeem himself, but he wanted to know the details.

  “So you see no way we can get our hostage out of the United States?” al-Dosari began.

  “I don’t think so,” al-Hamdani replied. “Our contact has been monitoring police and other activity around the area where our men are holding the hostage. He thinks if they try to get him to that airport again, they’ll be caught.”

  “But what about other airports, or a ship out of an East Coast port? Surely we can come up with another way,” al-Dosari countered.

  Al-Hamdani knew the ISIS leader was grasping at straws. The original plan—watching the subject’s movements so they knew where to snatch him, buying the small packing company at an inflated price, placing the two men in that company, buying tons of peaches—had failed. But the plan had taken time, money, and a dose of patience to put together in the first place. How did al-Dosari expect them to do that again on the fly?

  “Look,” al-Hamdani began, “we tried and failed to smuggle him out of his country. But we can still accomplish what you want to do—slit his throat on the Internet. It not only extracts the revenge you want, but will strike fear into the Americans, and especially their president. We’ll assassinate their man right under their noses. Here, look at this map, the house where they’re holding him is less than twenty-five miles from the White House. If we kill him there, it will have a huge impact.”

  Something about al-Hamdani handing him the tablet and showing him the map calmed al-Dosari and started to bring him around to his number two’s way of thinking.

  “If we do this, I want your contact to do it. I don’t want those five idiots who are holding him to screw it up,” al-Dosari said. “Get him there, and let me know when he arrives. Once he’s in the farmhouse, I want him to set up our flag, have a good camera, and do this the right way. I don’t want Midkiff to see some grainy cell phone picture. I want him to see his man, see the terror in his eyes, and know it’s happening right under his nose.”

  “It will be done; I’ll contact him immediately.”

  * * *

  Zack Peters liked his new life as a security contractor in Iraq—to a point. He was making what he thought was an almost obscene amount of money for work that was far less dangerous than what he’d done while he was in uniform as a Navy SEAL. But he didn’t want to do this forever, as it took him away from his family for extended periods. Even his company’s generous package of flying him back to the States for ten days every three months to visit his family wasn’t enough for a man who was trying to be a good husband and a good father.

  That made his decision to liberate—it was stealing, but that term bothered him—a vehicle and some high-end gear from his company to support Dale Bruner much easier. He’d been in Iraq for fifteen months doing this work, and he had fattened his bank account. If the worst happened and he was caught, fired, and sent back to the United States, he knew he could start over again and find a job close to home in Phoenix.

  But the overriding factor that made his decision easy was his loyalty to Bruner. His team leader had saved his life and gotten their small team out of some truly tough spots in the two years they served together. His lieutenant came first; everything else would have to take a backseat.

  * * *

  Amer had faith there was a greater plan that he and his small group were just a small part of. But the concerns the others had expressed were trying that faith. How long would they have to hole up here waiting? And no one had told him what was going to happen next. He wanted to do something, anything, rather than just sit here. Amer slept next to his phone hoping for a call—any call—that would tell him what to do next.

  The ringing jolted Amer awake. He groped for the phone and finally answered. “Yes?”

  “This is Mr. Martin,” his contact began, substituting their agreed-upon name for his real one, Masood.r />
  “This is me.”

  “Do you still have the package?”

  “Yes, of course. Do you have instructions for me?”

  “Yes, I’ll tell you more when I arrive in the morning. I’ll be there once I can purchase the material our leader has told me to buy.”

  “But what will we do then? Are we going to move?”

  “That’s enough, no more!” the man hissed. “I’ve only been to that house once, but I remember it fairly well. The curtains do little to darken the living room. Do you have sufficient blankets to cover most of the windows in that room?”

  Amer and the others had little need for blankets in the heat of summer, so they’d never opened the upstairs’ linen closet. “I’ll go look.”

  After running upstairs and opening the closet, Amer spoke again. “Yes, there are plenty of blankets in the linen closet.”

  “Good,” Martin replied. “I’ll bring everything else we need. Stay off this phone until then.”

  Amer heard the man click off. He sat and wondered if he should tell the others yet. But what would he tell them?

  * * *

  Several hours later it was first light at BWI airport, and Wright, Kim, and the rest of Kim’s HRT team shared similar frustrations to those Amer was feeling just five miles away.

  “We’re ready to launch,” Kim began. “We can start combing the area with our Blackhawks and send our trucks out in a grid search.”

  “I know your team is more than ready, Allen, but Mr. Williams wants us to wait,” Wright said. “He’s confident the Geek Tank will come up with actionable intelligence soon. Then we can make this a precision takedown and we won’t have spooked these guys.”

  “All right. I’ll put the team on a ready-fifteen alert. We can sustain that for an extended period.”

  Wright had been working with his CIRG HRT team leader long enough to read the frustration in Kim’s voice and in his body language. “I don’t think it’ll be long, Allen.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Op-Center Headquarters, Fort Belvoir North: Springfield, Virginia

  July 22, 0645 Eastern Daylight Time

  A haggard-looking Fred Morton burst into Aaron Bleich’s office. “Aaron, I think we’ve got it!”

  Bleich looked up at Morton and wondered if he looked as disheveled as the man standing in his doorway. The rest of the Geek Tank was working shifts of twelve hours on, twelve hours off; Bleich and Morton were working port and re-port. Neither man had left their subterranean habitat for the last forty-eight hours.

  “Talk to me,” Bleich replied.

  “You know the program I built was designed to trigger on any call to the United States from Mosul. A call from central Mosul came in a few hours ago, and the program churned through cell-carrier databases narrowing down what cell towers in the United States the call was routed to—”

  “How close have you pinned it down?”

  “Not close enough yet, but we’re in the ballpark. I think we’ll have it nailed down better in a few hours, but I’m pretty sure it’s southwest of BWI—”

  “Great work, Fred. Are you thinking we’ve got Allen and his team deployed to the right location?”

  “Ahhh … well … that’s not exactly my department, but yeah, I’d say so.”

  “Okay, let me know as soon as you neck this down.”

  “You got it,” Morton replied as he left.

  Aaron Bleich allowed himself a small smile. When the time was right, he’d remind Roger McCord why shooting that silver bullet to hire Morton in spite of two felony convictions was such a good move.

  * * *

  “Quite a place you’ve got here, Zack. Company pay for this?”

  “Yep, they pay for the security guys too, oh, and also a maid.”

  Bruner just shook his head. They were standing inside the high walls of the compound where Zack Peters lived. The two-story house was bigger than anyplace he’d ever lived, and while it was bare desert outside the walls, inside the compound it was all palm trees, fountains and the like. The two men were standing next to an up-armored Humvee packed with all the gear—and more—Bruner had asked the former SEAL to get for him.

  “Do I want to know how you managed to ‘borrow’ all this gear?” Bruner asked.

  “Probably not, El-Tee. But now that you’ve had some time to think about it, are you sure you don’t want a wingman with you? We worked together pretty damn well back in the day.”

  Bruner had had a long time to think about what he was going to do during the Galaxy flight. He recognized how long a limb Peters was climbing out on to steal this vehicle and the gear from his security company. Peters had done more than enough.

  “Zack, you’ve done me a big solid in getting me everything I need. I can’t ask you to do any more. My job is to get all this back to you reasonably intact when I return here with my dad. I’m kinda worried about using your company’s gear; you sure this won’t jam you up?”

  “Not to worry, sir; I’ve got it covered. You have no idea how much gear we write off when it gets damaged or lost.”

  Peters paused as he produced a tablet. “Now here’s something you’re gonna need, El-Tee—”

  Bruner arched his eyebrows at yet one more piece of “liberated” gear. It wasn’t lost on Peters.

  “Don’t worry, sir, it’s mine, not the company’s. I’ve mapped out the route you should take. It’s rough terrain, but I think you’ll want to start now so you’ll be doing most of your traveling at night. All our intel says ISIL has control of some of the areas you’ll be traveling through.”

  Bruner studied the map, and then asked, “This looks pretty direct. How long?”

  “At night, maybe eight hours or so. Here, let me scale this for you. I want to show you where the ISIL compound is in Mosul and where you’ll probably want to lay-up—”

  “You ‘liberate’ this intel from your company?”

  “Nah, it’s all about survival over here. Most of us working for the company are former military, mainly special ops. And there are plenty of U.S. special operators here in Iraq, though they stay completely off the radar, and you never read about them in the press back in the States. If they have good intel, they share it with us; and if we have anything, we share it with them.”

  Bruner studied the map for a few minutes, asking Peters several questions. Satisfied he was as ready as he could be, he embraced his former SEAL teammate. “Thanks, brother.”

  “Take care of yourself, El-Tee.”

  Bruner climbed into the Humvee, fired up the engine and rolled out of the compound. He knew where he was going and how he was going to get there. But unlike the dozens of missions he had planned during his career as a Navy SEAL, he didn’t know much beyond that.

  * * *

  “Mr. Martin” had lived in Washington, D.C. for his entire life. He knew where to buy what he wanted. That was the easy part. But Mabad al-Dosari was insistent he get to the house where Amer and his group held the hostage, and get there immediately. He had gotten al-Dosari’s order at night, long after stores had closed. He planned his morning shopping trip as best he could, but he knew he’d be fighting his way through the D.C. metro area’s notoriously snarled traffic most of the morning.

  His loyalty to the Islamic State leader was absolute, but that didn’t keep him from chafing over the fact that it was easy for al-Dosari to dictate to him from thousands of miles away. He didn’t even know why he insisted that he go to the house and do this himself. He had trained Amer and the other four; wasn’t that enough?

  His shopping list was going to fill—maybe overfill—his Lexus SUV. The list included a professional-grade movie camera, high-end tripod, high-intensity lights, lighting umbrellas, a sound amplifier, and a list of other gear. Then he had to haul it all up to the farmhouse outside Jessup. He thought al-Dosari was going overboard with all this—but he dared not question him.

  * * *

  Chase Williams, Anne Sullivan, and Duncan Sutherland sat at the small
table in Williams’s office on a conference call with Brian Dawson. “We’ve got you on speakerphone, Brian,” Williams began. “I’m here with Anne and Duncan.”

  “Hey, boss; Mike and his boys are ready to mount up and return—if that’s what you really want. Laurie tells us Aaron and his team are zeroing in on where the admiral is being held near BWI.”

  “That’s right. But first, tell Mike and his team well done at the Mosul airport. I read your report, and I know that could have turned out differently. Taking on that group and coming out unscathed is a win in my book.”

  “I’ll do that. But I’d be lying if I told you they weren’t more than a little disappointed they didn’t get the admiral. But I get what your intel is telling you—they never got him out of the States.”

  Williams knew this was coming. Dawson was an operator, and he was downrange. Until someone was sure the hostage wasn’t out of the country, Dawson saw no point in returning home. “It’s pretty strong intel, Brian, and we hope to have him in our hands soon.”

  The ops director knew the decision had been made, and it was useless to continue to press his boss.

  “I’m going to put Duncan on, and he’ll go over the timeline with you. Looks like we’ll be able to get a C-17 to you sometime in the next sixteen hours or so. That going to give you all enough time to get all of the JSOC team’s gear ready to load up?”

  “Yep, plenty of time, boss. Duncan?”

  “Brian, I’ve already texted Hector the details, so I’ll just hit the high notes,” Sutherland began in his thick Liverpool accent. A former member the British SAS—Special Air Service—Op-Center’s logistics director was part soldier, part logistician, and mostly magician. He was intelligent and he was shrewd and he could finesse any system to deliver what his bosses wanted where they wanted it.

  As Sutherland was discussing the details of their return with Dawson, McCord and Bleich appeared in his doorway. McCord was poker-faced, but Bleich couldn’t hide his excitement and was beaming.

  “You fellas look like you’re here to tell me something. Good news?”