Phantom

by Ted Bell

  “Damn,” Stoke, who was standing next to Hawke at the helm, said, “man’s got himself a big-ass yacht for a terrorist.”

  “Mine’s bigger,” Hawke said under his breath, intently studying the three-hundred-foot white-hulled yacht. She was moored at the end of a long steel pier. The name, Cygnus, was painted in gold leaf on her wide transom. No hailing port. There was something odd about the boat that Hawke couldn’t quite put his finger on. He slowed the patrol boat so he could get a closer look.

  “Stoke, something’s wrong with that boat. What is it?”

  “Yeah, I was thinking that. That’s one very old yacht. Looks like a design from the 1950s, right?”

  “Right.”

  “But it looks brand spanking new. Like it’s never left the dock.”

  “That’s it. Exactly. Google the yacht Cygnus on your mobile, see what you come up with.”

  “Gimme a sec . . . yeah, here it is. Her original name was Star of Persia. Her first owner was the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. Sold or donated in 1978. Cygnus is now owned by another entity, something called Perseus Corporation, LLC.”

  “Perseus,” Hawke said. “Our intel is good, Stoke. I think we’ve found our man.”

  “Why’s that?” Harry Brock, eavesdropping, asked.

  “Darius Saffari was a scientist at Stanford. His AI involvement there was with a research program called the Perseus Project.”

  Hawke told the Red Team, his crew of “IRGC sailors,” to get the mooring lines ready. They would tie up at the fuel dock, take on gas, and assess the situation ashore through powerful binoculars before committing to direct action. The SEALs, or Blue Team, dressed in their distinctive black assault gear, would remain out of sight until the fortress had been breached. Their immediate responsibility was to neutralize enemy forces inside the compound and then do a house-to-house search for the “machine” and locate a very large two-story building that had been identified by CIA analysts at Langley as a possible bioengineering lab.

  Hawke’s team would attack the residence and take out Darius Saffari.

  Hawke slowed to idle speed, then eased the patrol boat alongside the dock where the pumps were located. He was surprised to see a large number of pirate scows moored together at the finger piers opposite the fuel dock. They were the longboats, narrow of beam, huge outboard motors hung on the sterns, the ones used by pirates to venture far offshore to take prizes. He hadn’t realized the Iranians and the Somalis had become such bosom buddies. But of course it made sense. Kidnap Western tankers and crewmen, use the ransom monies to buy weapons for al-Qaeda, Hamas, whoever. One big happy family.

  While crew fore and aft heaved lines ashore and began to secure the boat, Hawke grabbed his binoculars and went out onto the stern deck to size up the shorefront situation. This was a critical phase in the operation. It could all go to hell right here, in a heartbeat.

  It was an absolutely pitch-black night. No distinction could be seen between sky and water—the horizon simply didn’t exist. All around him was a cold, damp, murky greyness, broken only by the white water boiling at his stern. Abdul Dakkon, the brave fellow who’d saved his life in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, had given him a striped kaffiyeh as a farewell present. He wound it tightly around his neck to keep the chill night air out. He also wore it for luck.

  Hawke knew they were expected. But, he hoped, the recent action at sea had gone undetected by the omnipresent, all-knowing “machine.” The Iranian vessel and the Red Team’s IRGC uniforms might still give them the element of surprise. He raised the infrared binoculars, studied the situation ashore with intense concentration, and finally spoke into his Falcon battle radio.

  “Laddie, heads up. I see silhouettes of enemy sharpshooters atop the compound wall. Searchlights atop the towers at the corners. The shooters are posted about every fifty yards. Order your two snipers to take up concealed positions on the topmost deck. Now. When I give the order to fire they need to start picking these bastards up there off as rapidly as humanly possible. We’ll be exposed all the way in. If we take fire from that elevation, we don’t stand a chance of getting inside.”

  “Aye-aye, sir, consider it done.”

  At that moment, klieg lights atop the high towers lit up the world. Darkness was no longer an advantage. Only the stolen camo of their uniforms would save them now.

  Hawke said calmly, “There’s a gate in the wall, end of this pier and to the right about five hundred yards. Three guards are giving us the evil eye. Ascarus and I will deal with them.”

  “Good hunting, sir. Over.”

  On the dock and standing with his team beside the fuel pumps, Hawke said, “Stoke, check out the three guards standing at the marina’s gate. You and Brock remain here and top off the fuel tanks. Ascarus and I will go have a friendly chat with those gentlemen. Keep an eye on us. If we manage to get that gate in the wall opened, that’s your signal. We move to infiltration and every last man aboard goes ashore firing at anything that moves.”

  “Got it, boss.”

  To Ascarus, he said, “Okay, here we go. We approach those three slowly, smiling and chatting. You identify yourself as IRGC Captain Ascarus here to take on fuel. You also have orders from Tehran to speak to Dr. Saffari about the possibility of a naval showdown with the Americans in these waters and you require his assistance. It is urgent that you speak with him immediately. Please open the gate.”

  “If he refuses?”

  “Tell him the IRGC officer standing to your left has a pistol aimed at his head and is one second away from blowing his brains out. Open the damn gate.”

  “Right.”

  They started walking toward the gate together. Hawke was eyeing the enormous celestial observatory that surmounted the entire citadel. Few universities in the world had anything to rival it. He could only imagine how a superintelligent machine might make use of such a formidable piece of optics. But he had no doubt that it did.

  “They’ve snapped to attention,” Hawke whispered to Ascarus. “Maybe this will be easier than we thought.”

  “IRGC uniforms strike fear into the heart of every sane Iranian.”

  “Good. Maybe they’ll behave.”

  “Don’t count on it.”

  Hawke said, “Navy Blue, this is Big Red One.”

  “Go ahead, Big Red.”

  “Approaching the gate. We get through it alive, that’s your signal. On my order, snipers fire, take out the sharpshooters up on the wall, over.”

  “Roger that, over.”

  “Navy Blue, confirm SEAL squads aboard are go when the wall is secure and the gate is open.”

  “Affirmative. Go when entry is secure, roger.”

  “Big Red One over.”

  Smiling, and chatting casually, Hawke and Ascarus approached the heavy steel gate. It was set into the massively thick stone wall, just one of three such entrances to Saffari’s kingdom. The guards looked wary, but respectful of their uniforms and Hawke’s newly acquired black beard. Hawke had his SIG in his right hand, hidden in the folds of his blousy trousers. They reached the gate, paused, and he stood to one side as Ascarus addressed the captain of the guards.

  “What did he say?” Hawke whispered quietly.

  “He said he has to clear any entrance with his commander.”

  “Tell him about the gun.”

  Hawke witnessed the man’s eyes go saucer-wide as he saw Hawke’s gun go up, aimed at his head. These were clearly guards who’d pulled easy duty. They’d likely never had a gun pointed at them before. Ascarus pulled his weapon and covered the other two, and Hawke was pleased to see them lower their automatic weapons.

  “Tell him he has one second to decide.”

  Ascarus barked and the steel-barred gates parted and slid back inside the thick stone wall.

  Hawke and his companion stepped through quickly and purposeful
ly. After five yards, they wheeled about and dropped the three guards with double-tap head shots before they could reclose the gate. Then Hawke told Stoke to destroy the gate’s locks with a fragmentation grenade. He didn’t want his exit blocked should he return in rather a hurry.

  The two men ducked inside the long tunnel.

  “Snipers, commence firing,” Hawke said into his radio. He heard the crack of the SEAL M110 sniper rifles split the air. Immediately, the tunnel echoed with the sound of heavy AK-47 return fire coming from the wall above their heads as well as fire from the men pouring off the patrol boat and racing toward the now opened gate.

  He looked at his watch. He and Ascarus now had a two-minute wait until the entire assault team arrived at the gate. He started a check of his equipment, weapons, and ammo, the frag grenades hanging from his webbed belt. Then he moved quickly to the far end of the tunnel and did a recon of the citadel’s interior. In the distance, above a morass of oddly shaped rooftops, he saw his immediate destination, the white marble residence, to his left. To his right was a maze of buildings of every shape and size. In one of those buildings the Blue Team would, he hoped, locate and destroy that bloody machine.

  His whole body was thrumming.

  Alex Hawke was in his familiar zone, white-hot with life, seething with a red-hot desire for revenge.

  Fifty-one

  Red Team stormed through the steel gate first, the SEALs charging close behind, hard on their heels, each man leaping in turn over the three corpses. Every single combatant had his Mark 16 combat assault rifle on full auto, blasting away in short bursts at targets Hawke couldn’t even see. He could hear the distinctive return fire of AK-47s from the sharpshooters on the wall above him. He was elated when his last man made it inside the tunnel alive.

  Hawke was studying his aerial map of the citadel, calculating the shortest route through the narrow streets and alleys, the maze of shanties and ancient villages inside the wall. He wasn’t too worried about street fighting. He was concerned about getting across the huge white marble piazza that housed the residential palace. He and his men would be totally exposed but he had no choice.

  Stony Stollenwork, the Blue Team leader, said to Hawke, “Commander, we are go on your command.”

  “Aye. Red goes left to the residence, Blue goes right into the main village. By the looks of it, there are civilians. Keep a weather eye out for snipers, Stony. Assume they have night-vision capability just like we do. The guards I’ve seen, however, do not. Good hunting, guys. On my signal.”

  Hawke motioned for them to follow and headed for the mouth of the tunnel where he paused.

  He turned and faced his group of determined men, the best trained men in the world, and bristling with the best equipment money could buy. He studied their faces for a moment and saw what he was searching for. They all had it, down to the last man. They all had the “look.”

  “Red left, Blue right, go, go, go!” Hawke said. He took the point and sprinted across the broad white marble piazza toward the residence. He could hear Stoke and his men right behind him. He was about two hundred yards from the covered entrance when he heard Stoke cry aloud in his earpiece, “Shit!”

  “Talk to me, Stokely,” Hawke barked into his radio.

  “Snipers with noise suppressors. Second floor on our left, bossman. One of the bastards stung me.”

  “You okay?”

  “Hell, yeah, I’m okay. It was only a bullet, for God’s sake.”

  “I don’t like it, man,” Hawke heard Brock say.

  “Like what?”

  “Taking fire from high ground. Sucks, big time. Anybody besides me a graduate of the War College?”

  “Take them out then, Harry, that’s your job description,” Stoke said.

  “Aw, shit, man,” Brock said. “These assholes are killing us down here. I got a guy spilling his guts out on my spit-shined boots.”

  “Don’t say fuck, Harry,” Stoke said, firing as fast as he could. “Boss don’t like it. Told you that in Afghanistan.”

  “Yeah? Fuck him. Somebody up there just blew half my fucking ear off.”

  “So? Shut up and shoot back, man, God and country.”

  “I don’t need no Negro inspirational messages right now, awright? Especially from you.”

  “Yeah? I don’t need no closet homos afraid of a few little bullets, awright?”

  “You know what you can do? You can go—”

  “Don’t say that F-word again, Harry. Boss kick your skinny white ass.”

  The sudden thump-thump of Harry’s heavy machine gun rent the air. Huge chunks of cement, calved off, raining down on the marble. Harry was finally cooperating in earnest.

  Red Team was now spitting lead, and the air suddenly filled with tracer rounds as their fire chewed up the walls and obliterated the windows above. Hawke spotted guards emerging from the domed entrance, scattering, but running straight toward them. He wanted a gunfight and it looked like he was going to get one. He saw at least two of his men drop, obviously mortally wounded. Others were getting clipped, but kept on fighting, spraying fire at the dispersing enemy fighters.

  Hawke dropped to one knee, put his eye to his scope, and started carefully picking off the enemy one at a time, their running figures bright red in his lens. Bullets whistled overhead, adding to his excitement quota. Times like this he always remembered Churchill’s immortal quote, “Nothing in life is quite so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”

  Stokely blew by him, a huge presence, firing on the run, shouting something unprintable. He was followed by Brock, whose sole redeeming feature was that he was an indestructible killing machine.

  Brock had been designated the squad’s heavy machine gunner. He was laden down with the big M-60 machine gun and was laying down a base of fire of 7.62 rounds. It was devastatingly effective and instantly gave Red Team an increasing advantage over the enemy.

  Hawke continued to score hits, all the while calmly talking business with Stony Stollenwork.

  “Navy Blue, this is Big Red One. We’re taking heavy fire outside the residence. I’ve got casualties. At least two KIAs and some wounded. Over.”

  “You need backup?”

  “Negative. We can handle it. Any luck over there?”

  “Affirmative. Big time. We found the lab, checked it out. Huge. Langley’s geeks were right. Looks like bioengineering, all right. A fucking bug factory. I’ve got one team setting charges right now. You hear any large explosions, it’s courtesy of the U.S. Navy. That bio-terror lab will be smoking debris in less than two minutes.”

  “Good work, Stony. And your location?”

  “Still looking for the machine. Doing a house-to-house in the main village, taking sporadic sniper fire from warehouse windows. Of course, we may have seen the goddamn machine and not recognized it. This is messed up, Commander. It could look like a goddamn stuffed polar bear for all we know. Over.”

  “Stony, it won’t be furry. It will be metallic.”

  “Yeah, yeah—detonating now—keep your head down, Big Red. Navy Blue, over.”

  A massive explosion rocked the citadel and instantly Hawke saw a plume of fire, debris, and black smoke climbing into the night sky. The bug factory, at least, was history.

  Once the last man was past him, Hawke got to his feet and followed, providing his team with covering fire from their rear. Night vision helped a lot. Some dark figure would suddenly step out of a doorway and aim in his direction. Guy was dead before he finished pulling the trigger. Hawke kept expecting them to confront him using a woman as a human shield and wondering what he’d do. Hell, he knew exactly what he would do. These people used pregnant mothers wearing bomb vests to climb on buses loaded with schoolchildren.

  The snipers had been nullified and the number of enemy combatants on the piazza was dwindling rapidly. These were obviously combat-hardened soldie
rs, unlike the three stooges at the gate. This, he knew, would be Darius Saffari’s Imperial Guard, men with orders to fight until the last man.

  It was now up to Hawke to make sure they followed those orders to the letter.

  He saw that Stokely and Brock had made it to the great archway that marked the palace entrance. He saw Stoke shoot the flat of his hand into the air and bring the squad to a halt outside. A moment later Hawke arrived at his friend’s side.

  “Good work,” Hawke said, glancing at Brock. “Stoke, you and I go inside first for a quick recon. Harry, if you hear us taking fire, don’t hesitate to come to our aid, okay? Otherwise, wait for my signal.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The two men ducked inside, weapons at the ready. They found themselves in a massive circular room with a domed ceiling that appeared to be made of gold. Some kind of reception area, Hawke guessed. Across the room was another arched doorway that seemed to open onto a long passageway, brightly illuminated. He flipped his NVGs up onto his helmet.

  Waiting at the end of this corridor, Hawke hoped, was the man he’d come halfway around the world to kill.

  Fifteen minutes earlier, Darius Saffari had been seated next to his huge canopied bed where his beloved Aphrodite lay. She was naked, the black silken sheets covering very little of her extraordinary body. Her golden hair fanned across the pillows, she was speaking provocatively to him and cupping one of her breasts in her hand, proffering it to his lips.

  “This one is for you, master. Only for you. If you tire of it, I have another in reserve. See? Right here.”

  Now she was cupping both breasts in her hands, kneading them while looking up at him from beneath long black lashes.

  “No woman on earth has the right to be as beautiful as you are, my love.”

  “Yours for the taking.”

  “Roll over onto your stomach. I want to—”

  Gunfire.

  What?