Drone Strike: A Joe Matthews Thriller

by David Austin

  After completing basic and advanced individual training at Fort Benning, Georgia, Joe managed to fall out of a perfectly good airplane enough times to graduate from Airborne School and receive his silver jump wings. With that out of the way, it was time to start preparing for Assessment and Selection and the fabled Special Forces Qualification Course.

  Joe’s father made the trip to North Carolina for the graduation ceremony at Fort Bragg, and the veteran intelligence officer swelled with pride as his son earned the iconic Green Beret. The CIA had begun its existence as the Office of Strategic Services during the Second World War under the command of General William “Wild Bill” Donovan. The missions carried out by the OSS set the groundwork for the creation of the modern-day special operations community. The Agency and the Special Forces enjoy a special relationship that began not long after the unit was created in the early 1950s. If Joe wasn’t going to join the Agency, then serving in SF was the next best option. Besides, his dad knew the experience he would gain as a Green Beret would be invaluable to the Agency if he ever decided to leave the Army and take his place in the family business.

  Joe began his military career with an assignment to the 1st Special Forces Group based at Fort Lewis, Washington. During multiple deployments to Afghanistan he saw firsthand the value of language skills and why the Special Forces put so much time and effort into teaching its soldiers a foreign language. Units who were able to speak to the Afghans in their native tongue earned their respect and were much more successful conducting missions against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. As a result, Joe volunteered for immersion courses in Arabic and Pashto between deployments.

  After his tour with 1st Group, Joe could shoot, move, and communicate with the best the military had to offer. With a natural proficiency for picking up foreign languages, helped along by growing up overseas as his father had moved from assignment to assignment, Sergeant Matthews was quickly becoming a hot commodity in the special operations community. Not long after he had been promoted to the rank of Sergeant First Class, the secretive Delta Force, officially known as 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment – Delta, came calling. Once again, Joe successfully completed the assessment and selection process and headed east to his new home in a remote and highly classified section of Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

  Between the unit’s ridiculous operational tempo and continuous training cycles, the years seemed to go by in the blink of any eye. Joe’s current enlistment was about up, and without giving it much thought, he figured he’d re-up for another four years with the Unit. He had enjoyed his time in the Army, twelve years at this point, and he could easily see himself sticking it out for a full twenty. Besides, what other job could be as satisfying as having your government pay you to kill bad guys? As far as he was concerned, it was good work if you could get it.

  But before his reenlistment, he was farmed out to the CIA on a special assignment with a team from the Counterterrorism Center. It was an experience that, for the first time, made him seriously consider leaving the Army. The team he worked with was based in Kabul, and he quickly struck up a friendship with the chief of station. As his temporary assignment was winding down, the COS asked Joe if he had ever thought about applying to the Agency fulltime. The two men had several late-night discussions on the topic while consuming more than a few ice-cold beers in the Station’s lounge, aptly named the Tali-Bar.

  Valuing his dad’s opinion, Joe had called the seasoned CIA officer to discuss the chief’s offer and the possibility of a career at Langley. He had spent the last decade in direct action against the enemy, fulfilling the promise he had made to himself that morning when he walked into the recruiter’s office. And he knew he would be perfectly happy continuing down that road, but the Agency offered a new way for him to use the skills he had honed on battlefields across the globe. The job sounded like the opportunity of a lifetime, and by the end of the week he had made his decision.

  Joe left the Army and spent the better part of the next year living at the CIA’s training facility, commonly referred to as the Farm. Instructors taught him the finer points of tradecraft, improved on his already decent Arabic and Pashto, and even added passable Farsi to his repertoire. He spent hours on the firing range to maintain and improve the shooting skills he had developed in the Army. Joe felt like a kid in a candy store as he sent thousands of rounds through the barrels of the handguns, submachine guns, assault rifles and sniper rifles at his disposal on the various ranges throughout the wooded expanse of the facility.

  But as good as he was with a weapon, Joe really excelled when the action was up close and personal. On more than one occasion he had gotten the better of a few of his instructors when they faced off on the mat in hand-to-hand combat. He was stunned at how far he had come since he first set foot on the Farm almost a year earlier. After his time in Special Forces and Delta, he thought he was pretty much an all-American badass, but after spending twelve months with the Agency’s dark arts instructors, his skills had risen to a level he never thought possible.

  Upon graduating from the Farm with what could only be described as a doctorate in counterterrorism, Joe was officially certified as a paramilitary operations officer in the CIA’s Special Activities Division. In the years since, he had conducted covert missions all over the world, targeting terrorists for assassination, conducting snatch and grabs – officially known as extraordinary renditions – and performing reconnaissance and surveillance in hostile, nonpermissive, or denied locations. In other words, Joe Matthews had spent his post-football career playing offense, taking the fight to the enemy.

  *

  Turning left, he headed down the hallway. Passing the detail’s command post, he rapped on the doorframe of the next office before entering. Doug Kelly, the chief of the Director’s Protective Staff, stood and came around his desk to greet him. “Welcome back, stranger. You’re looking tan. How was Mexico?”

  The two men shook hands as Joe thought back to the view from his hotel room. “It was pretty damn good. You should take some time off and head down there for a little R&R yourself.”

  “I keep telling myself that, but you know how it is around here. Something always seems to come up. Do me a favor and hang here for a sec while I check to see if they’re ready for you.”

  “Sure thing,” Joe said. “I don’t have anywhere else to be at the moment.”

  Kelly returned a minute later and escorted Joe down the hall to the director’s conference room. He knocked twice, then paused a beat before opening the door. Under his breath, he whispered, “Good luck,” as he moved to the side and allowed Joe to enter the room.

  CHAPTER 11

  A large rendering of the CIA seal was centered on the wall at the far end of the room, perfectly positioned to act as an impressive backdrop for anyone using the secure videoconference system. Portraits of previous directors lined the wall to Joe’s right. The wall to his left was undecorated, lined only by a row of additional chairs, and a door that led out to the seventh floor’s main corridor.

  The room’s dominant feature was the long, polished oak table. Joe had sat at the table on several occasions in the past and thought nothing of it, but today it seemed almost ominous. Feeling as if he were walking to the gallows and expected to bow his head before the executioner, he moved deeper into the room. When he came to a stop near the table, he found himself practically standing at attention. Even though he had left the military years ago, he was still presenting himself to his command structure, and those old habits were hard to break.

  Lawrence Sloan, the CIAs long-tenured director, sat at the head of the table. To his right were Katherine Clark, the deputy director for operations and Richard Cutler, the CIA’s general counsel. It was never a good feeling to have the Agency’s chief lawyer sit in on a meeting, especially one where your job performance was being analyzed and your future with the organization was at stake. To the director’s left sat Joe’s more immediate chain of command, Carl Douglas, the chief of the special a
ctivities division, and Stephen Murphy, a career officer who headed up the protective operations division.

  It was Director Sloan who broke the tense silence in the room. “Good morning, Joe. Thank you for coming in. Please, take a seat.”

  Choosing his place at the table, Joe left three chairs as a buffer from the assembled group. Here we go, he thought as he settled in.

  “You know everyone in the room,” Sloan continued, “so we’ll dispense with the formal introductions.” Then, he motioned to Cutler, and said, “Richard, why don’t you get us started.”

  Richard Cutler was a no-nonsense lawyer who had begun his career as a prosecutor in Boston. With a string of high-profile convictions under his belt and a reputation for being incorruptible, he became one of the youngest district attorneys in the history of the city. After twenty successful years fighting crime in Boston, the Agency poached Cutler to fill its top legal spot. Unlike some of his predecessors, he was not afraid to roll up his sleeves and get down into the weeds of a problem to find a solution that met the CIA’s operational needs while adhering to the laws of the land.

  “As I’m sure you’re aware, Mr. Matthews, my office provides legal advice and consultation to the director and others within the Agency, prior to the initiation of covert action programs or other operations.” With that opening statement out of the way, Cutler’s tone reverted to that of a Boston DA talking with a police officer over a cup of coffee. “Basically, we’re here to make sure the director, and those of you out in the field conducting operations, don’t get sideways with the law while you’re doing your job protecting the country.”

  Joe had seen Cutler around the building and remembered him being on some movements with Director Sloan. He had always treated the men and women on the protective detail with respect, and Joe liked what he was seeing this morning. He just wished their interaction had been under different circumstances.

  Cutler continued, “There are occasions though, say, when an operation goes bad, that we’re asked to sit on a review board to conduct an after-action assessment. The mission in Syria that resulted in the death of Greg Jacobs and injuries to two of your men prompted the formation of one of these review boards. We’re here this morning to inform you of the board’s findings.”

  “Yes, sir,” was about all Joe had to say at this point.

  “The other thing I want to make clear is that this assessment was not conducted by a bunch of lawyers from an ivory tower here at Langley. Mr. Douglas and Mr. Murphy were intimately involved in the process. As were Mr. Kelly, the chief of the DPS, a Special Forces colonel attached to the Office of Military Affairs, and several instructors from the Farm. So, as you can see, this was not a review by a bunch of out-of-touch stuffed shirts sitting in a comfortable conference room a thousand miles from the battlefield. If anything, I would say it was more of a review by your peers and Agency officers with specific knowledge in your line of work.”

  Well, at least I’ve got that going for me, Joe thought. Or is he softening me up before dropping the hammer?

  Cutler opened a folder and shuffled through several sheets of paper to refresh his memory on some details before continuing. “We reviewed the official after-action report and recordings of the UAV footage, along with the conversations between you and the pilot. Interviews were conducted with each member of your team, and we even managed to contact Tariq Kabbani, the Syrian asset, to get his version of the events that night.”

  Joe sat stone-faced as he took in every word of Cutler’s presentation. While his external demeanor portrayed a quiet confidence, he was dying on the inside. He understood the need for the process but wished Cutler would just cut to the chase. Joe shifted in his chair but remained silent as the general counsel paused to take a sip of water.

  Placing the glass on a coaster, so as not to mar the highly polished oak, Cutler referred to his notes once more before continuing. “Based on all of the available information and interviews with everyone involved…”

  Joe braced himself. Here it comes.

  “The review board has determined that, while the death of Greg Jacobs was tragic, and the wounds your men sustained were regrettable, you did everything within your power to complete the mission under nearly impossible circumstances. You found yourself up against a numerically superior force and we were unable to find fault with any of your decisions or actions.” Cutler paused to give Joe a moment to absorb the full weight of what he had just said.

  Joe bowed his head and let out a relieved sigh, expelling all the tension from his body. Feeling as if he hadn’t taken a breath since he entered the room, he inhaled deeply. Looking up, he made eye contact with each person at the table. Settling on Director Sloan, Joe said, “So, is it safe to say, sir, that I can put those post-Agency career plans on hold for a few more years?”

  The question drew a round of chuckles from the assembled group. “Indeed, it does, Joe,” Sloan replied. “You and your team have been a credit to this Agency, and we hope to retain your services for quite some time.” Directing the conversation back the review, he continued, “The panel did find some issues that need to be corrected. It took us too long to grant the Reaper pilot permission to provide you with close air support. A separate group is taking steps to streamline the process for the air crews when there are extenuating circumstances that conflict with their general orders. A prime example would be firing near a historical site when there is an imminent risk and lives are on the line.”

  “I’m just glad he fired when he did, sir. If he hadn’t, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. None of us would have made it off that hill alive. Speaking of the pilot, do you know where I can find him? I owe him a steak and a case of his favorite beer for what he did that night.”

  Sloan looked to Carl Douglas, who said, “I believe he’s here going through a similar review. We can get you his name and contact information when we’re done.”

  Turning back to Joe, the director asked, “Is there anything else we can do, or questions we can answer?”

  “Just a couple, sir. First, how are the guys doing?

  Stephen Murphy said, “Chris and John are fine. As you know, their injuries were minor, and they came through the firefight relatively unscathed.”

  Douglas picked it up from there. “The prognosis on the other two is good, but they have a long road to recovery ahead of them. The AK round Kevin took shattered his shoulder blade and broke his collarbone. If it had been a couple of inches to the left, it would have obliterated the joint and he might have lost the arm. The docs inserted a bunch of steel plates to stabilize the bones so they can heal properly. He’ll have fun going through TSA checkpoints for a while, but he’s expected to regain full use of his shoulder. Mike’s injury, on the other hand, is another story altogether. That Dishka round took his leg off just below the knee. He’s already endured several surgeries and just received his first prosthetic. His supervised rehab is taking place over at Walter Reed’s MATC.” The National Medical Center’s Military Advanced Training Center, or MATC, was a state-of-the-art facility that used a sports medicine model and advanced prosthetics technology to help wounded service members overcome the daily challenges caused by the loss of a limb. “You know Mike’s mentality and work ethic. It won’t come as a surprise to hear that he’s been spending all his free time in the gym downstairs. I guess he figures if some rehab is good, then more is better.”

  Joe knew firsthand that Mike was a maniac in the gym, no doubt a habit instilled by a lifetime of playing football. “That’s good to hear. I’ll swing by and check on him when we’re done here.” Talking about his guys, his friends, made him realize just how much he had missed them during his mandated vacation.

  “What else can we do for you?” Murphy asked.

  “You mentioned we’ve been in contact with Tariq. Did he have any insights on how we were compromised that night?” Joe needed to find out how the patrol knew they were in Salkhad, especially if it was because of something he did or overlooke
d in the operational planning. If it was his mistake, it was one he would own so he wouldn’t make it again in the future.

  “We have. He’s a valuable asset and we’re in the process of selecting another case officer to handle him. But to your point, it appears to have been nothing more than a bit of bad luck. Apparently, the locals have complained about remnants of ISIS units moving through the area and thought they might have been using the ruins for an overnight stop on their way out of the country. The patrol was probably going up there to see if the rumors were true, and if so, to clear out the radicals.”

  Bad luck, my ass, Joe thought. That would have been a nice nugget of info to incorporate into our selection of a meeting site. “Just before the attack, I overheard Tariq mention that he thought the Russians were planning something big. Have we been able to determine what he might have been talking about?”

  Katherine Clark took the question. “We’re still not exactly sure what they’re up to. But from what Tariq has gathered from conversations with his GRU counterparts, it has something to do with the presence of a team from Alpha Group on the naval base in Tartus.”

  Alpha Group? Joe wondered if the Russians he had gone up against in Salkhad had been from the unit. He’d heard stories about Alpha and read numerous intelligence reports on their exploits. Even in the chaos of combat, he could tell the four men were well-trained and equipped. And they all appeared battle-hardened. None acted as if it were their first time in combat.

  “Tariq is pressing his sources as hard as he can without drawing unwanted attention to himself,” Clark continued. “And we’ve begun targeting what we believe to be the Alpha team’s in-country headquarters for collection. But the Russians are excellent at compartmentalizing and protecting their sensitive information. I’m afraid they may act before we’re able to gather enough intelligence to paint a picture of what they’re planning.”