Hellfire- The Series, Volumes 1-3

by Leigh Barker

  “Why didn’t you just show him your badge?” Mancini asked. “You could have saved their blushes.”

  Ethan returned to his stool, sat and took a sip of his free beer. “Like I said, we’ve got time to kill. Seemed like a good way to kill it. And to teach those morons some manners.”

  “I think you can say you did that,” said Rayford. “Nice moves.”

  “I try.” He put the beer down next to the other half-full glass and stood. “All this exercise has worn me out. Let’s roll at 0200.”

  Kelsey looked at her watch. “It’s nineteen hundred, and you slept all the way from DC.”

  Ethan assumed it was a question and answered it. “Look at me. Don’t you think I need my beauty sleep?”

  “You’ll get no arguments from me on that,” she said with a chuckle.

  He looked at her for a moment, trying to think of something smart to say, but the moment passed. “I thought I’d do a little research on Creech before our visit. Seems like the thing to do.”

  Kelsey nodded. “Now that makes sense.” She turned to Rayford. “John, you know where the Vegas FBI field office is?”

  He nodded. “Lake Mead Boulevard.”

  “Okay. We’ll head over there and do our own research.” She slid off the stool and straightened her black skirt. “Meet back here for the sneaky, underhand test of the base’s security.”

  “You got it,” said Ethan, strolling out of the bar.

  He used the hotel business center to search the net for information about the 432nd Wing at Creech Air Force Base. An hour later he leaned back into the soft chair and scanned the notes he’d made in pencil on his lined pad. Creech was built by the army right after the attack on Pearl Harbor, to be used for training and as a divert-field for B17s and called the Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field. Later it became the support base for the Nevada nuclear proving grounds. Ethan shook his head. God, he remembered those Cold War days. A nightmare.

  He went back to his notes.

  The base fell back to being a bit of a backwater for the next thirty years, with only a detachment of Huey helicopters; then it got renamed after General Wilbur L. Creech and became the Joint Unmanned Aerial Systems Center of Excellence. Ethan smiled at that. The Air Force does like its long-winded names. Then came the Reaper squadron in 2006, equipped with sensors and cameras. Finally, in 2007, Creech got to control its own destiny, and command moved over from Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas. Then the Predators arrived, bigger than the Reapers and capable of delivering two Hellfire missiles with deadly accuracy.

  He put down the pad. And that’s what started this mess. Accurate as they are, sometimes there’s collateral damage. It’s inevitable. Collateral damage was what set Mahmoud Faraj on this mission to avenge his family. Ethan got up and stretched his back. Okay, best way to end this revenge thing was to find Faraj and kill him. And that was what he did best. He looked at his watch. 2200. Time for a few hours’ sack time before the hour’s drive up to Indian Springs in Clark County. A forgotten little no-place until the pilots there started killing terrorists seven thousand miles away. Cool.

  At 01:30 he took a taxi to the FBI field office and paid the tired driver way over the fare, but hey, the man had to make a living. And he’d got a receipt for his expenses, so nobody loses. Except the navy, and they have plenty of money—for the moment.

  Kelsey, Rayford, and Mancini were waiting on the steps of the imposing white building that was buzzing with activity even at this ungodly hour.

  Kelsey led the way to the SUV and got into the driver’s seat without comment. Rayford and Mancini climbed into the back seats, and Ethan got to ride shotgun.

  They took Highway 95 north out of the city, and Kelsey kept the speed down, even though the traffic was practically zero. There was no hurry, and like Ethan said, her circadian rhythm would be at its lowest and she’d be more likely to make an unforced error. She glanced at him quickly. He appeared to be wide awake and alert, but he’d slept on the plane and then in the hotel. And he was a marine, so used to the extreme time switches imposed by war, so a drive in the middle of the night shouldn’t faze him.

  “How did you know I had a daughter?” she asked.

  Ethan turned a little in his seat. “I like to know who I’m running with.” He shrugged. “I read your file.”

  “That’s classified,” she said sharply but then smiled. “Okay. I read yours too.”

  Ethan raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. An action that went completely unnoticed in the dark. “Did you see the photos of me holding a number card and looking right and left?”

  She laughed out loud. “No, but I expected to.” She maneuvered around a semi that was wandering over the white line, and blew the horn to wake up the driver. “It says you’re borderline unmanageable, and it’s surprising you haven’t been booted out of the service or banged up in the stockade.”

  “Both have been tried. Stockade wasn’t too bad, though we usually call it the brig, being marines.”

  “It also said you’re intelligent, highly adaptable, and an outstanding marine.”

  He chuckled. “Now that I don’t believe. Did you miss the bit where it says I can walk on water?”

  “Yes, that was redacted.” She glanced at him and frowned. “What was that about you having had a wife?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “For a while, but then she wised up. Lives in Arizona now. Married a nice guy who runs a dude ranch to give city people the perfect Wild West experience. Perfect.”

  “How long?”

  He frowned. “Oh, right. Three years. Stupid, really.”

  “How so?”

  “I was attached to a fleet antiterrorism security team as a special advisor. Something to do with me remembering terrorist faces and facts. I think.”

  Mancini and Rayford exchanged looks, and Mancini leaned forward.

  “FAST only has the best of the best,” he said. “And you got sent in as an advisor?” He shook his head slowly. “Maybe you do have some skills after all, for them to want you.”

  “SecNav’s fault,” said Ethan. “I did some work for him that he seemed to like.”

  Nobody was going to ask what the work was, because it was a sure thing he wasn’t going to tell them, or be able to without getting banged up in the brig until his teeth fell out.

  “So she left you? Your wife,” asked Kelsey.

  “Can’t blame her,” said Ethan. “She never knew where I was and when or if I was ever coming back. Hell, it was like the Wild West back then.”

  “Still is,” said Rayford.

  “Copy that,” said Ethan. “Just when you think you’ve lopped one of the heads off, another one comes up and bites you in the ass.”

  “What do you know about Faraj?” Rayford asked. “He as bad as his file makes him out?”

  Ethan looked back over the seat, but could see only two dark silhouettes, so sat back. “I guess he’s a bit pissed that we killed his family.”

  “Not too unreasonable, I guess,” said Mancini. “I think I get that.”

  “He was active before,” said Ethan, “but local, in Afghanistan. After the Predator attack…” He shrugged. “I guess he’s got no reason to stay home any more.”

  “What bothers me,” said Kelsey, “is how… messy these killings are.”

  “Perhaps he’s improvising,” said Rayford. “This is new country to him. File says he’s only ever lived in the Middle East. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.” Proving he’d read the file at least.

  “So what?” said Mancini. “He buys a plane ticket, jumps over here, and decides to kill everybody involved in his family’s death?”

  Ethan was quiet for a moment. “I would.”

  Nobody spoke. What was there to say? They would all have done the same, even if they wouldn’t have admitted it in company.

  After a few minutes of silence, while everyone thought about family and how it would feel to lose them, Kelsey knocked on the turn indicator and cut through the centra
l gap in the highway. “We’re here,” she added unnecessarily.

  She took the SUV around the anti-ram walls and pulled up outside the main gate office.

  They were looking left into the security office when there was a tap on the right-side window, and they turned as the guard switched on his flashlight and flooded the car with bright light through the tinted glass. Ethan smiled. Definitely not asleep.

  Another guard tapped on the left-side window, and Kelsey opened it promptly. No point antagonizing the armed men in the middle of the night. When their concentration was at its lowest. Yeah, lowest, like hell.

  “Please open your other windows,” said the guard, taking the papers Kelsey handed him.

  She opened the rear windows, and the guard glanced at their two passengers, but left his flashlight on. If they had been bad guys, they’d be buzzard breakfast.

  A few moments later the guard handed the papers back to Kelsey and looked at each of the car’s occupants in turn. “Welcome to Creech Air Force Base,” he said brightly. “Have a nice day.” And that was probably a joke. He waved them through.

  “Not shabby,” said Rayford.

  “No,” said Ethan. “Not shabby.”

  “So that was it?” Mancini asked, a little petulantly. “We got up in the middle of the night for that?”

  “No,” said Ethan, watching the dark building glide past his window. “We got up in the middle of the night in case some numb-nuts just waved us through or was asleep at the desk.”

  Mancini was silent for a moment while he considered it. “Yeah, okay, that makes sense.”

  Kelsey parked the SUV in front of the administration building and climbed out and shivered. “Isn’t this supposed to be the Nevada Desert?” She pulled her light jacket tight and headed for the main entrance at a quick pace.

  “It’ll clear the pollution out of your lungs,” said Ethan, quietly zipping up his leather jacket.

  Colonel Bob Shapiro was waiting in the small reception area and stepped forward as Kelsey entered, followed quickly by the others.

  “You are either early starters or late finishers,” he said with a smile, and put out his hand. “Bob Shapiro.”

  There was a round of handshaking. Kelsey leaned closer to Ethan. “Shouldn’t you salute?” she whispered.

  “No,” whispered Ethan. “He’s too tall.”

  “Oh,” said Kelsey, “that’s okay, then.” She thought about it for a moment and gave Ethan a double take.

  Colonel Shapiro was tall, over six six, and lean, if not bordering on skinny. But he had bright, intelligent blue eyes and a quick smile. Ethan decided he liked the man, which made what he was there to do all the more difficult.

  “You’re an early bird too,” Ethan said, looking at the colonel.

  He smiled again. “Not usually at my desk at this ungodly hour. But I didn’t want to get caught on the hop by the FBI.”

  Ethan nodded. “Pleased to hear that.” He indicated Kelsey with his thumb. “Kelsey here is NCIS.”

  The colonel nodded and didn’t look her over, which said a lot about his manners and professionalism.

  “And I’m a marine,” said Ethan. “Retired for a while before SecNav dragged me back in.”

  “Yes, that happens,” said Colonel Shapiro. He took in Rayford’s and Mancini’s immaculate suits and shirts. “Then you’re FBI.” He pointed at one of the doors leading off the reception. “My office is down this way. There’s fresh coffee.”

  They found seats in the spacious office, and Rayford handed out styrene cups of very welcome coffee. Shapiro’s desk was clear, except for a brass model of a YF-16 fighter, a beautiful plane, and the forerunner of the F-16. The colonel turned the model a little so that it was exactly in its correct position on the right-hand corner of his desk.

  “Before we get started, sir,” said Ethan, putting down his coffee on a low table that was precisely one pace from the colonel’s desk.

  Shapiro left the model alone, interlaced his fingers on the desktop, and waited patiently for the question he’d been expecting.

  “When SecAF told you we were coming to talk about security here on the base, did he give you the background?”

  Colonel Shapiro blinked slowly. That was clearly not the question he’d been expecting. Ethan suppressed a smile. The CO thought he was going to ask how he knew they were coming, and the switch clearly rattled him. So, SecNav and SecAF are buddies.

  “Err…” said Shapiro. “No, he didn’t.”

  And that was Ethan’s theory confirmed. “We didn’t just turn up to make trouble. My word on that,” said Ethan, retrieving his coffee. “We believe that a terrorist…” He stopped. Did he? Did he believe Faraj was behind the killings? He’d been hunting terrorists, both home-grown and foreign, for most of his adult life, and there was always a pattern if you looked hard enough. A common method of assassination—usually explosives—maximum impact for maximum press coverage, and always a we did it claim to get the kudos and the financial support. Yes, there was always a pattern. This spate of killing didn’t fit any pattern. Shootings, sure, but by hired gunmen of varying degrees of incompetence and different weapons. There was no theme.

  “Mister Gill?” said Shapiro.

  “It’s Master Sergeant Gill, sir,” Ethan corrected absently. “Excuse me, I drifted off. Must be the lateness of the hour.”

  Nobody in the room believed that for one moment. Marines don’t drift off because it’s a bit late.

  “Point is,” said Ethan, parking his doubts, “we think a Taliban terrorist is going to attack your base—”

  “The hell you do!” Colonel Shapiro sat up straight and sucked in his breath.

  “I’m afraid the threat is very real and credible, Colonel,” said Rayford, and Ethan let him take over. His FBI credentials would add weight to the assertion that the threat level was high.

  “Very well,” said Shapiro, taking it on board and shifting up a gear. “I’ll notify Nellis and get reinforcements deployed at once.” He reached for the phone on his desk.

  “Colonel,” said Ethan, and Shapiro stopped and looked at him steadily. “If you surround the base with armour, then Faraj—that’s the terrorist—he’ll just go to ground.”

  “But that’s good,” said Shapiro. “We want to stop him fulfilling his mission.”

  “No, Colonel,” said Ethan, “we do not.”

  “What? You want him to succeed in attacking my base? I don’t think so!”

  “Colonel, we want him to try,” said Kelsey softly, “so that we can capture or kill him.”

  “Bait?” said Shapiro. “You want me to let you use my base as bait?” He shook his head. “Do you know what we do here?”

  “Yes, Colonel, we do,” said Ethan, putting down his coffee again untouched. “But if you scare him off, he’ll just wait for your reinforcement to go home, and then…” He clapped his hands, and the colonel jumped. A bit theatrical, but with the desired end result.

  Shapiro thought about it for a while, and the silence in the room was broken only by the low hum from an unseen motor. “I will have to confirm this with my commanding office at Nellis, but—”

  “I think you will find, Colonel,” said Ethan with a tilt of his head, “that the word will have come down from on high to the base commander.”

  “Very well, you will have my full cooperation. Providing my confirmation comes back from Nellis.”

  A careful and thorough man, thought Ethan. Good.

  “I have to tell you, though,” said Shapiro, “we have damned good security here on base. I don’t think your terrorist will get past the perimeter, even if he is damned good.”

  “I could,” said Ethan quietly.

  They all shifted to see if he was kidding or bragging. It was clear he was doing neither.

  “I have always admired the marines’ total self-belief,” said Shapiro, smiling a little condescendingly. “But I doubt a marine, even one as… experienced as you, would be able to get into my camp.” He rais
ed his hand to silence any comment. “Even if you could get past the wire.” He flicked his head a little. So there.

  Ethan stood up slowly and lifted the brass model off the colonel’s desk. “Can I borrow this?”

  The colonel clearly liked his toy and was about to tell him to put it back.

  “I’ll bring it back, sir. Although you’ll have to go and fetch it from where I leave it.” He paused for a moment. “Somewhere on your base. Somewhere sensitive.”

  So there it was. The challenge was made. The gauntlet was down.

  Colonel Shapiro looked at him for a long moment and then smiled. “Very well, Master Sergeant. But try not to damage it… when the guards jump on you.”

  Now it was Ethan’s turn to smile.

  He wouldn’t have been smiling if he’d known the hell that was about to rain down on him.

  The Assault on Creech

  Ethan was already planning how he’d breach the camp security as he watched Colonel Shapiro moving his model YF-16 fighter further along his desk, as if his dearest friend was at risk.

  “I’ll need a few things,” Ethan said and waited a moment for the colonel to snap out of his mourning.

  The colonel raised both hands. “Whatever you need, Master Sergeant, whatever you need. Don’t let it be said we didn’t give you what you needed. When you’re nursing your bruises.” He stood up. “What is it you require?”

  “Combats, boots, night vision goggles. That kind of stuff,” said Ethan.

  The colonel led the way to the door. “Follow me, then. My orderly won’t be in for a few hours. He’s a married man.”

  Ethan had known many, many officers, and few would have shown any consideration for a lowly orderly. He liked the man. Pity, because he was going to make him look like an incompetent liability.

  Kelsey followed him out of the office and tugged his sleeve. He stopped, and she stood on her tiptoes and spoke into his ear. “Are you nuts?”

  “Yes,” said Ethan honestly.