Gideon's War/Hard Target (11 page)

The ground was hard, and every part of his body was sore. Insects skittered around in the leaves. Gideon felt as alone as he’d ever felt in his life. Even on the nigh siñ€t when his father and mother had died, he had not felt quite so alone. At least he’d had Tillman.

Tillman. He was here because of Tillman. The thought of seeing his brother again comforted him.

And then he slept.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

PRESIDENT DIGGS ENTERED THE secure Situation Room deep beneath the White House, trailed by Elliot Hammershaw. Everyone stood, all nine members of the ad hoc working group that the president and Earl Parker had assembled only a few days earlier to plan and support their covert operation to retrieve Tillman Davis. The group included Admiral Dirkson Reed, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a compact man with silvered hair and piercing forest green eyes, who had earned his reputation for courage under fire as commander of the nuclear sub the USS Reagan—a reputation he had burnished many times over in combat and in the halls of power. In the nearly twenty years that Diggs had known the admiral, he’d never seen the man as rattled as he looked right now. Diggs had come here to discuss the implications of Gideon Davis’s ambush, fully expecting that it would mean the end of their covert attempt to shore up the sultan in his escalating civil war. But seeing Admiral Reed’s eyes, he braced himself for even worse news. Which is exactly what he got.

“Admiral, give me the sitrep on Gideon Davis.”

“His status is unchanged, Mr. President.”

“Then you still haven’t heard from Tillman Davis.”

“Actually, sir, we have.” The admiral’s jaw clenched, trying to curtail his rising anger. “He’s apparently seized the Obelisk.”

Diggs blinked, trying to get his head around the words. “Earl Parker is on that rig. I just talked to him an hour ago.”

“We only learned about this ourselves a few minutes ago.”

“From what source?”

“YouTube, sir.”

“YouTube?”

Admiral Reed nodded at the air force sergeant who ran the communications equipment in the Situation Room.

The president watched as the oversize LED screen at the front of the room lit up, revealing a grainy video framed by the ubiquitous YouTube player. An attractive woman in her early thirties, wearing a neon yellow jumpsuit, was on her knees, addressing the camera. She appeared calm, but her eyes betrayed her terror. Behind her were several masked men holding AK-47s.

“Turn up the volume,” Diggs said.

The terrified woman’s voice sounded strangely quiet, even as it boomed out over the speakers: “My name is Kate Murphy,” she read. “I am the executive in charge of the Obelisk, which is now under the control of Abu Nasir. Because of U.S. support for the corrupt CIA puppet, the so-called Sultan of Mohan, Abu Nasir’s men have seized the rig and are holding hostage the surviving members of my crew along with Ambassador Randall Stearns and Deputy National Security Advisor Earl Parker.” She paused, letting out the tight bggs t‡reath she’d been holding, then resumed. “A bomb of sufficient power to destroy both the rig and all its occupants has been planted on the Obelisk. Our demand is simple: in exchange for the lives of the hostages, the president of the United States must recall all U.S. military forces from Mohan, including all CIA operatives, all contractors, and all so-called military advisors. If this demand is not met by eight o’clock a.m. tomorrow, Abu Nasir will kill the hostages and destroy the Obelisk. There will be no negotiation and no further contact.”

The woman looked past the camera, glaring defiantly at some offscreen presence, as if to say, Are you satisfied? Then the image froze and a superimposed window appeared, giving the viewer the choice to replay the video or to share it with a friend.

President Diggs jabbed his finger toward the monitor. “I want that taken down now before the media gets hold of this. Get those YouTube sonsuvbitches to take that down.”

“It’s too late, sir.” Hammershaw looked up from his cell phone, then turned the screen toward the president to illustrate his point. “At least a dozen news agencies are already running the story.”

“Eight a.m. local time tomorrow. How long does that give us?”

Hammershaw looked expectantly at a representative of the CIA.

“Twenty-three hours, sixteen minutes.”

Diggs exhaled sharply, but his anger burned off quickly, giving way to confusion. “I don’t understand . . . Tillman Davis knows better than anyone that our national policy is never to negotiate with terrorists. He knows damn well we’ll never agree to what he’s asking. So what the hell is he thinking?”

Diggs scanned the room, but no one spoke, so he went ahead and answered his own question.

“Whatever his endgame is, this confirms that Tillman Davis has cast his lot with the insurgency and needs to be defeated. If we don’t stop him before his deadline . . .” The president trailed off, turning inward as he realized the implications of failure. “If Abu Nasir kills those hostages, we will have no other choice except to respond with force. Their deaths would constitute nothing less than an act of war, and the American people will demand reprisal against the insurgents.”

Admiral Reed said, “As you requested, sir, the Joint Chiefs have been wargaming several scenarios with the Sultan’s military staff. There’s not a single option that uses less than an entire division of American troops.”

“A division!” Elliot Hammershaw said. “The president is talking about reprisal, Admiral, and you’re talking about a straight-up war!”

“War? That’s your word, Mr. Hammershaw,” the admiral said. “I’m just a military man giving you military—”

The president interrupted, “Bottom line is, we need to take back that rig.”

Admiral Reed spoke. “Sir, I’ve already ordered Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta to deploy. Both units can be in Mohan within ten hours, well before Tillman Davis’s deadline. But I’ll let General Ferry address the tactical specifics.”

he �€†

General Ferry, commander of SOCOM, stood. He had the tall, rail-thin frame of a competitive long-distance runner and the combative eyes of a cage fighter. “We’re repositioning a satellite so we’ll have aerial recon in a few minutes. But at this point we have very little intel as to the disposition of the folks on the rig. In the YouTube video at least four enemy can be identified. In all likelihood he’s got significantly more men than that. Tillman Davis has seized a large number of maritime targets in the recent past. In every case, his forces were not only well equipped and highly trained, but they were also more than sufficient in size for the task at hand.”

“So how do you plan to take the rig, General?” the president said.

“Before we can give you a definitive operational assessment, we need some answers. Beyond the leverage he’s got with the hostages, what other measures has he taken to defend the rig? Does he have any antiaircraft or antiship capability? Will he use his hostages as human shields? Until we answer those questions, there is no way to predict the probability of success, or to assess how many hostages might be killed if we do succeed in reacquiring the rig.”

President Diggs was not happy with this answer. He stared at the general, waiting for something more definitive.

The tense silence was broken by Dave Posner, a young, nervous-looking CIA analyst in an ill-fitting suit, who raised his hand tentatively as he spoke. “And then there’s the weather issue, sir.”

“Weather?” the president said.

General Ferry shot Posner an irritated glance. “There’s a typhoon off the Philippines. If it hit the rig, it would obviously bottle up the rig until the storm passed.”

“Bottle up?” the president said.

Ferry explained. “Right now the seas are running at close to thirty feet, so an assault by sea would have a high likelihood of failure. The best option for attack is aerial insertion—what we call a HALO jump—high altitude, low open parachuting. Preferably with fire support from helicopter gunships. Obviously even that would be impossible if the rig was in the middle of a typhoon. But it’s only a five percent chance.”

“That seems a fairly negligible risk,” President Diggs said hopefully.

“Actually, Mr. President . . .” Posner cleared his throat. “I’ve just received an update. The typhoon appears to be heading west.” An image of Southeast Asia appeared on the big screen at the front of the Situation Room. A vast white swirl had enveloped all of the southern Philippines. It looked perilously close to a red triangle indicating the location of the Obelisk. “If it keeps turning, it might hit the Obelisk.”

Diggs felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “Can you quantify that?”

“Hong Kong says there’s a sixty percent chance now.”

The president’s eyes didn’t leave the screen. “How much time before it hits?”

Posner squinted briefly at his monitor. The only sound in the room was the clicking of keys on his keyboard. Finally he looked up. “If it hits?—the outlik�€†skirts of the storm could be there within four hours.”

The president turned and looked at General Ferry. “Tom? We need a Plan B here in case this storm keeps turning. Can you get your men on that rig inside of four hours?”

“There’s a Delta Force in Hawaii.”

“I take it that’s a no.”

General Ferry’s jaw clenched. “Flight time to Mohan is six hours minimum. And once the storm hits, it would severely impede their insertion.”

“Sixty percent, that’s pretty high,” the president said. “Have we got any other options?”

Ferry swallowed but didn’t answer.

“Give me options, dammit!”

Ferry looked briefly at the floor and said, “There’s a platoon of SEALs from SEAL Team One in Mohan. Sixteen men.”

“Can they take the rig in the next four hours?”

“Possibly. With enough support and the right equipment.”

“And luck,” added Admiral Reed.

The strain of the moment was starting to fray the president’s nerves. “I need that rig, General. I can’t take a chance of that storm hitting before the deadline runs out.”

It was obvious that Ferry was reluctant. The odds would be heavily stacked against such a hastily organized mission. But President Diggs had to weigh the lives of sixteen SEALs against all the lives that would be lost if this turned into an all-out war.

The yawning silence was broken by the sound of a vibrating cell phone. Elliot Hammershaw scowled as he read the number on the display window. “Excuse me for interrupting, Mr. President, but I have Senator McClatchy.”

“I’ll take it in the Oval Office.” Before heading to the door, the president turned to General Ferry and said quietly, “Do whatever you have to do to take back that rig.”

General Ferry nodded once. “I’ll give the order, sir.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

IT WAS ONLY AFTER their parents died that Gideon and Tillman learned that their father had gone bankrupt following a series of poor investments. They were literally left with nothing.

The day after the funeral, Uncle Earl had driven them up to the portico of their stately old family home and said, “Your aunt has asked me to bring you out here. The house and the property are all going to be sold. You can take whatever you can fit in the back of the car. Your aunt tells me that everything else will be sold. I’m sorry, but there’s no other way.”

In the end, they hadn’t taken much. Thellother ir clothes, a few toys, some family pictures. As they looked through the house, Tillman had found a metal container inside the open safe where some of their father’s guns were stored. Written neatly in black Magic Marker was a legend: FOR MY BOYS.

“You want to take it?” Gideon had said.

“Hell no,” Tillman growled.

Tillman hadn’t wanted to talk about their father, or to keep any material reminders of the man. Not even something their father had deemed worthy of placing in a separate box inside his safe and designating for his sons. So Gideon had taken the metal container with him, placing it inside one of the few cartons of books, photographs, and other small personal items. But for reasons he had only dimly understood, Gideon didn’t open the container. Not until many years later.

Gideon woke to a sharp crack. He sat up, heart pounding. For a moment he was disoriented. He had been dreaming about the box, the one with FOR MY BOYS written on the side. It was the only tangible legacy left to Gideon and Tillman by their father. And he’d awakened with a question in his mind, a question that he’d never resolved about what their father’s true legacy to his sons really was. Gideon was beginning to think that he might be on the verge of finding out here, in this remote part of the world, what that legacy had been—and that maybe it had been hiding inside him all these years.

It took another cracking sound before he realized the noise was gunfire. He tore his mind away from the dream. Now was not the time for gloomy speculation.

The first light of dawn was slipping through the thick jungle canopy. As his eyes adjusted, he saw the highlander who’d been acting as a sentry lying facedown about thirty feet away, blood pouring from his chest. The other highlanders were leaping to their feet, yelling at one another and scrambling for cover.

One of the men caught a burst in the leg and fell, his face twisted with shock and agony.

Gideon grabbed the fallen man’s spear and jumped behind the broad trunk of a tree. He could tell from the intensity of the sound that the shooters were no more than a hundred feet away. He peeked out from behind the tree. There was a fair amount of broad-leafed foliage between him and the shooters. But he managed to catch a glimpse of them.

They weren’t highlanders. So he figured they must belong to the same group of jihadis who had followed him up the river and up the cliff. He was astonished. What could possibly have motivated them to track him all the way up the river from Alun Jong, climb a thousand-foot cliff, and then pursue him half a day’s hike into the jungle?

His mind quickly moved from the speculative to the practical. How many of them were there? He was sure he’d killed all six of them during the landslide back on the cliff. There must have been others he hadn’t seen. He closed his eyes and listened.

Two. There were two guns firing at once.

The firing ceased. He looked around. The highlanders were all flattened against the trees. Including him, there were six men with spears. Against two with AK-47s. Gideon could hear them moving slowly forward, rustling in the underbrush.

A plan formed in his minrin‘€†d. He motioned to the other men, trying to communicate his plan with hand signals. He looked questioningly at the old highlander, wondering if his men understood. The older man nodded.

Gideon dropped to his belly and began wriggling forward under the cover of the underbrush, trying hard not to make a sound.

His idea was simple enough. There was a tree in front of him, right next to the trail. One of the highlanders needed to make a break for it down the trail, drawing the jihadis toward him. If Gideon stationed himself behind it and waited for the jihadis to pass by it, he could spear one of them.

Then it would be six on one. Six spears versus one AK. That was if the highlanders understood the plan and played their part.

He reached the tree, turned to look behind him. He could still see the old highlander. Gideon signaled that he was ready.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, suddenly, one of the highlanders leapt out from behind the tree and raced down the trail.

Gideon could hear the jihadis now. Footsteps pounding toward him. He watched one pass by, then the next. As he was preparing to step out and hurl the spear, another jihadi flashed by.

There were three of them.

He cursed himself for miscalculating, but it was too late to do anything about it. He stepped forward and hurled the spear. The third jihadi was no more than five feet from him when he released the missile. It was just like the game of Spartan that he’d played with Tillman all those years ago, the spear passing cleanly into the man’s body. Only this time he hit the jihadi dead center in the back. The spear must have severed his spinal cord, because he fell like a bag of wet sand.

Hearing the noise, the second jihadi turned. His eyes widened as he saw his comrade fall. He swiveled to fire at Gideon, who realized he had no choice except to dive straight at the man. Reacting to Gideon’s forward motion, the jihadi backed away and stumbled slightly.

It wasn’t enough to make him fall—just enough to keep him from bringing his gun around in time. Gideon grabbed the barrel with one hand, clamping the other on the stock just behind the receiver. The jihadi was a typical Mohanese—barely more than five foot three, probably a buck and a quarter soaking wet. He didn’t have much chance against a six-foot-one, two-hundred-pound American.

Gideon wrenched the gun out of the man’s hand in a sweeping motion, then reversed direction, swinging the stock backhanded. It connected with the man’s face. He staggered backward. Gideon hit him again, and the man crumpled.

He heard a scream, turned in time to see the third jihadi clawing at a spear. Three of the highlanders had thrown spears at him. One had missed, but two had found their target—one in the groin and one in the thigh. The man dropped his gun and tried to pull the spear out of his thigh.

The old man stepped calmly out from behind the tree, kicked the jihadi in the stomach, then jammed a third spear into him as the man doubled up. It entered the side of his neck and drove deep into his body.

The man fell to the ground, gurgling and moaning. The highlander who had missed his throw picked up his spear and stabbed the man in the back until he stopped moving.

The highlanders whooped loudly over the dead men, then began rifling through their clothing and packs. They collected a Swiss Army knife, several ammo clips, three wads of Mohanese currency, and three cardboard rectangles the size and shape of a passport. Each of the jihadis had been carrying one.

The old man’s eyes narrowed as he laid them on the ground and studied them. He looked up at Gideon, repeating a single word in an accusatory voice. “Look!” he seemed to be saying.

Gideon saw that they were photographs. He moved closer, and a chill ran up his spine.

The photos were of a smiling man wearing a white shirt, a necktie, a pinstriped suit coat with an American flag pin in the lapel. Printed in English at the bottom of each picture: SPECIAL U.S. ENVOY GIDEON DAVIS.