Starfish Prime (Blackfox Chronicles Book 2) (5 page)

“I thought we were going to Bonaire for a few days of diving and chasing Dutch girls,” said Char offhandedly while studying the Northstar GPS on the bridge of the
Good as Gold
. He was dressed in an old pair of faded green board shorts and a khakicolored Columbia short-sleeve shirt, his latest purchase from the marina’s surprisingly well-equipped store. 

“This is better, replied Michael. Since all of Bonaire is a m
arine sanctuary, we wouldn’t be able to spearfish or catch lobster. We can do both in the Islas de San Bernando. Ramos knows where there is an unoccupied Naval Infantry forward operating base on one of the smaller islands. He ran counternarcotic ops from there for a few months last year and says the reefs around the island are teeming with lobster and crab! We can tie up at the pier and use the place as a base of ops.” 

“Shit,” said Char, “you sound like a used-car salesman. This boat is a very comfortable base of ops; there is no reason to stay anywhere else.” 

“True dat,” replied Michael, looking around the well-appointed bridge. “Still, if we go there, we can spend a few days diving and then drop Ramos off for a temporary duty assignment at Turbo.” 

“Ah, there it is. I knew there was a catch in there som
ewhere,” said Char.

“Listen, I told Ramos we would do him a favor and give him a lift to his base, but he doesn’t have a reporting date until April 1st and he would like to relax before being thrown back in the fray.”

“Fair enough, but there’s no reason he can’t just accompany us to Bonaire. After all, it’s got things that Ramos’ island doesn’t. 

“What’s that?” asked Michael. 

“Pussy,” replied Char. 

“Shit, you sure are a horny old bastard. What happened to your Colombian girlfriend? I thought you two were in love.” “She introduced me to her mother―all three hundred pounds of her. If you want to know what your wife will look like in twenty years…” said Char.

“Look at her mother,” replied Michael. 

Char nodded slowly. “I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.” 

“On the bright side, you probably won’t last another twenty years,” said Michael dryly. 

Char ignored the dig. “Tell your buddy he needs to be here in an hour because as soon as we fuel up, we are out of here.” 

He’s already on board,” replied Michael. 

“Nice. I guess your old man is easy to con.” 

No, you have a big heart,” replied Michael with a slight grin. 

They filled the yacht’s 2,858 gallon fuel tank with marine diesel and idled out of Boca Grande Bay, past the Peninsula of Castillo Grange and the Club Naval, and into the open ocean. Char powered up the twin diesels to half throttle and headed southwest towards the coordinates that Ramos had given him for Islas de San
Bernando, located about seventy three nauts from Cartagena and about twenty off the Colombian coast. 

Char estimated they would be there in three hours at their present speed. He would need to conserve fuel if he wanted to drop Ramos off at Turbo and make it to Bonaire without refue
ling. The cost of diesel had recently gone up, and he got tired of shelling out seventy five hundred bucks every time he filled the tanks. 

Michael was in the galley diligently chopping up peppers and onions for omelets while Ramos fried some plantains in olive oil to make
patacones instead of potatoes. Char checked the radar to ensure there were no other boats in range, then engaged the Simrad AP20 autopilot and climbed down the stairs to the galley. 

“Just in time, but I was going to bring this up to you,” said Michael.

“Autopilot’s engaged and there’s not another boat in sight, so I can eat down here. I wanted to hear a little bit more about this Marine base we are headed for,” said Char as he sat down at the dining table facing Ramos.

“Not much to tell, Mister Blackfox.” “Char,” he corrected. 

“Char.” Ramos continued, “The contingency base is little more than a collection of C-huts with a composite dock located on a small islet about one nautical mile off to the northeast of a larger island that tourists frequent, Isla Tintipan. The smaller island is called Isla de Bartolomé de Las Casas. It’s named for a Spanish Dominican monk who became famous for defending the rights of the indigenous people of Colombia. It’s off-limits to most civilian personnel, but not to those in the company of a captain in the Colombian Marine Corps,” said Ramos with a smile.

Michael smiled in return and Ramos continued. “The M
arines built it as a forward operating base and stationed a platoon of marines and eight Boston Whaler patrol boats there to conduct counter-narcotics operations. They were usually pretty boring operations, punctuated by the occasional seizure of cocaine or marijuana. We used to dive for lobsters when we weren’t patrolling, but the base has not been occupied in some time, so I believe we should be able to catch quite a…”—he hesitated for a moment, searching for the word—“harvest,” he said finally. Char shoveled in a slice of omelet and smiled. “Good. Nothing’s better than fresh-caught lobster, especially when you caught it yourself.”

“Fine.
If we add some filets to the meal and if we get lucky with the lobsters, we can have surf and turf tonight,” added Michael.

“We’ve got some pretty good barbeque facilities on the i
sland. The Marines had lots of free time on their hands, especially the mechanics, and they were always welding things,” added Ramos.

“Why don’t we just camp there? That way we can all tie one on and not worry about losing our way back to the boat,” said Char. 

“Okay by me. I haven’t slept out of doors since leaving the Corps. Not that I would call that camping,” replied Michael, while looking at Ramos for confirmation. 

“
Yeah, the Corps could suck the fun out of a sloppy blowjob, said Ramos. There is a nice deck on the side of the kitchen that we built with spare lumber. We slept there all the time in hot weather. There are cots—we will be very comfortable.”

“Ok, sounds like a plan,” said Michael as he finished the last of his omelet and washed it down with a deep swig of coffee from a white ceramic mug. “Help me gather the diving and camping equipment.” 

Michael leaped up from the table and descended the stairs in the front salon to the crew stateroom on the lower deck and Ramos followed. Even on a yacht as big as the Hatteras 80, storage space was limited, so they stored lots of ancillary equipment in the unoccupied crew quarters. 

Char returned to the bridge, sat in one of the white leather captain’s chairs, and sipped his coffee. The sea was a bright, translucent aquamarine and a steady easterly wind was tossing up small whitecaps, but it was otherwise calm. 

He checked the radar and estimated based on their current speed, they would be catching sight of Isla de Bartolomé off the starboard side in about two hours. 

Tehran, Iran 

The room had been specially designed for the conduct of to
rture. It was equal parts dankly cold, dimly lit, and sparingly furnished. It was purposely not soundproofed as the prisoner’s cells surrounded the room, and hearing fellow captives screaming in agony had the desired effect of softening them up prior to ever laying a gloved hand on them. It was approximately ten feet wide by twenty feet deep. In the center sat two heavy, wooden chairs secured to the floor by long steel bolts. Close to the rear bare stone wall stood a hydraulically adjustable porcelain exam table. 

All of the platforms featured thick leather restraints for the wrists, neck, chest, and ankles. A unique collection of dental and surgical implements, as well as standard power and hand tools, stood by on a long metal table that had last served as a buffet board in the Officers’ Club during the reign of the Shah.  Colonel Dmitri Stal looked down at the man―a pathetic shadow of the once-proud soldier―and smiled warmly.

“Come now, this is not necessary. I can still spare your life, you know.” The man had been strapped to the same chair for almost three days and he stunk of sweat, blood, piss, and shit. “Tell me who sent you and this can all be over,” said Stal in the casual tone of a man accustomed to making such offers. “Water,” the captive pleaded quietly. 

“Not quite yet, my friend,” said Stal reassuringly. “Not until you tell me what I want to know. Otherwise, we will have to use the drill again.” 

They had already used the old steel-encased power drill with a quarter-inch masonry bit to drill into the man’s kneecap twice without success. His continued resistance angered Stal, as he had a plane to catch. 

Stal had been summoned to the building before dawn. The traitor was a night shift operations officer that had been disco
vered nearly a week ago by a Qud Force agent they had planted for just such a contingency. Stal had been asked to apply his particular experience in breaking the man, as he had thus far been resistant to their usual methods of torture. 

Stal liked using the drill. It had the dual benefit of making a significant noise, thus increasing the subject’s level of fear, and being exceedingly painful, especially if the body part targeted by the drill bit was particularly sensitive. Areas such as knees, e
lbows, or even the genitals were fertile grounds for his purpose. In the current case, if the man continued to refuse to talk, Stal would drill into the other knee, which would probably cripple him

Their captive was a
Sargord, an officer roughly equivalent to a major, in Iranian Army Intelligence, who had been caught attempting to implant a virus into one of their computer systems. An analysis of the virus had determined it to be similar to the Stuxnet malware, a sophisticated, multifunctional, Microsoft compatible worm that specifically targets the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition systems, otherwise known as SCADA, which are configured to control and monitor specific industrial processes pertaining to Iran’s experimental nuclear technologies. Such a virus had recently wreaked havoc on Iran’s nuclear industry and it appeared that someone was specifically targeting the Colonel’s operation for similar treatment. 

This man had held up admirably, and that angered the Col
onel. He didn’t have time for this nonsense as his plane departed a little before noon, but they had asked him to break this man, and he felt like he owed them that. Stal also wanted to know himself who was behind the attempt to thwart his mission. He looked at his watch and cursed. He had just over two hours to get to the airport and even in an official car with police escort; he might not make the flight. 

“Use the drill again. Do the other knee,” he ordered the broad-chested Iranian torturer, a Revolutionary Guard sergeant with Popeye-like forearms that ended in meaty gorilla-like hands. 

Stal had learned all about how the Irish Republican Army liked to use the drill when he served as the member of a Russian military delegation sent to learn counter terrorism techniques from the Royal Marine Commandos after the fall of the Soviet Union.  The Royal Marines had gained considerable expertise in the conduct of counter terrorism in Northern Ireland from the height of the Long War in the late seventies through the Hunger Strikes of the early eighties. The Irish Republican Army had fought a war of attrition against the British Army and Marine Corp based on causing as many deaths as possible so as to create a demand from the British people at home for their withdrawal from Northern Ireland. 

The IRA was a secretive organization, but one that the British had successfully infiltrated at multiple levels, therefore strident measures were called for to discover the existence of traitors within their midst. A power drill was one such method, but unfo
rtunately, the pain it inflicted was so intense, even the innocent would implicate themselves in order to stop the horrible pain. 

The Republican Guard picked up the drill and held it up in front of the man’s face, allowing him to see the fresh blood that dripped off the drill bit.

“You see, traitor, it still drips with your blood. Soon I will use it to drill into your balls or your dick if you don’t tell the Colonel what he wants to know.” 

The colonel’s cell rang; it was his driver. He signaled for the guard to stop the drill and spoke into the device for a moment. The guard held the drill and looked at him with visible anticip
ation.

The colonel hit a two number code assigned to a speed dial and spoke, “I don’t have time to complete this task, but we know that either the Americans or Israelis sent him, so there is no point in getting him to admit it. Give the general my apologies.” He ended the call. 

The guard looked at him in anticipation. The colonel read his expression, “Torture him to death if you want, or shoot him in the head. It’s up to you, as I need to go.” The guard smiled a broad toothy grin that made his eyes seem to glow. 

“As you wish, sir,” he said, turning back to his captive. The colonel turned to leave and heard the whine of the drill and the sudden high-pitched screaming as the guard went to work. 

The Mercedes sedan waited out in front of the Republican Guard Headquarters Building. Per the colonel’s instructions, the driver stood by at attention and immediately swung open the door when he spied Stal exit the building. 

It was a perfect March day in Tehran, but aside from squin
ting in the mid-morning sunshine, the colonel hardly noticed. Due to Tehran’s elevation of almost 4000 feet, the climate was relatively mild during the spring and fall. It was currently around seventy-five degrees and the sky was cloudless. There was still a snowcap on the towering Alborz Mountains to the north of the city. 

The driver used the sirens and flashing lights to effectively maneuver through the relatively light mid-morning traffic. When they reached the airfield, they had direct access to the tarmac through a gate controlled by the air force. The Military Police officer gave a cursory review of the colonel’s
Qud Forces identification card, saluted and waved them through. 

In early 2007, Iran Air began to offer a bimonthly flight from Tehran to Caracas with periodic stops in Beirut and Damascus. The mere existence of the flight caused significant concern wit
hin the U.S. intelligence community and led to greater concerns as to who and what was being transported between the two rogue nations. The colonel and his cargo would have fallen into that category. The twenty-three large wooden crates loaded onto six separate pallets consumed the vast majority of the jetliner’s cargo capacity. 

The colonel exited the Mercedes sedan and climbed up a stairway on the side of the
jet way. An older, burly, male flight attendant escorted him past the line of boarding passengers to a private cabin in the nose of the aircraft. He returned a short time later with claim checks for the colonel’s bags and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Scotch, a small ice bucket, and two glasses.

“A gift from the captain,” he said as he set it on the table and retreated out the door. 

The colonel didn’t drink much anymore as it played havoc with his blood sugar. But when he did choose to drink, it was only the very best―he figured that if he were going to risk dying; it should be for a good reason. Although Iran was a devoutly Muslim country, allowances were occasionally made for high officials who chose to imbibe, especially if they were of value to the goals of the Islamic Republic. 

The cabin was small, but well appointed. It sported a full-size bed, a dining table, two leather reclining chairs, a Chinese
Konka brand twenty-inch flat screen TV mounted to the wall, and even a bathroom, complete with a shower stall. 

Stal entered the bathroom and took a long piss. He exited, opened a zippered compartment on his laptop bag, and withdrew an electronic device slightly larger than the similarly shaped Blackberry and used it to check his blood sugar. The device was called a Personal Diabetes Manager and also wirelessly co
ntrolled and configured the computer-mouse-sized insulin injector that he wore attached to the side of his belly. 

Stal figured he would have a drink before dinner and then d
eliver a corrective dose of insulin to counteract the high amount of sugar that would be inundating his blood stream. He poured himself a strong one—neat—reclined into the plush leather recliner, took a sip from his drink and relaxed.
Everything seemed to be progressing nicely
.