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Authors: Mack Maloney

BOOK: Strike Force Charlie
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He handed the clipboard back to the coach. All Mann wanted now was to get off the bus, get back into his car, and drive like hell so he could be in LA before dark.
But he had one more question. He'd almost been mowed down not once but twice the night before, back on the docks.
“Where's your other bus?” he asked.
Now a real jolt of tension went through the compartment. Those players pretending to be dozing sat straight up in their seats and began looking anxiously this way and that. A stern nod from the coach settled them down. He turned back to Mann and smiled.
“Well, I guess you've uncovered our little secret,” he said in his best English of the day.
“What do you mean?” Mann asked him.
The coach stood up and with a hand gesture motioned Mann toward the padlocked room divider.
“We've got a real scoop for you,” the coach said. “Some very interesting stuff.”
Tired and clueless, Mann cued up his photophone and walked toward the rear of the bus. One of the players undid the padlock and pushed the door open.
Mann walked in—but suddenly stopped. This second compartment looked nothing like the first. It was well lit and, he noticed, heavily soundproofed. On the floor were boxes and boxes of cell phones. And camping supplies, like tents and Coleman lanterns.
But most astonishing, the walls were lined with … weapons, including some kind of missiles. Fifteen of them at least.
Are those Stingers?
he thought.
Mann could only utter one word: “Wow!” The pistol was against the back of his head a second later. The trigger was pulled twice.
He was dead before he hit the floor.
The storm had blown in just after sunset. The rain was coming down in sheets; lightning was crashing. The thunder rolling across the bay was horrendous. With visibility down to zero for most of the mid-Caribbean, it was no weather for flying. Yet an unusual cargo plane was sitting on Gitmo runway number two, hard on the edge of the U.S. Navy base, its propellers redirecting the fierce downpour into a violent, driving spray.
Though all of the cargo plane's insignia had been painted over, this aircraft belonged to the Iranian Air Force, an unlikely visitor to this American facility hanging by its fingernails off the eastern end of Communist Cuba. The plane, a two-engine French-built Transall-2, was here as a result of top-secret negotiations between the United States and Iran, part of a very hush-hush diplomatic arrangement. The United States kept several hundred Taliban fighters at Guantánamo Bay, illegal combatants captured during the war in Afghanistan. Many of these people were not Afghanis; in fact, terrorists from more than two dozen countries were being held in prisons here. Seven of them were citizens of Iran—
highly placed
citizens. In fact, all seven were related to someone on the governing board of mullahs that ran the
troublesome Persian country, a place where family trees could spread for miles.
The aim of the secret negotiations was simple. Iran was holding seven top-echelon Al Qaeda fighters, none of whom was Iranian. The seven Iranian citizens the United States was holding were foot soldiers, with friends in high places. The United States wanted the Al Qaeda lieutenants for questioning and prosecution; the mullahs wanted their relatives back. It was a prisoner exchange then. Seven-for-seven. An even swap.
The howling storm was a complication no one had foreseen, though. The two sides had argued each other right down to the last comma on the exchange document, which was so classified, it would be burned and its ashes scattered after the transfer was made. Timing was the most important element. The Al Qaeda prisoners were being held at an Iranian border crossing, ready to be pushed across into U.S.-held Iraq as soon as word of the plane's departure from Guantánamo was confirmed. Any delay, be it weather or mechanical, would be a deal breaker, the distrust between the two sides ran so deep.
That's why the Transall-2 had to be loaded, had to get into the air, and had to make the all-important confirmation call back to Tehran.
So, hurricane or not, it
had
to take off.
 
Things had to go right on the ground, too. The isolated section of the air base was surrounded by no fewer than a hundred Marines, backed up by at least two squads of SEALs watching the waterfront nearby. (There would later be some dispute about the number of SEALs present.) There was also a Delta Force sniper team stationed in the hills above. This small combination army had been in place for hours, sweating out the brutal heat of the waning day, only to be soaked through now by the driving rains of night.
A stretch van would be transporting the seven Iranian prisoners from Camp X-Rray, the main Gitmo holding facility,
to runway number two. The van would be escorted by two Marine LAVs, small, heavily armored tanklike vehicles. A U.S. State Department representative would also be accompanying the van, traveling in a separate car. His name was John Apple. His counterpart, a general in the Iranian Air Force, was serving as the copilot for the transfer plane.
Once the van reached the runway, Apple and the Iranian general would individually count each of the seven prisoners as they got out of the van and again as they climbed aboard the plane, this last bit of diplomatic nonsense insisted on by the Iranians. Only after both men were certain that the seven prisoners were safely aboard the plane would it be cleared for takeoff.
It was just one of many complicating factors in this anxious exchange that all seven of the Iranian detainees were named Khameni. In fact, five of them had the exact same name: Rasef Rasanjani Khameni. To avoid confusion, it was agreed early in the negotiations that the detainees would simply be known as K-1 through K-7.
The plane's first destination would be Mexico, but only by necessity. When it touched down at Guantanamo, the Transall-2's fuel tanks were nearly empty. It needed gas to get home. The United States had steadfastly refused to refuel the plane, though, just as the Iranians had steadfastly refused to allow U.S. fuel in its tanks. So, with a nudge from the United States, the Mexican government agreed to allow the plane to refuel, no questions asked, at a tiny military base in the Yucatan before starting its long flight westward. With another fuel stop in Fiji and a final one in Beijing, the plane was expected to arrive in Tehran 32 hours later.
A huge celebration would be waiting for it in the Iranian capital, timed to lead off the government's national nightly news.
The seven fighters were expected to be greeted as heroes.
 
The prisoners' van arrived a few minutes late, this as the rain grew more torrential and the winds picked up to 40 knots.
The van pulled up to the back of the waiting airplane, along with Apple's car. Conversation was nearly impossible around the loading ramp, thanks to the gusting wind, whipped up further by the gyrating turboprops. The Iranian general was waiting impatiently at the bottom of this ramp. He, too, was soaked. He'd been nervously watching the line of Marines standing close by. Both sides wanted to get this over with quickly.
Apple and the Iranian general met at the ramp, but there were no handshakes. They simply stood side by side, ready to count aloud as each detainee stepped off the small bus. Per the agreement, each prisoner was still shackled by hands and feet and had a black mask pulled down over his head. Each was wearing a bright orange jumpsuit adorned with his ID—K-1, K-2, and so on—painted in large black letters on the back.
The process began. Apple and the Iranian general sounded off as each man emerged from the van. Then, as two Marines escorted each detainee to the bottom of the ramp, the general would check off a number corresponding to the back of the prisoner's uniform. The detainee would then be allowed to climb up into the plane and be seated. At U.S. insistence, the shackles and hoods would not be removed until the Transall-2 was airborne.
The loading process took longer than expected because the detainees came off the van out of order. They were rearranged in their seating by the plane's pilot, and only then did Apple and the Iranian general agree that the exchange was complete.
Again, there were no handshakes. The Iranian general simply climbed up the ramp and closed it himself with a push of a button. Not 30 seconds later, the plane's engines revved up and it began pulling away. The Marines slowly withdrew from the runway. The Transall-2's pilots added more power, their props now screeching in the tempest. There was no conversation with the base's air traffic control tower. The plane immediately went into its takeoff roll.
It needed the entire length of the 6,000-foot runway, but
somehow, someway, the plane finally went wheels up and, in an explosion of spray and exhaust, climbed into the very stormy night.
 
Apple returned to his living quarters just outside Camp X-Ray, went directly to his kitchen cabinet, and broke out a bottle of cheap Cuban whiskey. He poured some over a few melting ice cubes and, with the thunder still crashing outside, drained the contents of his glass in one noisy gulp.
He was three weeks away from retirement. Full pension, house on Chesapeake Bay. The works. That this pain-in-the-ass deal was finally over made him very happy. All he had to do was phone in a report to his boss in Washington; then he would go to sleep for about a week. After that, he could start thinking about packing his government bags for good.
He poured himself another healthy drink, then padded into the living room of his glorified hut. He picked up the secure scramble phone to Washington, but before he could punch in the first number he heard a commotion outside. He could see through his picture window that a Humvee had screeched to a halt on his sandy front lawn. Six Marines fell out of it; two immediately ran up to his front door. They did not knock, didn't bother to ring his doorbell. They simply burst in, soaking wet, M 16s pointing everywhere. They looked scary.
“What's happened?” Apple demanded of them.
The Marines just grabbed him by the shoulders and carried him out of his hut.
“You've got to come with us!” one of them yelled at him.
 
The ride up to the detainee compound was the most hair-raising event of Apple's life. The Humvee driver was a kid no more than 18, and the other Marines were screaming at him to go faster … faster!
… faster!
The kid followed orders and drove the winding, muddy, very slippery road like a madman, nearly sending the Humvee hurtling over the cliff many times.
Somehow they made it to the main compound gate. This
barrier was open—never a good sign. The Humvee roared right through, drove the length of the barbed-wire encirclement and down another series of hills to an isolated plywood barracks. This was where the seven guys named Khameni had been kept during their incarceration.
There was another gaggle of Marines here, and a few SEALs, too. All of them were excited and soaked. Conversation had been hopeless in the swift ride here; the wind and torrential rain did not help it now. The Marines yanked Apple out of the Hummer and into the isolated prisoner barracks.
The interior was dark; only the beams from several flashlights broke through the fog that had seeped in here. The State Department rep, not used to all this excitement, nearly slipped three steps in. The floor was coated with something very sticky. A young Marine beside him directed his flashlight at the floor.
“Be careful, sir,” he told Apple.
That's when Apple realized they were both standing in a pool of blood.
More flashlights appeared and now they lit up the entire room. On the floor in front of him Apple saw the bodies of seven men lined up in a row. Clad only in their underwear, each had had his throat cut.
Apple's first thought was that these people were Marine guards—but actually the opposite was true. They were detainees, more specifically, the seven Iranian prisoners named Khameni. It took several long moments for this to sink into Apple's brain. Then, through the blood and rain and wind and chaos around him, it hit like a lightning bolt. He grabbed the young Marine next to him.
“Are these really K-One through -Seven?” he asked in astonishment.
The man nodded blankly. “We've already ID'd them through photographs,” he said. “Those are them, sir.”
Apple nearly slumped to the floor. He felt like he was suddenly living inside a ghastly dream. What his eyes were telling him simply seemed inconceivable.
How? Why?
Then another thought struck. This one even more troubling than the seven murdered prisoners.
“But if these are the Iranians,” he mumbled, “then who the hell … ?”
“Got on that plane, sir?” the Marine finished his question for him. He just shrugged. “We have no idea.”
The MCI Arena was packed. Rock music was blasting. Strobe lights were flashing. The gigantic scoreboard was pumping out waves of virtual excitement. For the first time in a very long time the Washington Wizards pro basketball team was in the play-offs, the Finals no less. This was a
very
big deal in D.C., and the MCI was filled to the rafters for the occasion. When the home team ran onto the court, the crowd's response was deafening.
But Mary Li Cho was already bored. She knew nothing about basketball, didn't know if the ball was filled with air or stuffed with feathers. She was here on a date—or she was supposed to be anyway. A guy she'd been seeing had called earlier in the week asking if she wanted to see the Wizzies play. She'd quickly accepted. He was all military, a captain at Army Special Operations Command, GI Joe handsome, and very unattached. He even had a soldierly name: Pershing Nash. Li got her fill of midlevel Army jerks at work, but she actually liked this one. Or at least, she had.
So here she was, way,
way
up in the cheap seats, after picking up her ticket at the will-call window. But Nash was nowhere in sight. She'd been scanning the place for the last half hour, looking for him. She saw many military types walking around and politicians everywhere and lobbyists
cluttering up the expensive boxes below. But so far, no Captain Nash.
The people around her were the loudest and the drunkest in the arena. She was becoming uneasier by the minute. This would be the third time that Nash had stood her up. She realized he had a high-level job—he was attached to the National Security Council. He never missed a chance to tell her
that.
But she had an important job, too. And he knew all about it. And after two months she felt she deserved better from him than stranding her here in the Jerry Springer section.
Li was Asian-American and very attractive. Nice hair, nice face. Nice
everything.
Even dressed in simple jeans and a bland top, she could feel many of her boozy neighbors locking in on her. It was not a pleasant feeling, though. She'd always been uncertain about her looks, never seeing what others saw. One of her ex-boyfriends once told her,
You're too good-looking; that's the problem.
She'd even been approached by
Playboy
to pose for a pictorial, “Secretaries of the Pentagon.” The offer both amused and horrified her. Even in her best moments, she tried not to think about it.
Appearing in
Playboy
was something Li could never do even if she wanted to. She worked at the Pentagon; that much was true. And she went to the typing pool every morning and picked up piles of documents to be word-processed. But she was not a secretary. That was her cover. Actually, she worked for one of the most secret operations within the U.S. government. It was called the Defense Security Agency.
Created after September 11th, the DSA's mission was deceptively simple: “Maintain security within the ranks of the U.S. military.” Truth was, the cryptic agency played many roles. It sniffed out members of the U.S. military who might be terrorist agents in disguise—it had caught several in the past three years. It investigated unresolved disappearances of U.S. military weapons, from bullets to bombers. It watched over the Pentagon's online security systems and its communications networks, another line of defense against would-be terro-hackers. It even monitored the Pentagon's bank accounts, looking for any irregularities.
The DSA was so classified, it was all but unknown to the other U.S. intelligence services. Even the Vice President was said to be unaware of its existence, as were 99.9 percent of the people who worked in the Pentagon. It was a secret unit hiding in plain sight.
It was also a very small operation. Three people assigned here in D.C., just a half-dozen more serving overseas. Modest though it was, the DSA could throw some weight around. Not only did it have unfettered access to all intelligence gathered by every other U.S. spy agency, but it could also call on any number of U.S. special ops units to do its dirty work. It took its orders directly from the NSC and no one else. These days that was like getting the Word directly from God.
As she was the daughter of a career military man—her father was a colonel in the Marines—and just eight months out of grad school at Georgetown, working for the DSA would have seemed the ideal job for Li. Though she was also a talented artist, her real talents lay in the newly birthed science of counterterrorism, and the DSA was certainly on the front lines for that. But lately, she felt more like the lookout on the
Titanic
, with the iceberg dead ahead. Many things were out of control in D.C. these days security-wise. Things she wished she knew nothing about.
This was another reason she was feeling unsettled tonight. The terrorist chatter lately was not good; she knew this because she had access to every byte of information coming into the Pentagon about every known terrorist group around the world. Despite some recent setbacks, the lines in and out of Al Qaeda had been burning especially bright for the last month. Many of their key sleeper cells were being activated, a very bad sign. Their illegal money-laundering operations were also spiking, a sure indication funds were being passed down to their foot soldiers. The results so far: car bombings all across Europe, suicide bombings in Afghanistan and Israel. Plutonium missing in Pakistan. Smallpox found in Kenya. And everywhere rumors of nukes and dirty bombs about to go off.
These things were a thumbprint strategy for Al Qaeda: start a lot of small actions and get U.S. intelligence people running this way and that, all as a diversion from the big hit to come.
Something
bad was going to happen soon. Li could feel it in her shoes, and she wasn't the only one. The problem was, there were so many potential targets, it was impossible for anyone to even guess what might be hit and when. The FBI and the CIA were useless, the Department of Homeland Security a sad joke. So that iceberg kept getting closer every day.
Yes, these were
very
strange times at work—but not just because of the uptick in terrorist activity. It was more personal than that. The small, secret DSA unit housed inside the Pentagon was now down to just one person:
her.
Why? Because her boss and his second-in-command had left on assignments two months before and neither had been heard from since. Officially, they were TWA, as in Temporarily Without Assignment. But Li knew this was just spy talk for missing in action. Or worse.
It was too bad. She really liked Ozzi and Fox. Ozzi was a Navy jg, midtwenties, a top graduate of Annapolis. Major Fox was a tall, handsome, dreamy but very married guy from Alabama, a retired CIA veteran lured back after September 11th. They'd made a great team, the three of them. Ozzi was the cyberspace guy, Fox was the CO, and Li fit nicely in between. As the system intelligence officer, she traffic-copped everything that came through the door. They were all easygoing, good at keeping secrets, and genuinely liked one another. Even now, her eyes misted over thinking about them. She missed them both terribly.
This also meant she'd been without a boss for eight weeks. What does one do in such a case? The next level of command was the NSC itself, and she wasn't about to go to them looking for help. She'd even asked Nash for advice. Again, because he was attached to the NSC, he was one of the few people in town who knew what she did, sort of. And they were both at the same security clearance level, so they could talk about such things. Sit tight, Nash had told her.
That was the
only
thing to do when dealing with the military high command. Carry on as best as you can until someone tells you otherwise.
Carrying on, to Li's mind, was fulfilling the last assignment Fox had given her before he and Ozzi disappeared. But this was weird, too: check out every Defense Department employee named “Bobby Murphy.” She had no idea why, but in his last memo to her Fox asked that she cyberstalk anyone in the DoD by that name, even though there were no indications that any of them were criminals or moles or anything other than simple worker bees. Strange. The DoD was a big place. Li had already checked out several dozen people by that name, without finding anything unusual.
So this whole Bobby Murphy thing was just another mystery to her.
 
The Wizards finished their shootarounds. The lights inside the MCI began to dim.
Li checked her watch again. The only empty seat in the arena was the one next to her. How long should she wait for this human Ken doll? Why hadn't he called her? Should she call him? Suddenly her cell phone began vibrating. She retrieved it from her ankle holster. A text message had blinked onto the screen. It was from Nash.
It read: “Call me ASAP” But he had added: “MTSL first.” Li was surprised to see this. MTSL was spy talk for “Move To Secure Location,” a code used when sensitive or classified information was to be discussed. Why would Nash want her to take this unusual step if just to tell her why he wasn't here?
Whatever,
she thought. At least she would not have to sit through a basketball game. She got up to leave.
But then the lights in the arena dimmed even further, until there was just a single spotlight shining on center court. According to the PA announcer, “America the Beautiful” was about to be sung. Li couldn't leave now. The way things were in D.C. these days, she'd probably be called a Taliban.
So she sat back down but stayed poised on the edge of her seat. What happened next would stay with her for a very long time.
Two young children walked onto the court. A boy and a girl, no more than eight years old, both dressed in their Sunday best. Both kids were holding microphones as big as they were. Both looked nervous. A recorded piece of music began to play, the opening notes to “America the Beautiful.”
The kids started singing. Off-key but cute. The crowd warmed to them immediately. Even Li had to admit it was precious—for the first few seconds, anyway. Because when the part about the “fruited plain” came along, both kids froze solid. They'd forgotten the words.
The music played on; the crowd became hushed. The kids began to cry, tears falling onto their microphones. The spotlight seemed to be burning holes in them now. No one knew what to do. Finally someone stopped the music and the lights came back on. Li just shook her head. What was happening to this country?
We can't even sing our favorite song anymore … .
Suddenly, from across the court, a small, wiry man appeared. He was sixtyish and dressed plainly in slacks and a golf shirt. He was certainly not part of either team; nor was he wearing the red blazer sported by all arena employees. He had to be one of the spectators.
The crowd went silent as this tiny man walked across the floor, approaching the children with a smile. The two kids stopped crying, looking up at him more curious than anything. He patted each one on the head, then took the boy's microphone. Everyone in the arena heard him say, “OK, let's try it again … .”
A few uncomfortable seconds passed, but then the music recued and resumed playing. Very softly, the little man started singing the first verse to them. The kids got the idea. He would tell them the words, and the kids would sing them, somehow keeping pace with the recorded music. It became very awkward, though. The crowd began hooting; some were
even mocking the unlikely trio. But the little man persisted, and so did the kids. They sang on, getting a bit louder, a bit more confident, with each note.
And slowly … everything began to change. The crowd went quiet again as the three voices rose, shaky but oddly in tune. Li began to listen to the words of the song. They actually
sounded
beautiful, so much better than the screechy “Star Spangled Banner.” By the third line, the kids were really into it, the little stranger easing them along with every measure.
Then came the chorus … and very unexpectedly
other
voices began to rise. First from the balconies. Then the loge. Then from the fat-cat seats way down front. Just like that, the entire MCI arena was singing. Li felt pins and needles from head to toe. What was happening here? She stole a glance at the father and young son beside her. The father was holding a cup of beer in one hand and hugging his son with the other. Tears were in the man's eyes.
Li spied other people around her. Many of them were crying, too. Crying and singing. The overhead scoreboard came to life: a moving digital image of the American flag, blowing in the wind above the wreckage of the World Trade Center. It was so sad yet beautiful at the same time. Li felt something wet fall on her own cheek. She thought it was beer. It wasn't … .
The kids, the little man, and the crowd soared into the big finish:
“From sea to shining … sea!”
Then, complete silence—for about two seconds. Then the cheering began. It washed through the arena like a giant wave. Louder and louder. Feet stomping, hands clapping, seats smashing. The building's foundation began to shake. The crowd was delirious and the delirium seemed like it would never end. Finally, the little man drawled into the microphone,
“Now,
let's play some
ball … .
”
The crowd erupted again. Twice as long, twice as loud. The players took to the court. Someone secured the microphones and the kids were escorted off, waving and laughing and taking happy bows.

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