Swift Strike (SEAL Team 14 Book 2) (5 page)

“I’m sure you did fine. Any details that you can recall will help with the investigation. Sometimes, things that you may not think are so important actually turn out to be useful. Especially when you have multiple sets of eyes looking for particular connections that you may not be aware of.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Don’t worry,” he reassured her. “If you think of anything else you can always contact us.”

“Yes, right, I know. I will.”

“You’re heading back home now?” he asked, rocking backward onto the soles of his feet, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his finely-pressed, blue camouflage uniform.

“Yes. I’m leaving in a few hours.” All of a sudden, she was at a loss for words. She didn’t know what to say that would effectively convey her emotions. Really, what was the proper way to thank someone for saving your life?

Unsure of herself, she stuck out her hand, inadequate words clumsily falling out of her mouth, “I didn’t get a chance to really thank you last night for all that you did…for rescuing me. I…”

Eyebrow raised, he looked curiously at her outstretched hand for a second. Then covered her slender fingers with his strong ones. Shivers ran up Lena’s spine at the contact, while a persistent warmth spread throughout her entire body.

“Really, ma’am—Lena—there’s no need. I was just doing my job, and I’m just really glad you’re okay.” Letting go of her hand, he stood there smiling down at her. His eyes filled with kindness and something else...pity?

Great
. The last thing she needed was him feeling sorry for her.

“Yo, Denison!” They both swiveled their heads around to see another formidable soldier bearing down on them. The newcomer had dark blond hair with hints of chestnut and a perfectly sculptured face. The classic pretty-boy looks that he sported were unlike her rescuer’s own handsome, but rugged face. Lena much preferred the latter. “CO wants us in CON-1 in five minutes,” he belted out.

“All right, I’ll be there in a minute.” The good-looking blond soldier disappeared as quickly as he came, and then she was all alone again with her rescuer.

Butterflies flitted around in her stomach, which was ridiculous because she was a grown woman. She hadn’t been this nervous when talking to a guy since grade school. It didn’t matter anyway; he didn’t feel any attraction toward her. How could he? With her scrawny build she could have never been properly classified as “hot” to begin with, and now she just looked like a hot mess. Plus, like he said before, rescuing her had been his job. It would be foolish to expect that he would entertain, for even a moment, the idea of something more.

“Well, I don’t want to hold you up,” she said, “I’m sorry, I never got your name?”

“Jesse Denison.”

“Right, goodbye, Jesse. And thanks again.”

“Bye. You take care of yourself, Lena.”

****

“So did you get her digits?”

“What are you talking about?” Jesse asked, glaring up at his buddy Luke who’d just entered the conference room.

“Come on, man. You know damn well what I’m talking about. The blonde you carried out of the pit of hell last night. The woman who latched onto your arm until we got back to base. The woman you were just talking to in the hallway.
That
chick.”

Jeez, news sure traveled fast on this floating sardine can.

“No, I didn’t get her number. You have a screw loose, man. She’s been through a lot, Luke. She’s not ready for anything like that. Not to mention it’d be highly inappropriate.”

“Okay, the last thing you said is true. It’d definitely be very inappropriate. But the reason for not getting her number is a crock of shit. Taking her number doesn’t mean you have to call her right this instant, the point is that you call her eventually.”

Rolling his eyes, Jesse shook his head. His friend was a consummate playboy and, like most SEALs, an adrenaline junkie. Luke also liked his women like he liked his cars: fast and flashy. He had ass lined up in damn near every port the Team docked in, and he thought Jesse was a fool not to sew his wild oats before “some broad castrated him”—figuratively speaking. Jesse had engaged in one night stands in the past, but he didn’t make it a habit. Thing was he just hadn’t been able to get himself to care about a woman enough to give a long-term relationship a try, at least not since Rose Ford. And he tried hard not to think about Rose.

“It’s not bullshit,” Jesse replied, shrugging off the demons of his past. “Lena nearly died. I’m sure she has a lot of things on her mind right now. And grabbing a cup of coffee with me sometime isn’t one of those things.”

Just thinking back about the look on Lena’s face when he’d forced his way into the room to rescue her still had the power to make his knees quake. There was no doubt about it—the militant who’d threatened Lena would have killed her without any qualms. She was extremely lucky to still be alive.

“See, that’s your first problem, man. Grabbing a cup of coffee? Seriously? Jesus, you are in need of some big-time assistance here. If coffee is your idea of a good time you are not going to get laid anytime this decade.” Just when Luke was about to jump into a full blown tirade, Jesse got a much needed reprieve. Thank God, he really didn’t need to suffer through Luke’s infamous pearls of wisdom right now.

“Is everyone here?”

Every member of Team Fourteen perked up as Commander Mark Dewitt entered the room. With his all-encompassing drive for perfection, square jaw, rough-hewn face, and decades of military experience, Mark Dewitt had earned every inch of his tough as nails reputation. The expectations that he held for his each of his men were extraordinarily high—and each of them did their best to reach and exceed them.

It was tight quarters aboard the ship and this conference room was no exception. Jesse and his team members were basically sitting on top of each other in the crowded room.

“Yes, sir. Everyone is present and accounted for,” Lieutenant Junior Grade Joshua Laurent answered. As was their ritual after every mission, they were gathered to discuss how well they’d executed their clandestine operation.

“All right, good work out there yesterday, men. All of the live hostages were found and released. As you know, African Union soldiers swept the grounds for hours after our departure. The body of Steven Cutler—the man whom Lena Westlake has identified as being killed moments before our takedown—has not been recovered.”

Now that was odd. Jesse had never known of an extremist group to take the time to hide a body during a raid. Usually, the bad guys were too busy ducking and running for cover.

“There is a possibility Cutler’s remains are still somewhere on the facility’s grounds. The AU soldiers are going to be rechecking the facilities within the next couple of days.”

“The female hostage, Westlake, is she positive Cutler was killed?” Joshua asked.

“She hasn’t yet deviated from her original statement. According to her, Cutler was stabbed multiple times a few minutes before our raid of the facility.”

“That doesn’t make sense, sir,” Luke said. “There wouldn’t be enough time for anyone to hide a body that well in such a short period of time.”

“Yeah, I’m aware. Look, Ms. Westlake and the other hostages were operating under some pretty fucked-up circumstances. It is entirely possible that she may have imagined what she says that she saw.”

“Wait. You really think she had a hallucination of someone being stabbed to death right in front of her?” Jesse asked, raising his eyebrow in skepticism. “With all due respect, sir, I was with the group that found her initially, and even though she was frightened, she was very lucid. I find it difficult to believe she had some sort of mental breakdown prior to her rescue that caused her to imagine or fabricate a murder.”

“It’s only one theory, Denison. And it is a distinct possibility given that a body has yet to turn up.”

Frowning, Jesse kept his next thoughts to himself. He could understand Commander Dewitt’s doubt about Lena’s version of events. The timeline was definitely off. Objectively, he could see that it would be impossible for AnSawar to hide Steven Cutler’s body with any success in the short amount of time before the SEALs takedown of the facilities. However, he still believed Lena was telling the truth about what she witnessed. She might have just been mistaken about when the murder occurred. It wasn’t very difficult to come to the conclusion that she might have been confused about the precise timing of the events.

“Did they find the man Ms. Westlake identified as the killer, sir?” Luke interjected sharply.

“No. The man she has described as having hazel eyes has not been accounted for either,” Mark responded, carefully choosing his words. “At the moment, we are checking whether or not we have any leads on anyone in the CIA and NSA’s combined database of Terror Suspect Profiles that may match his description.”

Jesse was not going to hold his breath on there being a match. TSPs were a relatively new tool used by the security agencies, and the database had not been thoroughly developed. While major Al-Qaeda members were undoubtedly listed, emergent threats would probably not be in the system yet.

“Well, whoever this guy is, he’s probably crawled back under the rock he came from by now,” Joshua replied.

“Yeah,” their CO grunted in agreement. “If he has even a modicum of intelligence he’ll either try to get out of the country or sink into a hole.”

None of this new information was sitting too well with Jesse. The fact that one of the assholes who’d terrorized Lena was still UA turned his stomach. If it were up to him, he would still be out there now hunting the son of a bitch down.

“Sir,” Jesse piped up, a memory suddenly assailing him. “The man holding Lena hostage in the underground level kept saying a phrase that I couldn’t translate.
Zaida ya kivuli
. Do you have any idea what that means?”

Mark seemed to consider Jesse’s question for a moment. “You sure he said that phrase exactly, Denison?”

“I’m positive, sir.”

“Well, if you’re right, it’s Swahili. Translated it means greater than shadow.”

“Does that mean anything to you, sir?”

“No. It’s not ringing any bells, but I’ll have some people check into it.”

It was probably just the nonsensical ramblings of madman, but SEAL Team Fourteen always crossed all their t’s and dotted all their i’s.

“All right, that brings me to the next order of business,” Mark continued. “The top brass at CENTCOM has given us a new assignment. There’s been a series of disturbances in Bayla, Somalia, which is located about one hundred miles from here. CIA agents currently on the ground are hearing rumblings of a new threat that could potentially be posed by Al-Jaazeez operatives.”

“Tarasov?” Luke asked, leaning forward in his seat. He was referring to Dr. Saverin Tarasov, one of the key leaders of the Al-Jaazeez network who’d eluded capture in the team’s covert operation in Russia a few months ago. The operation had successfully prevented a bioterrorist attack on U.S. soil, but unfortunately, Tarasov had gotten away. All of the SEAL Team Fourteen members hated when a murderous piece of scum like Saverin Tarasov managed to slip through their grasp.

“It’s unclear at this point. For now, I’m going to be sending a group of five to handle special reconnaissance. If we can confirm Tarasov is on the ground there, we will then perform a direct action strike against this asshole.” Mark paused, causing everyone in the room to narrow their focus on his face. “Remember, this new threat may not be coming from the Al-Jaazeez network. I cannot stress this enough. None of you have the luxury of going into this next op thinking that you know everything you need to know about the situation. Keep your eyes wide open because it could be a completely different threat. We won’t know until we make the identifications ourselves. Now, the group I’m sending will be composed of Clarke, Denison, Kincaid, Avery, and Russo. You’ll be wheels up by the end of the week. Everyone else will be heading to the base at Camp Harding until otherwise instructed.”

C
ommander Mark Dewitt
really needed a stiff drink. He was a Scotch man, and on occasion enjoyed imbibing in a glass of the amber liquid on the rocks. But at this particular moment any drink would do.

The past few months had been one holy shitstorm after another in the world of international counterterrorism. First, a nearly month-long siege of American hostages at an oil plant in Somalia. And then right afterwards, two fucking U.S. embassy bombings in as many as weeks. The bombings had taken place in northern Africa, and AnSawar had taken the credit for both. Unreal. Mark had been chewing down Tums like they were going out of style.

Just when he thought they were finally starting to get everything under control,
bam
. More crap hit the fan. Glancing up from the recently delivered intelligence briefing, he found the other men in the room looking just as perplexed as he felt.

“How many killed in the Chad embassy bombing?” Mark asked Morgan Henson, the newly appointed director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Mark and Morgan went way back, from their green Navy years before they’d both joined the SEALs.

“Twenty-eight embassy workers,” Morgan supplied. “They were mostly administrative staff with two diplomatic officers also killed in the attack.”

“We have to quickly get a handle on all of this shit,” Michael Gerard announced, exasperation apparent in his voice. “Washington is breathing down my neck right now. And we don’t have an acceptable answer for them about what the hell is going on.”

“How is AnSawar getting enough money to finance these attacks?” Gerard said. “The last news I heard from your analysts, Morgan, was that these assholes didn’t have a pot to piss in. Let alone the ability to launch attacks that would bring body counts. Now they’re firing U.S. military grade, mid-range ballistic missiles into our embassies? What the fuck?”

Mark happened to agree. None of this was quite adding up.

Letting out a slow breath, Morgan attempted to answer Gerard’s barrage of questions. “Okay, here is what we know about AnSawar. They started out as an Al-Jaazeez offshoot in the early 2000s. Originally based in a small village in Iran, they started to spread like an airborne virus two years later. Recruiting for their organization occurs at the normal places: prisons and schools. They have taken credit for a number of small bombings and shootings before this recent spate of incidents. None of their previous attacks were accompanied by a high number of fatalities. Their membership numbers are also unclear. The group could have anywhere between twenty to sixty members.”

Motioning, Morgan signaled to one of his assistants to start up the computer slides. Two images appeared on the conference room screen.

“These two men seem to be the central figures in the group,” Morgan continued, “Mohammed Kareem and Faizal Shariff. Mohammed is the older, stout man on the right. He handles the group’s Middle Eastern operations and Faizal handles the group’s operations in Africa. Faizal Shariff is most likely Ms. Westlake’s ‘Hazel Eyes.’ He was born in Bogotá, Columbia to a Danish mother and an Iranian father. They moved to Iran when Faizal was still in primary school. Faizal’s father was a university professor, but died of a heart attack before his son reached middle school. Faizal quit his studies shortly after his father’s death to beg on the streets of Konarestan. Since then, he has rapidly risen through the ranks of AnSawar. He is known to be a really brutal son of a bitch.”

Another image flashed across the screen. The mutilated bodies of a young Middle Eastern woman who looked to be in her early twenties and an elderly man were displayed in full resolution. “Sanaa Ibrahim and Josef Ibrahim,” Morgan said, his voice lowered and grave. “Sanaa had the misfortune of courting Faizal for a period of about one year. After Sanaa broke things off with him, or rather Sanaa’s father, he decided to slit both her and her father’s throats while they were taking their afternoon tea. He carved her up pretty badly.”

“Any witnesses?” Gerard asked.

“No. He was too smart to leave a trail. But given the death threats that he’d made against her in the past, and his odd behavior soon after her murder, her demise is too much of a coincidence. Sanaa’s living relatives are pretty convinced that he either killed her outright or hired someone to do his dirty work for him.”

“Who is bankrolling their activities?” Mark asked. It was good to finally be able to put faces and names to the two main players heading up AnSawar, but it still was not enough. Like any organization, terrorist groups couldn’t function without cash flow.

Despite the moral turpitude that terrorists constantly engaged in, group leaders knew that they still had to fulfill at least a modicum of promises to their followers, including providing their foot soldiers with food and a semblance of housing. Not to mention that bombs, bullets, and guns cost money. So yeah, figuring out the names and bank accounts of the financiers was a critical part of isolating and finally putting an end to AnSawar’s activities.

“That’s still unknown at the moment. For months now, several of our analysts in DC have been trying to identify and track any Western financial accounts that may belong to the two men. Faizal and Mohammed have been smart about keeping their operations in the dark. Because they’ve been so thorough in avoiding a paper trail we’re having a difficult time pinpointing any accounts that can be directly linked to either of them.”

“Okay, how about indirectly?” Mark asked.

“We’ve identified several key individuals who are close acquaintances of our two high value targets. But we are still trying to develop whether these individuals are serving as the couriers or middlemen between our targets and the presently unknown financiers.”

“Do you think the Iranian government is involved in this somehow?”

“Anything is still possible at this point in our investigation, Mark. But it is highly unlikely. Given the recent decline in our relationship with the Hazeristan transitional government, it would be more likely they were involved in the attacks,” Morgan replied, the sarcasm dripping from his voice.

“Do we have any indications as to what this group may be planning next?” This question came from the lone Homeland Security officer on the conference call, Giovanni Azzolini. Morgan dialed Giovanni into the meeting at the last minute. Giovanni served as one of the bridges between the myriad of U.S. counterintelligence units, the Navy SEALs, and the FBI.

Morgan fielded the question. “We don’t have any solid leads as of yet. However, we have gone ahead and placed all of our embassies and consulates in the region on red alert, in anticipation of another bombing attempt.”

“So basically, this meeting has given me nothing, but a bunch of fucking goose eggs to report back to the President.”

“Pretty much,” Morgan agreed. “We’re bringing on some additional analysts to help sort through the confusing maze of wires and encrypted messages that we’ve been able to intercept. The National Security Agency also has a couple of their analysts working on this as well. This situation is one of the CIA’s top priorities right now. AnSawar is a relatively new player on the scene, but trust me on this: we are not underestimating their newfound strength in the region.”

From the grumblings over the phone, Giovanni was beyond pissed off. But really, who could blame the guy? He had the unenviable task of reporting back to the President of the United States and the Joint Chiefs of Staff that none of the U.S. intelligence agencies had any clue about how to isolate and stop AnSawar before they could manage to pull off another embassy bombing.

“Look, I have been in contact with JSOC, and once we’re able to hone in on something solid we can mobilize a couple of SEAL Teams to the areas—” Morgan started before Mark abruptly cut him off.

“Yeah, until then, I’m not sending my men out there blind—on a wild goose chase—with no plan, backup plan, or exit strategy. My team is already stretched pretty thin with five of my men checking out the threat in Bayla.”

“Right. I don’t know of any SEAL Team Commander who would risk going in blind,” Morgan finished in agreement.

“Morgan, just make sure that those analysts of yours are doing everything they can to make some IDs. And I need this information ASAP. Like yesterday.”

“Understood. They’re working around the clock. We’ll get this done.”

They had to.