Tom Clancy's Act of Valor (13 page)

“By your leave, sir, but this is important. Please, I’ll not be but another minute. And I’ll have to ask you to wait outside . . . sir.”

Again, the serious look on Miller’s face brooked no argument, the difference in rank notwithstanding. The commander hesitated, but only for a moment. “Keep it short, Chief. She needs her rest.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” he replied as he pulled the curtain to reestablish their privacy. Miller and Morales regarded each other for a moment. Morales, even in her battered and medicated condition, knew this man was a serious professional. And Miller, knowing people as he did, knew that this gallant woman would carry scars from her ordeal, scars that were both physical and emotional, forever. But with a little time, she would get through this; she was a survivor. She’d not forget, but she could and would move on. He leaned in close to her.

“How much do you remember from the time the assault team burst into the room where they were holding you until you were airlifted out of there?” he asked in a quiet voice.

She closed her one good eye a moment, and then opened it, meeting his gaze for the first time. “Not much. There were shots, then an explosion, then more shooting and yelling. It was all kind of a blur. The whole time, though, I was aware that I was with the good guys. And that helped a lot. Before that . . . well, I’d rather not talk about it.”

Miller nodded. “I understand, but since I debriefed the assault team, let me fill you in on what happened after the good guys arrived. The big guy who questioned you and hurt you—you know the one I mean?” She blinked rapidly and nodded. “Well, one of the good guys painted the ceiling of that room with his brains. I’m sorry to report that he died quickly, but the son of a bitch is now burning in a special hell reserved for that kind of scum.” Miller again paused, watching her very closely, and just as carefully framed his words. “And the rest of those cockroaches—the ones who had their way with you?” Another nod and another tear. “Most of them are dead. Some of them died quickly, but a great many probably bled out from mortal wounds. A few may have escaped with their bullet wounds, but you know better than anyone what a high-velocity, jacketed round does to surrounding tissue. Those who may have managed to crawl away will probably lose a limb to gangrene or die of it—if they’re lucky. The
federales
will be on the lookout for men with gunshot wounds; I made sure of that. They’ll not get anything close to decent medical treatment. You, ma’am, were their worst nightmare.” He stepped back to regard her, nodding his head. “And you’re a lot like those good guys on the SEAL Teams. You’ll get through this; you’ll move on.” He stood erect and saluted her, even though he was without a cap, and Navy men never salute uncovered. “Good luck, Doctor. Thank you for your service to our country.”

After the senior chief left, Morales, for the first time since t [ tit="hat Scrabble game so very long ago, smiled—even though it hurt to do so.

*  *  *

That night in the
Bonhomme Richard
’s SCIF, or secure classified information facility—the most secure environment on the ship—Lieutenant Engel, Chief Nolan, and Senior Chief Miller sat around a small conference table with three onboard senior intelligence types. One was the
Bonnie Dick
’s
senior intel officer, a full commander, and another, the senior enlisted intelligence specialist, a master chief. The third was a civilian analyst from NSA, the National Security Agency. The contents from the cell phone, the laptop, and the two flash drives had been sucked dry by the
Bonnie Dick
’s cryptologist and the information sent by dedicated satellite link to their intel counterparts at NSA, NCIS, CIA, and DIA. Plus, analysts on the
Bonnie Dick
were not without resources and had been poring over the data since Engel had handed the devices to Miller the minute they touched down on the ship. The laptop, phone, and flash drives had been whisked off to the intel spaces, where the technicians had been working on them nonstop. Engel and Nolan were now fresh from a nap, a shower, and a late afternoon shipboard breakfast, and into what, for them, was their morning routine. Engel was drinking tea; Nolan black coffee from his battered mug.

“So she said Somalia,” the NSA man said. “You’re sure about that?” He was dressed in an open-collar shirt and, in deference to the cool air pumped into the spaces to satisfy the requirements of the computers, a corduroy jacket with patches on the elbows. A mustache drooped around the corners of his mouth like a set of parentheses. It was as if he were cultivating the clandestine-service look.

“Absolutely,” Miller replied, “Somalia. And she said she thought they were speaking in Russian.”

“Close,” the NSA man said. “Based on some of the text we took from the devices, it was Chechen. But what are the Chechens doing right in the middle of the drug trapline in Central America? That encampment in Costa Rica neither refines nor processes cocaine. It was strictly a transshipment operation—Colombia to the U.S. border. We know Chechens deal in cocaine, but Costa Rica? They take their drug deliveries from the South Atlantic cross-ocean connections, up through and across North Africa. Something’s all out of whack here.”

Just then a ship’s messenger buzzed at the SCIF access door to gain entry. The intel master chief went to the door, took the proffered message, and signed for it. It was on a clipboard with red stripping on the border, marking it as a top secret communication. The master chief handed it to the NSA man. He lifted the cover sheet and studied the message for a long moment.

“Well,” he said at last, “this fits, but I’m not sure what it means. The tech people back at headquarters managed to get into the cell-phone memory deletes and retrieve some coded text messages.” He smiled. “We have some exceptionally talented geeks back there, and there’s very little they can’t get from a cell-phone record. What we have from one message is a set of coordinates ten miles inland along the northeast coast of Somalia. From another message, we have a date. The two seem to be related, as they and they alone have the same encryption protocols. So something seems to be happening [be t from in Somaliland three days from now. Given what we know about those involved, namely
Messieurs
Christo and Shabal, this can’t be good.”

“Any exact time that goes with that date?” Nolan asked.

“No, just a date, but there’s more,” he replied. “On one of the flash drives and on the laptop, there are references to retribution and vengeance on the Great Satan, and of revenge for the death of Osama Bin Laden. One reference said,” he donned a pair of half-moon reading glasses and consulted the message, “ ‘We will continue jihad against those responsible for the martyrdom of the holy one and exact a revenge as is befitting our great departed leader.’ Sounds like they’re planning something big, and it seems to be related to whatever it is that’s to take place in Somalia three days from now. And it may or may not have anything to do with what happened in Costa Rica. Or it may have been that this Chechen guy was just there to interrogate Dr. Morales.”

“Have we learned anything about him,” Engel asked, “other than that he’s dead?” Whenever possible, enemy combatants killed are photographed, as are those subjects of field interrogations. The NSA and agencies maintain huge data banks of persons of interest that could be accessed and IDed by facial recognition software.

It was the naval intelligence commander who spoke. “The guy who interrogated Morales was one Toma Zaurbek, a Chechen national who goes by various aliases, including Teddy, Tallin, and Tommy. He’s a known member of the Chechen mafia and for the last several years has been in the employ of our friend Christo. From what little the Agency has released to us, Morales and her case officer were there to gather information on Christo, and somehow that came to Christo’s attention. So that might be why Christo had them hit. From the debriefings of you and your team, it would seem that Tommy was the only semi-gringo at the compound. The rest of the goons were hired help.”

“So it would seem reasonable,” Engel offered, “that what is going down in Somalia has nothing to do with Costa Rica and everything to do with Christo.”

“That’s right,” said the man with the mustache, “and with the other mystery man, Shabal. We know he’s a sometimes associate of Christo, and he was referenced on yet another text message on the encrypted cell phone. Besides the texting, we’ve seen a spike in suspicious cell-phone traffic that relates to this quote, ‘big event.’ A lot of this traffic is localized along the known drug transshipment points as well as Cedros Island off Baja. Cedros is well down the coast from the border, but it’s a known transshipment point for maritime smuggling.”

“And it gets even better,” the intel commander continued. “With all this information in place and collated, the red lights are flashing all over the alphabet agencies. The General has just made this a code-word operation. From now on, you, your detachment, and all of us are effectively in isolation until this gets resolved. So, Lieutenant, let your people know that their movements and communications are now restricted. And be ready to go operational as required. I know you’re a man down in your assault team. If you need additional personnel, let me know, and I’ll see that the request gets priority going up the line. You might also want to start thinking [artnneabout an SR mission to Somalia. Since we’re code-worded, they may want you to conduct the mission rather than assign it to another unit.” He looked at his senior enlisted advisor. “I miss anything, Master Chief?”

“No, sir. I think that about covers it, at least for now.”

“Lieutenant Engel?”

Engel looked from Nolan to Miller and back. Both their looks said they had nothing now but that there was a great deal they needed to talk about as soon as they could get off by themselves.

“Sir?” the commander said to the NSA man, who was now camped behind a laptop that was configured to handle classified message traffic.

“I have nothing else, but my boss at NSA just sent me a back-channel text. He says this has the look, feel, and smell of the real thing. I agree with him. And by the way,” he glanced at his screen. “This is now Operation Desert Flower. Makes you wonder what idiot comes up with these supposedly random code words and phrases.”

Nolan headed back to the SEAL compartment to get the other SEALs up to speed on the recent developments and to let them know they were now code-worded and in isolation. Code-word protocols were both precise and strict. When a situation or series of events reached a certain threat level, it was assigned a code word. This segregated all message traffic that referred to the code-worded operation; it was classified top secret, special handling. Those associated with or read into the operation were restricted in their movements, and their contact with those not associated with the operation or situation was also restricted. A Marine sentry would be stationed at the door to the SEAL compartment, and all comings and goings would be logged, along with the destination and purpose of any time away from their compartment. The decision to make this a code-word operation could only come from a very senior level. In this case it came from the man whom they now referred to as The General—General David Petraeus, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

A code-worded operation was indeed rare, and many SEALs and special operators went their entire careers without being assigned to one. They were reserved for issues of immediate national security. But a code-worded op was a dual-edged sword. On the positive side, it was a chance to be part of a meaningful operation—something important. On the negative side, their movements would be severely restricted, and they would have little contact with the outside world. They could receive e-mails from their families, but there would be no outgoing replies. As far as those back home were concerned, they would have dropped off the face of the earth.

Engel followed Senior Chief Miller back to the
Bonnie Dick
’s tactical operations center and began to log into the special, stand-alone communications nets that had been set up for this operation. It was a lengthy login process, one that isolated any code-worded message traffic from the normal military and government-agency communications channels. This procedure would not only provide hypersecure comm links but also, in the unlikely compromise of security, would track the security breach to its source. There were few security services capable of tracking the telltale nuances of military-activity and com [ivi the secmunication-traffic spikes. Only the Chinese, Russians, British, Israelis, and possibly the Iranians could do this, but they were taking no chances, or at least The General wasn’t. Engel had just finished his log-in procedures when Nolan stepped into the TOC.

“Hey, Chief,” Engel said as he turned from the computer console, one specially shielded to allow for top secret traffic. “How are the boys taking to their first code-word operation?”

Nolan shrugged as he handed a small canvas bag of cell phones to Engel. “They’re pretty stoic about it. Excited but stoic. That little adventure in Costa Rica has left them a little spent. Give them a little time and they’ll start to whine about the restrictions. And they all want to know what our next move might be. I told them we’d get back to them when we know.”

Engle nodded. He took out his personal cell phone and dropped it into the bag and handed it to the senior chief. They would be locked up for the duration of the operation. It wasn’t that Engel or Nolan didn’t trust their SEALs not to sneak a call home, but if there was a security breach, it would probably come from the unauthorized use of a cell phone. If their phones were all locked up, they would not be hassled by the cell-phone traces and embarrassing questions.