Trident's First Gleaming: A Special Operations Group Thriller (7 page)

_______

A
s Jim Bob had mentioned, they weren’t flying directly to Syria. Instead, they boarded an Agency yacht in Cyprus. An Adventure Tours flag flew from its mast. Chris and the others went below to check their gear. The Agency had already loaded their weapons, communications equipment, and other covert items into hidden compartments concealed by secret panels. His Camelbak was in plain view, though, as well as some other survival gear that would go well with his cover as adventure guide. And help keep him alive.

Chris located his compact Glock pistol in its Raven Kydex holster. He made sure the weapon was loaded before attaching his pistol holster so it rode on one hip with two magazine holders on the opposite hip. He concealed both with his untucked shirt. The others concealed their pistols, too. They kept their rifles and other black gear stored in the hidden compartments, out of sight until they were needed. If this were an overt assault, they’d be bristling with armor and other heavy assault equipment, but this was a covert infiltration, so they traveled light—such was the tradeoff of weapons and tactics.

Once everything was accounted for, Chris and Victor climbed up to the main deck. “Cast off the stern line,” Victor ordered.

Chris didn’t like the cold tone of voice he used with him. It contrasted sharply with the respectful attitude he showed toward Jim Bob. Even so, he cast off the line. They still had a job to do.

Hannah and Jim Bob joined them on the deck, and all four entered the bridge, where a debonair pilot in his seventies steered them away from the dock. The hair on his head was darker than his distinguished grey beard, and he wore a classic nautical captain’s hat.

Hannah kissed him on the cheek.

“Hannah!” the man exclaimed with a smile that was beyond big.

Her kiss and his smile made Chris feel a twinge of jealousy, but he brushed it off.

Jim Bob turned to Chris. “Mr. Wolfeschlegelaltona, here, is The Most Interesting Man in The World,” Jim Bob said proudly, quoting the phrase from a Dos Equis commercial. “He can make dead men tell tales.”

Chris couldn’t remember the man’s name, let alone pronounce it, so he only focused on the first part. He nodded and smiled.

Wolf spoke, his voice a deep baritone, “I don’t always pilot boats, but when I do, I drink Dos Equis.”

Chris was amused by Wolf’s jovial attitude, and if Hannah trusted him, Chris figured he could trust Wolf, too.

Once everyone was properly introduced and settled, the team rehearsed their false identities and played poker for several hours, until the yacht came within twelve nautical miles of Syria, west of Latakia. Wolf called Latakia Radio in Arabic. “We are at point Sierra Charlie and have a reservation with the Syrian Yacht Club and wish to approach Latakia.”

Getting the go-ahead, Wolf proceeded into the harbor. To the north, part of a sunken ship stuck up from the sea. After passing the wreck, Wolf steered toward a tall black and white building on the shore. There were a handful of yachts and a dhow in the harbor; the rest were mostly fishing vessels. Meanwhile, Chris and the others checked their cell phones to make sure they all had comms with each other. When the yacht reached the dock, two armed Syrian immigration officers were waiting. Both were muscular and had serious expressions on their faces. The older-looking of the two had a thick moustache.

After Chris and Victor tied the yacht to the pier, the immigration officers came aboard, and Wolf handed Moustache his passport and some paperwork. Chris, Hannah, Jim Bob, and Victor handed over their passports so Moustache could compare the passport photos with the real faces. He stopped at Jim Bob and asked, “Did you visit Israel before this trip?”

Answering in the affirmative would be grounds for not being admitted into the country. “No, sir,” Jim Bob said politely. “Was I supposed to?”

Moustache shook his head. “What is the purpose of your trip?”

“We’re with Adventure Tours. We serve an elite clientele who are willing to pay large sums of money for unique travels filled with adventure around the world. Now we’re scouting Syria, hoping to include it in one of our tours.”

Moustache turned to Wolf. “Show me your logbook.”

Wolf calmly led Moustache to the bridge and showed him the book. After examining it, the officer went below. Chris and the others followed. Moustache opened their luggage and rifled through the contents. As he was making a mess of Hannah’s suitcase, he found something that made him stop.

Moustache homed in on one section of Hannah’s suitcase and examined it—her undergarments.
He has an underwear fetish!

“You can have one, if you want,” Hannah said. “But you can’t have them all because I need something to wear.”

Moustache frowned then abruptly left the stateroom and ascended topside. He collected their money, stamped their passports—good for fifteen days—and attached an entry/exit card before hastily departing with his partner. Customs and immigration only came to the yacht club by appointment, and when their business was done, they didn’t stick around. Moustache and his partner hopped in a government car and departed.

Chris’s team arranged for Wolf to stay on board, and the other four climbed down a ladder and onto the pier. The warm, familiar scent of kebab halabi filled Chris’s nostrils, fresh tomatoes and Aleppo pepper wafting together. He inhaled deeply, dragging in its comfort, and a mass of Arabic voices filled his ears like sweet honey. The air was dryer here than in Dallas, relaxing him. He’d forgotten how much he liked it here. Syria could be poster-perfect.
And scrotum-shrinkingly scary.
He refocused his attention on his teammates.

Hannah, Jim Bob, and Victor joined Chris, stepped off the pier and walked across the beach with him. Although the customs and immigration officials worked for the Syrian government, the marina was privately owned and operated. The private security guard staring through his office window might intimidate hooligans and thieves, but he didn’t intimidate Chris. Behind the office area was a restaurant, the source of the palate party aromas.

Minutes later, two taxis picked up the four of them and their luggage. The taxis dropped them off at the entrance to the front lobby of the Afamia Rotana Resort. “We’ll check in before meeting in my villa,” Jim Bob said.

After checking in and picking up their card keys, they carried their bags into two adjacent two-room villas. Chris and Hannah shared one villa with separate rooms, and Jim Bob and Victor shared the other.

Chris and Hannah walked into the wide, well-lit space, passing a marble bathroom. Hannah continued to the window and looked out over the terrace. “With this view of the Mediterranean Sea and temperatures in the seventies, it’s perfect for a vacation,” she said.

It was ironic that he was with such a fearlessly gorgeous woman at a beach resort and yet they had such a dangerous job to do. “The Mediterranean looks better with you here.”

Delight spread across her face. “It’d look even better with both of us in the water.”

Chris smiled. “Syria would never be the same.”

She set her bags in a corner of the bedroom. “Sometimes I wish we could put the world on pause.”

Chris put his luggage in the opposite room and met her in the living room. “I was just thinking the same: What if we could put this mission on pause and just go for a swim?”

She picked up the television remote control and pressed a button. She laughed, but it seemed forced and cut off. If the look in her eyes meant the same thing he felt, it was an unresolved longing.

She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she reopened them, the look was gone. “We better get going.”

It saddened him, but he dutifully packed the unresolved longing back in its box and pushed it to the back of his mind. Consciously, he focused on the positive: being with Hannah on a mission was better than no time with her at all. “Yep.”

They left their villa and walked toward Jim Bob and Victor’s. As Chris and Hannah neared the other villa, Victor’s voice drifted through the thick shrubbery surrounding its terrace. Chris caught a glimpse of Victor through the foliage. He stood alone, talking quietly into his cell phone, but he wasn’t speaking English. They must’ve taken the wrong way, reaching the back of the villa instead of the front. Victor spotted them and stopped his conversation. Chris and Hannah changed direction and headed to the front.

“You recognize what language he was speaking?” she asked in a hushed voice.

“It sounded like he said Ras al-Basit, the name of a town near here,” Chris whispered. “The rest sounded Chinese. Why would he be speaking Chinese?”

“He seems to show more goodwill toward his Chinese phone caller than you. He’s been acting like you’re interrupting something. Thank you for agreeing to help me out on this one.”

Being around her delighted him. “Thank you for asking.”

They knocked on the front door of the villa. Jim Bob answered it, invited them in, and handed Hannah and Chris each a set of keys. “I’m giving both of you sets of keys to the SUV, courtesy of the Company. Inside are hidden compartments for your rifles and other goodies. Victor and I will take the van. We’re going to take a look at the mountain area near Tishreen Lake where reports say the Switchblade Whisper went down.”

Chris nodded, intensifying his focus on the mission.

“Then tonight, we’ll go back to retrieve it,” Jim Bob continued. “And Chris, you’ll blow up what we can’t carry out. Hannah, you’ll protect Chris while he blows the demo. Victor and I will carry the drone back to our vehicle. From there, we extract as planned.”

Chris and Hannah agreed.

Soon they were outside, and Hannah took the wheel of the SUV, and Chris sat shotgun as they followed Jim Bob’s vehicle out of the parking lot heading east until they turned right on Sports City Road. On their left, buildings rose high into the sky. A light breeze swayed the palm trees and
alfa
, Esparto grass, on the median dividing traffic lanes. To their right lay the ocean under an azure sky. They turned left onto Al Mahabba before reaching a roundabout and exiting to Route 1. The number of concrete high rises decreased, and farms appeared. The vehicles turned right and continued northeast, passing through a small town. After five klicks, the road narrowed, and they reached a military roadblock.

“Syrian Army,” Chris said. He felt uneasy, but he didn’t show it.

Jim Bob halted his van.

Hannah pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. “Not a good sign,” she said.

Jim Bob appeared to be trying to negotiate his way through the roadblock.

Chris continued to display a poker face, but his gut twisted.
This could all go south very quickly.

“Maybe they already found the Switchblade Whisper,” Hannah said.

Jim Bob turned his vehicle around.

She followed him as he headed back. “We need to get farther up the mountain,” she said with a hint of frustration in her voice.

Chris’s gut continued to churn. Even so, he maintained a positive attitude. “We just have to find another route. There has to be more than one way to the top of this mountain.”

When they reached Route 1, they drove northeast, looking for another way to the top. Nine klicks later, just after Route 1 narrowed, they found a paved road to the east and turned onto it. After a few curves, the road straightened out, leading them to the base of a mountainous area. When the paving ended, they continued along the dirt road, climbing in elevation for a klick until Jim Bob slowed, pulled off the road, and stopped. Hannah parked behind him.

Jim Bob and Victor stepped out of their van and joined Chris and Hannah in the SUV. “This is about as close as we’re going to get by vehicle,” Jim Bob said. “We can wait until nightfall to retrieve the Switchblade Whisper and hope it is still up here. The darkness will cover our movement, but if anyone catches us, no matter what story we give, we’re going to look suspicious. Or we can go now and use our Adventure Tours cover until we reach the Switchblade Whisper. Of course, if the Syrian Army catches us with it on the way back, smooth talking won’t do us much good. We’ll need to do some smooth shooting.”

“Let’s go now,” Victor said.

Jim Bob looked at Chris.

“I’d rather do a nighttime op than a daytime op, but it’s your call,” Chris said, meeting Jim Bob’s gaze. Whatever the decision, he hoped there’d be no need for shooting. He still hoped for a perfect op.

“I’m easy,” Hannah said. “Whatever you guys decide.”

“All right,” Jim Bob said. “Saddle up. We’ll pick up the Switchblade Whisper and go straight to the yacht.”

Jim Bob is a brave man. Or an idiot.

_______

“I
t should be about four klicks east of here,” Victor said with a nod. He looked back down at the GPS tracker and gestured to the others to follow—Jim Bob, then Chris, and Hannah bringing up the rear. Wearing their green Adventure Tour polo shirts and brown slacks, they still carried their concealed pistols. They stepped through long grass and wildflowers, passing myrtle bushes flowering with small explosions of white.

Victor signaled with two fingers:
two kilometers to go
. After the four crossed a dirt road, young fir trees surrounded them but not so many as to block out the fading sunlight. Thorny broom bushes scratched Chris’s left leg, but the scratches were the least of his worries.

Once Victor gave the one-kilometer signal, Jim Bob motioned for everyone to spread out. They continued for nearly the whole kilometer but found nothing. They backtracked—still nothing. Hannah wandered north then disappeared. Minutes later, she returned and signaled them to follow her. She led the crew through heavy vegetation until she stopped and pointed to a long grey shape at the base of several charred tree trunks. A grey angled line, too straight for Mother Nature and more like the wing of something manmade, broke the uneven lines of foliage.

They neared a wing. Its skin was glassy smooth, and there was no fuselage that they could find, part of the stealth design of the Switchblade Whisper. They’d found it. The starboard side had broken near a sensor pod, and the port side of the main structure and wing had broken into much smaller pieces. Among the wreckage were broken directional cameras that, when working, were used for projecting the surrounding environment onto the skin of the aircraft—making it virtually invisible.

Jim Bob pointed to a meter-long length of wing and gestured for Victor to take it. Then he disconnected the black box and placed it in his backpack. “Okay, Chris, blow it up,” Jim Bob said.

Victor turned to head back, but Hannah grabbed his arm and stopped him. He growled. “What’re you doing?”

“I’m going with the Switchblade Whisper,” she said.

“Your job is to stay here and protect Chris while he rigs the demo.”

“You stay here and protect Chris,” she said calmly.

“How am I supposed to carry this and guard him at the same time?”

Hannah took the length of wing from him. “I’ve got the wing.”

He glared at her.

“Is something wrong?” she asked innocently.

“I just don’t like the sudden change in plans,” Victor said.

“It’s all right, Victor,” Jim Bob said. “Let her carry the wing. You guard Chris.”

Jim Bob headed out, and Hannah followed.

Victor turned to watch Chris, who pulled a satchel charge of the highly classified explosive heptanitrocubane (CL-20) from his backpack. Packing more punch than TNT or HMX, CL-20 was the best non-nuclear explosive that money could buy. Chris attached the satchel to the main body of the Switchblade Whisper. From his left pocket, he removed a rectangular case made of high-impact plastic and opened it to expose a padded interior. He unfolded the pads, revealing a blasting cap. Chris inserted the blasting cap into the CL-20. Then he crimped the blasting cap into two timed fuses—
two is one and one is none
. Next, he screwed two fuse igniters tightly onto the fuses. With his left hand, he grasped the igniters, and with his right hand, he tugged on the lanyards until he heard them snap. The pungent odor of cordite smoldered a trail up his nostrils.
Fifteen minutes till boom-time.

“Fire in the hole,” he said. He turned to see if Victor had heard, but he was gone—they were all gone! Jim Bob and Hannah were probably hurrying to load the wing and the black box into the van, but Victor should’ve stayed and covered Chris’s six.

“Hey, you! Stop!” Fifty meters south, a middle-aged Syrian soldier in a tight-fitting uniform waved at Chris.

Ignoring the soldier, he tried to put some distance between himself and the Switchblade Whisper. If the soldier saw the drone and the explosives planted on it, Chris’s cover would be blown, they would frisk him and discover his pistol, and then his Adventure Tours cover wouldn’t mean squat.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the soldier raise his rifle. Chris kept walking away when a shot rang out, and the round popped the sound barrier as it barely missed his head, causing his sphincter to tighten. He’d experienced different kinds of being shot at, ranging from an ineffective enemy having no idea where he was to an effective enemy zeroing in for the kill, and this was the latter.

His heart beat faster, and he felt like he wasn’t getting blood to his head. His breathing became more rapid, and he craved oxygen. The commotion of birds in the trees became as loud as if they were perched on his head. With his physiology sped up, the soldier and leaves in the breeze seemed to move in slow motion. He’d thought with all the experiences of war, he’d assimilate quickly, but he’d thought wrong—he was shocked to find that he’d regressed to being a virgin SEAL.

Chris’s hand shook as he managed to draw his Glock and turn to face the man. Only the stippling on the pistol grip and his white-knuckled grasp kept Chris’s sweaty hands from losing the weapon. He tried for a shot to the upper torso, focusing on the soldier’s neck in order to compensate for the distance, but he failed to ensure that he could see the sights of his trembling pistol when he squeezed the trigger.

The first shot struck the soldier in the shoulder. The man dropped his rifle and spun around with a yelp before he retreated. Before Chris could escape the area, a square-shouldered soldier came into view pointing his rifle at Chris.

Slow it down and aim
, Chris tried to calm himself. This time, he carefully aligned his sights across the soldier’s neck. He coolly pulled the trigger back until the weapon fired.
Pop
. In the chest.
Pop
. Another in the chest. One moment the soldier was full of life, and now he was dead—like a marionette with its strings suddenly severed. It made him nauseous.

There was no time to dwell on his reversion to virgin SEAL or his nauseated stomach. The other soldiers would soon outnumber and outgun him, and he didn’t want to stick around for face time with the grim reaper.

Isn’t someone from my team going to come back and help me?

He ran through the broom bushes that had scratched him before, but now he didn’t feel their thorns. He recognized the dirt road they’d crossed before—
a couple more klicks to the vehicles
. He hurried across the road, but twenty-five meters to the north, a black-hooded figure walked toward him carrying an AK. So close to government troops, Chris could only guess the Black Hood was with the anti-government forces, possibly al Qaeda. Black Hood noticed Chris and pulled up his rifle to take aim. Chris fired the first shot, rushing it. He missed, but Black Hood lowered his weapon and ran away.

Must’ve scared him off.

Two more Black Hoods reared their heads and blasted in Chris’s direction. Chris reined in his runaway breathing and heartbeat. He took an extra moment to aim at the right hood before squeezing the trigger.
Pop
. The man twitched once before thudding to the earth. The other Black Hood switched to full auto and sprayed his AK at Chris. Amid the terrifying noise, Chris’s left thigh was hit. Caught off balance, he fell.
I’m shot! He shot me in the leg!
The enemy was down, too, but he wasn’t dead. Chris would be dead if he didn’t do something soon. Ignoring the excruciating pain in his leg, he brought his pistol up and skipped the easier upper torso shot in favor of a more difficult shot—head.
Pop
. Black Hood ate dirt. His body went into what looked like an epileptic seizure before becoming still. Pain-filled panic punched through him.

As Chris turned to take a look at his own injury, he spotted an odd assortment of electronics on the ground. He checked his thigh for blood but only discovered electronics spilling out of it. For a moment, he felt like a wounded cyborg until he realized that the AK round had struck the cell phone in his thigh pocket. Some pieces of phone were sticking out of his leg, but the phone had deflected the bullet.
Luckiest man in the world
—or so he thought, until the woods rustled to the north with more Black Hoods, and the woods to the south chattered with advancing Syrian soldiers.

Chris crawled between the white flowering myrtle bushes. One piece of phone was particularly painful, and he pulled it out so he could move without being stabbed by it. The sounds of angry men intensified. He glanced to the south where six soldiers broke through the forest. Men’s voices chattered from the north—seven more Black Hoods. He had become an ass sandwich.

For the first time in years, he was afraid—an emotion he’d known intimately. It was okay to be afraid, that was human, but it wasn’t okay to let the fear take control of him; he had to control the fear.

Breathe
. Respiration was one of the most basic elements to human functioning, and through it, he controlled the fear. He formed his lips into a tight circle to direct the flow of oxygen straight to his lungs and slowly inhaled as much air as his lungs could hold. Then he slowly released it all. He breathed with the rhythm of swimming long distance; it was his rhythm. With each breath, his pulse rate slowed and his body temperature became normal. Although he’d controlled the fear, he was no match for the superior enemy forces still closing in. Then he remembered his training as a minister at Harvard and the mentorship of Reverend Luther. He remembered God. And he prayed.

The bushes wouldn’t protect him from bullets, but they might conceal him from enemy eyes. Shots were fired from the south, then the west. Chris’s heart picked up speed again as the firepower increased in volume and intensity. He suddenly realized they weren’t shooting at him.
The soldiers and Black Hoods are shooting at each other!

He crawled through the bushes until he reached the long grass and wildflowers.
If I can just make it to the SUV, I’ll have mobility. And the HK416’s salvo.

Chris moved forward and winced. One of the pieces of electronics worked its way out of his leg, but another seemed to be digging in deeper. Sweat stung his eyes, and tree roots and rocks bruised his knees. He pulled the last bloody piece of cell phone out of his leg before he finally neared the SUV. His spirits rose—until he realized he wasn’t the only one who’d reached it. He fell flat as three Syrian soldiers approached the vehicle on foot.

His muscles tensed, and he tasted the salt of his sweat.
Can I take them?
Armed only with a pistol, it would be risky.
Maybe I should wait them out.
But more soldiers were likely to arrive soon
. If they search the area, I’m done for.
It would be better to fight them when there were only three than when there was a whole platoon.
Now I have surprise on my side—later, I may not.
He quietly ejected the partially spent magazine from his Glock and replaced it with a full magazine—fifteen rounds. He aimed at the head of the soldier nearing the SUV. Chris exhaled, waiting for his lungs to expel all the air, waiting for the motionless pause of his upper body before inhaling. As he neared the right moment, his finger slowly drew the slack out of the trigger. In his peripheral vision, he saw the soldier reach for the SUV door handle. Chris’s lungs had deflated. He squeezed the trigger, trying not to anticipate the loud report, trying to let the shot surprise him.

BOOM!

The suddenness of the explosion jolted even Chris. It took out the Syrian soldier and his buddies, and a hunk of metal whizzed by, nicking Chris’s shoulder. The heat burned hot enough to nearly singe his eye-lashes, and the earth shook.
What happened?
He glanced at the sky for an aircraft that could’ve fired a missile—nothing.
Suicide bomber?
It was a possibility.
But the timing…
The soldier had been just about to unlatch the door…

Victor
. Chris’s surprise turned to the urge to shoot Victor for trying to kill him. But he wasn’t sure Victor was the culprit, and killing him in anger would be akin to murder—especially for a minister.

Now that the explosion had been heard for miles around, there was no need to be quiet. Chris rose to his feet and quickly limped past the smoking twisted metal and dismembered bodies. Half of a soldier, stinking of burned flesh, hung suspended from a tree. It was disgusting to look at but mesmerizingly morbid at the same time. He forced his head to turn away out of respect for the dead soldier.

The blood rushed to his head, and his nostrils flared as he descended the mountain.

That explosion was meant for Hannah and me.