The Maverick Experiment (3 page)

“Good to meet you, Dustin. Looking forward to working with you.”

“Yes, it should be interesting.”

“And this is Randy Keller. He will be assisting you with any operational or planning issues. He was a medic and worked with the US Army Special Forces before coming to us. Additionally, he was trained by the agency in utilizing certain interrogation techniques and substances that you may not have used before. A little bit of brains mixed with more brawn and
some heavy medication can go a long way. I think you two will get along well.”

“Good to meet you, sir.”

“You too, Randy, and no need to call me sir.”

Randy had the look more typical of operators Derek knew; he was shorter than Derek had expected but looked tougher than nails. Even the slight beer gut that he had acquired over the years seemed solid. Randy had a large, bushy beard and wore a hat backwards. A full-sleeve tattoo ran down his right arm, rounding out the tough-guy look.

Derek took note of the tier-one hat that Randy wore: military green with a subdued American flag on it. Wearing one didn't make him tier one by any means, but it was often tier-one elements such as Delta Force and SEAL Team Six who wore them, Derek knew. Most tier-one hats had Velcro patches so the wearer could apply infrared tape or other indicators that would help during night operations.

Even if Randy wasn't tier one, Derek knew he would be good coming from Special Forces.

“So now that you three have met, let's get to business. Take a seat, everyone.”

“One quick question: Where are the other two people?” asked Derek.

“En route. Everyone should be here by tonight.”

“Good luck finding this place at night,” Derek said, chuckling.

Carlisle walked to the front of the room and grabbed the remote control. When he pushed a button, the image on the TV went from Fox News to a schedule.

“This is what we are looking at. You guys will be cramming training exercises into a short period of time. I understand the fact that skydiving isn't exactly an activity you should cram, but don't worry; we have the best instructors there are, and if we didn't think you were capable, fast learners, then you wouldn't be here. Mac, the head trainer, will get you squared away, no question. Just follow instructions. He was the best of the best and could probably still school all of you guys.”

“How old is he?” asked Randy.

“Sixty-four. Any other questions? No? Good.”

Carlisle focused his attention toward the big screen again. “So, to the schedule. You will learn some essential background information this afternoon, just as soon as I'm finished talking. Then you will learn to pack chutes tonight and go over all that you have discussed. In the morning, you do your first jump. The instructors will jump with you, and if all goes well, you will continue to advance in the difficulty of jumps as the week progresses. The goal is to have you doing HALO jumps by next week …”

Derek's eyes widened slightly as he listened. HALO jumps started at high altitudes and involved an extremely long free fall and precise timing to open the chute as close to the ground as possible. If it was done right, it was far easier to maintain stealth. If you screwed up, they sent you home in a trash bag.

“You will have one-on-one instruction, so you should learn this stuff fast.”

“And what if we don't?” asked Grimes.

“Then you go home. Any other questions?”

“I guess not.”

“Your instructor will be waiting for you out at the hangar. I would start heading there now.”

“So, are we just going to catch the other guys up when they get here?”

“There will only be four of you attending tonight's jump class. Carson will not be able to make it, but he's coming with lots of jump experience from his current unit. He'll link up with you in the morning.”

“Will he jump with us?”

“Everyone jumps. You are a team now. Miller will join you tonight as well. He needs a refresher, like Randy.”

“How many times have you jumped, Randy?” asked Derek.

“HALO? Zero. I went through basic jump school, but since I wasn't on a HALO team, I never actually received HALO training. I was in line for it but never got it.”

“Gotcha. OK, and what is Miller's story, Carlisle? Who is he?”

“Miller is your sniper and a very capable operator. He was an eighteen bravo with Special Forces but never served on a HALO team, either. He and Randy go way back.”

Derek had no further questions about Miller's qualifications; an 18B was a Green Beret weapons sergeant. Sounded like a good guy to have along.

“He's also combat diver–certified. Should come in handy when you guys return and go through that school. I figure you won't be swimming much in Afghanistan, though.”

They all laughed as they began to exit the room.

“Have fun,” Carlisle said. “I look forward to hearing about great results. I'm headed back to Washington. We'll be in touch.”

Monday, January 4
Washington, DC
FDR Memorial
0814 Hrs

Carlisle and Jerry strolled around the FDR monument on a chilly Monday morning. After admiring the monument, they continued their conversation on the walkway, which encircled the tidal basin.

Jerry sipped his coffee and asked, “So, how are they doing down there? Is training progressing as we would like?”

“I think so. It's day five, and they are all doing really well. Derek picked everything up very quickly, just as we expected. He's really something, Jerry. Some people are just born to do this stuff. He's the only one in the unit without some type of active-duty military experience, yet he has as much military experience as almost any of them.”

“How does that work?”

“Well, he was always fortunate with his previous outfits. He received military training to work with multiple tier-one units as their intelligence adviser, so he needed to be on par, or close to it, with their skills in order to participate in some high-speed operations. He's about as squared away as they come.” Carlisle gave Jerry a careful look. “You can't train instincts; you're either born with them or not. Derek has them.”

“Good. That's really good, because he is in charge. I want to make sure we are real clear with our men that this is a tactical intelligence unit, and I emphasize intelligence. I don't want this crew going and doing more door kicking and tactical operations than necessary.” Jerry hugged himself against the cold and leaned back to look at the FDR Memorial. “This isn't our old team, Carlisle. The world is a different place, the agency is a different place. I want brains, not brawn, for a lot of these operations. We all know they can kill brutally, but can they do it smartly?”

“We will be really clear with them, I promise.”

“You better be, or it's my ass. This is your group, Carlisle. I don't have the time to run it, and I certainly can't afford to be too close to it. If something goes wrong, it is GDSI's problem, not the agency's. Understand?”

“Absolutely. I will do my best to keep things as we discussed. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Good. How is Rayna?”

“She's good. Feeling a bit better, I think.”

“Good. Give her my best.”

Friday, January 8
Everglades, Florida
30,000 feet
2159 Hrs

The hum of the plane's engine was deafening, but the team had grown used to it. After all, they had jumped dozens of times over the course of the past couple weeks. Their jumps had been from low to high altitudes during both night and day. Still, the most difficult would be tonight's jump into the wilderness of the Florida Everglades. Their objective was to safely complete the jump and navigate their way to a rendezvous point where a vehicle was to pick them up. It had not been made clear whether the exercise would end there or not. The only thing Derek and his team knew was that they were being dropped into dense marshland, complete with twelve-foot alligators. And that was assuming they didn't run across the chance drug smuggler's camp.

They were jumping with nothing except their individual night-vision goggles, their jump gear, and their packs with some water, a GPS, and a map. Derek assumed that the others, like himself, also had their personal knives on them. They certainly were not equipped for an encounter with drug runners—or alligators, for that matter.

Two minutes out, a member of the flight crew signaled. Derek signaled his team, and they readied themselves for the jump. The door opened. Derek grabbed on to the plane and
watched, ensuring his teammates made it out safely before he followed. The team accelerated to terminal velocity—nearly two hundred miles per hour—as they descended toward the earth's surface. Derek focused on his jump procedures but also wondered what waited for him when he landed.

The skies were hazy that night, but all was going well until the team realized what was beneath them. Though they were equipped with night-vision goggles, it wasn't until the last minute that they were able to make out the black, soupy mess that they were approaching at a high rate of speed. With the others, Derek released his chute, hoping they would be able to steer beyond the water's edge, or at least into shallower waters.

“Ahh, shit!” mumbled Derek as he touched down and disappeared momentarily under the swampy surface.

The team had been able to steer closer to shallower waters, but not completely. They were at least seventy-five meters from land, and they weren't alone. The Everglades, by sheer statistics, promised that an alligator or several were close by, trolling the waters.

The team touched down within close proximity of one another. They released themselves from their chutes and began swimming. Not knowing the pilot would be dropping them over a body of water, none of them had brought fins with them. In fact, they had been told not to bring them.

Funny how this reeks of disaster. They're testing us in more ways than one, thought Derek as he swam vigorously through the swampy waters, reliving scenes he'd seen on the Discovery Channel showing alligators and crocs ripping through their prey.

“Oh, fuck!” he heard Carson say in a stage-whisper, as an alligator cruised past and then disappeared beneath the surface.

The dark and murky waters provided the gators a cloak of invisibility. If they weren't visible on the surface, that probably just meant they were lurking beneath. If a gator did attack, it would be without notice, and a switchblade knife was not going to be enough to stop it.

Fortunately, seventy-five meters was not a long way for highly trained operators to swim. The image of large alligators had them all stroking for the shore like Olympians. Too bad nobody was timing them … or were they?

After a few minutes, the men reached the shore, which was nothing more than soupy wetland full of high saw grass. Each step made a sucking sound in the muck, making it difficult to keep their balance.

“Can't we just keep swimming? This shit is nasty,” whispered Randy.

“Just keep your eyes open,” replied Derek.

The men continued slogging their way through the marshy land toward their rendezvous point. At this rate, given their off-course landing, they would never make it in time. Maybe they didn't expect us to make it, thought Derek.

They had pushed on for another fifty meters when Derek heard something. He thrust his fist in the air to signal his team to stop and be silent. Instantly, they all dropped to a kneeling position and remained motionless. Derek and Randy peered around intensely, looking for the source of the noise that had caused Derek to stop. After kneeling silently for what seemed like an agonizingly long time, Derek stood and signaled his team to continue forward.

The team traveled for another minute before hearing the noise again. This time it was closer and more pronounced.
Then the sound of an engine erupted into the night, and several bodies appeared out of the saw grass surrounding the team. A blinding flood lamp switched on, illuminating the team's position, and the twenty-plus armed bodies surrounding them began to converge on Derek and his men.

Miller took a rifle butt to the face and fell, stunned, to the marsh. Derek's knife ripped through the sleeve and arm of one of the armed men before he was struck in the back with an AK-47. The rest of the team put their hands in the air as weapon barrels pointed in their faces. They were all subdued and in zip ties within sixty seconds. Whoever these people were, Derek realized they were professionals. He and his team were dragged onto two airboats and taken off into the marsh.

Over the roar of the airboat fan, Derek could hear the two men behind the driver's seat speaking in Spanish. It was too dark to tell if they were native speakers, but they sure sounded like it. Two additional men held onto the sides of the boat, keeping their rifles trained on Derek and his team. There were two other teammates on Derek's boat, Miller and Grimes, the logistics guy.

The two boats sped through the Everglades for nearly a half hour before they felt a bump. They partially pulled up onto land, and the men who captured them began to rally and gather Derek's team, taking them off the boat in a line. Their captors shoved the team forcefully up to a small compound about thirty meters from the water's edge. Once at the compound, the team was crammed into a room big enough for three, maybe four, people.

“Get the fuck off me!” yelled Carson.

“Carson, shut the fuck up and be quiet!” screamed Randy.

Derek looked around, surveying his surroundings. He had noticed before being thrown into the room at least twenty more armed guards at the compound, bringing the total to more than forty. A pretty big operation for SERE training. Plus, under the lights of the compound, he had been able to see that the men all looked foreign except for one. This wasn't good. The American-looking man stood in the distance, speaking to what seemed like a high-ranking guard or soldier, just before they had been shoved into their cell.

“OK, listen up,” Derek said.

The men kept chattering nervously.

“Hey! Listen up!” screamed Derek. The others fell silent, and he continued. “We all know what to do, just cooperate and look out for each other until we can figure something out, OK? I am sure they will isolate us at some point here. Just shut your fucking mouths and tell them nothing. Got it?”

The men looked around and nodded in agreement. The door swung open, and three guards yanked Grimes outside. The rest of the team scurried to try to help him, but with their hands zip tied behind their backs, their efforts were fruitless.

“Stop. What the fuck?” Grimes yelled at the guards “Just wait, just wait a fucking second! What do you want from us? I can help you if you just tell me what you want!” The door slammed as Grimes was hauled outside.

The men could hear him scuffling with the guards as he was dragged away to God knew where. As Grimes and his captors got farther away, the sounds became muffled, with the exception of random shouting. The rest of the men on Derek's team stared at each other, wondering where Grimes had been
taken. The compound hadn't appeared to be too large, so he couldn't be too far.

Pop
. The distinct sound of a single gunshot broke the silence and echoed throughout the compound. Derek and the others stared at one another in astonishment, realizing that Grimes had been assassinated not more than a few dozen yards away.

Seconds later the door swung open, and Derek was yanked from the crowd of men. Again, efforts to help got nowhere. Derek was out of the room, and the door was shut again as quickly as it opened.

Derek was dragged through a courtyard where the pavement was now covered with blood. In the distance he could see three soldiers dragging away a body, but it was too dark for him to see if it was Grimes. Things weren't looking good at all.

Derek remained silent and went where the guards shoved him. As he reached his destination, a small, dark room directly across from where the other men were being held, he saw another one of his men pulled from the room, this time Miller. Derek's door slammed shut. Darkness.

Not a moment had passed before another gunshot echoed through the camp. Derek squinted and clenched his fists. Two of his men were down. He asked himself why he had been spared. His cell wasn't overly fortified, but with his hands zip tied, he didn't have many options. The walls of his cell looked as though they were made of thick bamboo poles, driven into the ground and tied with rope. There was a thatched roof, and the floor was the same soggy marshland they'd been walking through when they were captured.