Trident's First Gleaming: A Special Operations Group Thriller (14 page)

Two and a half hours later, they switched roles. Chris took the wheel. He knew the roads, so he didn’t need a navigator, so Hannah only needed to keep a lookout for trouble. Sonny slept in the back, snoring loudly like a twenty-mike-mike auto cannon.

Hannah checked her cell phone. “The embassy attack is on the Internet news. Shortly after, some Turkish border patrol officers and innocent bystanders were killed at the Kasab Border Crossing Terminal.”

“Mordet,” Chris said.

“We really need to stop him.”

“Most definitely.” Chris wiped the sleep out of his eyes as they travelled east through the middle of Syria. “Hey, I wanted to ask you something,” he said, changing the topic. “Before I fell asleep, I heard you tell Sonny you’re from Hawaii.”

“Oh?” she said casually.

“But you told me you were from East LA.”

“Okay,” she said.

“So which is it?” he asked.

“Which what?”

“Are you from LA or Hawaii?”

“Which do you prefer?”

He felt awkward but pressed on. “That’s not what I asked.”

“Okay,” she said.

Chris modified his question. “Why would you tell us two different stories?”

“The less information you know, the better. If you’re ever captured, they’ll make you tell everything you know about me and everyone else so—”

Chris cut her off. “They won’t take me alive.”

Hannah became silent for a moment. “You depend too much on it.”

“On what?”

“Truth.”

“How so?” he asked.

“Truth is subjective and relative.”

“You really believe that?”

“Don’t you?” she asked.

“Truth is objective and absolute. It’s not so complicated.”

“Sometimes I like complications,” she admitted. “But most people believe what they want to believe. And …that is their truth.”

“What about you?” he asked. “What do you believe?”

“Whatever helps me thrive. That is my truth.”

They became quiet for a minute.

“You think Sonny would ever allow himself to be captured by terrorists?” she asked.

“I don’t know of any Unit guys who’d allow themselves to be taken alive. Sonny seems to have that same attitude.” Chris paused. “What about you?”

“I don’t know,” Hannah replied. “I guess it would depend on the situation. After what Mordet did to your ear? After what he did to Young, and worse, my asset? Either we take Mordet down or die trying because I won’t be a warm meal for that maniac. He’ll have to eat me cold.”

_______

I
n the afternoon, Sonny kept watch and an eye on the GPS tracker. “The signal just disappeared,” he said.

Chris drove. “Are you sure?”

“The GPS tracker shows our location on the map, but the device’s signal is gone.”

Chris drove to the Euphrates River and followed it south. Then he rolled into Al-Bukamal. “We should probably find a place to stage our gear,” Chris said.

“Sounds good.”

He drove them to a run-down part of town where he found a motel and parked in back. “I’m going to rent us a place,” he said.

“You need backup?” Sonny asked.

He smiled. “Not this time.”

“Good. I’ll wake up Sleeping Beauty, then.” Sonny winked, and Chris just shook his head.

Minutes later, he returned with a key. Hannah and Sonny exited the car, and Chris escorted them on foot to a run-down motel that rented rooms out by the hour. Inside the room, he unlocked the door, reached in, and turned on the light. A cockroach scurried away. The small, dingy room for two felt cramped with the three of them inside, but it could’ve been worse. They took turns showering in the worn and rusted bathroom.

After they’d all freshened up, Hannah said, “I want the Switchblade Whisper’s black box.” Determination was etched across her features, hard and cold like marble.

“I want to kill Mordet,” Sonny added.

“If this op is successful, there’ll be no shooting,” Chris reminded him. “We’ll insert quietly, grab the black box, and exfil like ninjas. If it hits the fan, there’ll be no air support or QRF, so we’ll be on our own.”

“Can’t blame a guy for wanting,” Sonny said.

They made plans while preparing their gear.

“I nominate Chris to be point man on this,” Sonny said. “He’s been here before, and he knows the area best.”

“Agree,” Hannah said.

“Most of the people in this area would rather kill an American than look at one,” Chris said. “They won’t ask to hear our cover story. And it’s possible that Mordet will be waiting to ambush us.”

“We’ll need to carry a lot more than pistols,” Sonny said.

Chris and Hannah agreed.

After staging his gear, Chris studied the GPS again and again to make sure he knew the area. Preparations complete, they waited until midnight, when they loaded into their stolen sedan and motored to the edge of town.

Hannah kept her eyes on the street as Chris drove. “It’s too quiet,” she said.

“Like they’re expecting us,” Chris said.

Chris parked the car beside a small school. Others had parked their vehicles there, too. They stepped out of their car, and carrying their rifles and some grenades, Chris led them quickly across the school grounds to a dark patch of weeds under trees blocking the moonlight. They lay there for fifteen minutes to make sure no one was alerted to their insertion, while a pair of flies buzzed around them.

When it seemed no welcoming committee was on its way, Chris slipped across a paved street and descended concrete stairs to a filthy area that seemed like a cross between a parking lot, a backyard, and a road. Half a burned-out car lay in the weeds. Like many places his missions had taken him, it was difficult to figure out where one property ended, another began, and where public property was.

They turned a corner and stepped over concrete bricks scattered on a walkway made of large concrete tiles. Then they passed between two houses. Weeds poked up between cracks in the concrete. They descended another flight of steps to a dirt road that led uphill. The sound of footsteps crossed behind one of the houses, but it wasn’t clear who, what, or exactly where.

Chris led them through the maze of buildings. Thinking about finding Mordet’s plantation sped up his breathing and heart rate. It had been years since he’d infiltrated the area, and this was the first time he’d passed through the city on the way to the plantation. The source of much of his anxiety was his desire to keep his teammates safe.

Someone darted across the alley up ahead, then he was gone.
Not good.
Chris hand signaled the sighting back to Hannah who signaled it back to Sonny. Then someone else passed.
Not good.
Once more, Chris passed back the signal.
Did they see us insert?
Probably not.
Do they know we’re coming?
Mordet might’ve put them on alert.
Do Mordet’s friends know when we’re coming?
Probably not.

After patrolling past a public trash receptacle, they turned down another alley. Suddenly, a young man in his twenties appeared carrying an AK. He aimed the AK at Chris. It happened so fast that he had no time to think—only time to react. It was the kid or Chris, and if the kid took Chris out, he might take out Hannah or Sonny, too, and he wasn’t going to let that happen. He fired twice into the kid’s chest and once to his head. Chris’s sound suppressor was quieter than a rifle shot, but it wasn’t silent. Someone had probably heard the noise but wouldn’t know that it was a rifle shot. If that someone discovered the body, the real shooting would begin, sooner rather than later. There was no time for gazing into his belly and contemplating the tragedies of war, and there was no time to feel sorrow for the kid or his parents, who’d never get to say good-bye. Even if there was time, Chris couldn’t carry such burdens of sorrow on top of the burdens of keeping his friends alive and accomplishing the mission. If Chris wanted his friends to survive, he had to keep his head in combat mode.

He moved swiftly to the body, picked up the AK, handed it to Hannah, and signaled for her and Sonny to guard him. Chris picked up the bloody kid using a fireman’s carry and went back to the public trash bin. He raised the lid and dumped him inside—for a minister, such a burial was unthinkable, but for a SEAL, such a burial was necessary. Chris locked compassion and mercy inside a box, and replaced them with ruthless efficiency. He grabbed the AK from Hannah and tossed it in with the kid before closing the lid.

Chris resumed walking the point. They crossed an asphalt street and kept close to the buildings to stay out of the moonlight. He was careful not to walk too close to the buildings, though. If shooting broke out, bullets would have the tendency to skip along walls until they struck someone. He didn’t want to be that someone.

They turned another corner, passed through an empty lot, and climbed up some stairs. Most of the buildings were shaded variations of white or grey. The whole city was starting to look the same.

Am I traveling in circles?

He wanted to check his GPS but disciplined himself not to—a lit screen would draw too much attention to him. Instead, he made a mental note of the business signs written in Arabic above store entrances and used them as landmarks.

The shops and other buildings gave way to farmland, first on the right side of the road, then the left, until they traversed through fields and passed farmhouses. The trio made their way into a patch of date palm trees that bordered Professor Mordet’s land. The trees would give them cover and concealment. Chris lay down behind a palm tree, and Hannah and Sonny joined him on the ground. They observed the front of the two-story French colonial plantation house. This time, its presence lacked the eeriness of last time.

“Something is different,” Chris whispered, but he couldn’t quite discern what it was.

“Maybe you’re different,” Sonny said. “It’s been awhile since you’ve been here.”

“Maybe.” Then he remembered: the heavy hand of gloom that had pressed down on him the last time he was here; it wasn’t pressing down on him this time.
Maybe Mordet isn’t here.

A guard sat on a large wooden chair outside on the first floor porch with an AK lying across his lap. There would be at least one other guard on the back porch and one inside. Chris and Sonny circled around to the left of the guard, and Chris administered him his last rites.

Hannah linked up with Chris and Sonny, and they crept around to the back, but there was no guard there. They continued around the building until they reached a door on the side of the house, and Chris picked the lock without any difficulty. Chris opened the door. It all felt too easy.

Sonny rushed in and commanded the living room. Hannah and Chris followed. The fancy furniture and French windows looked the way he remembered. They methodically scoured the first floor. This time, he had only two teammates, and it took more than twice as long to clear the rooms. Although Hannah was talented at room clearing, more than many military guys, her Agency training and experiences didn’t focus on it; rather, her training and experience focused on recruiting agents in hostile countries and using those agents to gather intelligence. Even though room clearing stretched Hannah’s job description, her ability to run with the big dogs was impressive.
First deck clear.

Similarly, they worked through the upper deck until they reached Professor Mordet’s room. This time, the heavy feeling wasn’t present. Chris checked the doorknob. It turned.

He pushed the door open, and Sonny stormed inside. Hannah moved behind him, and Chris brought up the rear. The bed was made and there was no sign of Mordet.

“Where is he?” Sonny asked.

Chris shook his head.

They searched his room and the rest of the second floor for intelligence and put a laptop, flash drives, DVDs, papers, and other materials in their backpacks.

Minutes later, they worked through the first deck, including the kitchen.

Hannah opened the refrigerator. “There’s no food in here,” she said. “He’s not likely to come back anytime soon.”

Sonny grabbed a container of bottled water and took a drink. “Maybe he eats out a lot.”

Her eyes shifted to an odd-looking squat white pot sitting on a counter plugged in to a wall. “Whoa,” she said.

“What is it?” Chris asked.

She walked over to the pot and opened the top. “Looks like a dehydrator.” She took the top off. Inside were three trays stacked on top of each other. The top tray was clean. She pulled the first tray off and examined the second tray—nothing. In the bottom tray she found something—a piece of dried meat.

Sonny reached for it. “Beef jerky.”

“You don’t know who that might be,” Chris said.

Sonny appeared confused. “What?”

“Professor Mordet likes to eat people,” Hannah explained. “Let me bag that.”

Sonny’s confused face twisted into disgust. “What in God’s name?”

“Not in God’s name,” Chris said. “About as far from God as Satan can hide.”

She opened drawers and looked inside them.

“Who do you think it is?” Chris asked.

She found a Ziploc bag, sealed the dried meat in it, and pocketed the bag. “We’re going to find out.”

They examined the living room and dining area before Chris checked a storage closet. It was bare except for an old shirt hanging from a hook. Chris pushed aside the shirt. Mounted on the exposed wall was a security alarm monitor. Two small lights were blinking red like machine gun fire:
armed
and
alarm
.

_______

C
hris ran into the living room. “We tripped an alarm!”

Hannah dropped a pillow on the couch. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

“Go, go, go!” Sonny shouted.

Chris glanced out the front window. Truckloads of men armed with AKs rolled up the road toward the plantation.

“They’re out front!” he said. “Take the back door!” Hannah was closest to the back door and reached it first. She unlocked it, threw it open, and dashed. Sonny and Chris followed close behind.

Outside, Chris’s feet hit the dirt at a sprint. They’d covered the first twenty-five meters through open territory when someone shouted in Arabic, “There they are!” A truckload of men gave chase. More truckloads followed. Chris had a vague sense of shots being fired, but he didn’t know if he’d felt the heat or heard the pop. In that moment, he was more worried about getting run over by a truck than getting hit by a bullet. The engine noises became louder, the vehicles getting closer. Before the trucks could strike them, though, the trio diverted into a patch of palms. The trucks stopped, and the occupants jumped out to pursue Chris’s team on foot.

Chris ran as fast as he could, but it didn’t seem fast enough, especially when he exited the cover of the trees and hauled ass through an open field, exposed to gunfire. Now his pursuers were close behind. They had the advantage of numbers, but Chris had the advantage of being scared. He pumped his thighs harder and faster. His feet struck awkward angles in the furrowed field, and he stumbled but didn’t fall.

He weaved around one farmhouse then another, using the buildings to block incoming bullets. One truck full of Syrians sped parallel to their right flank. The noise of AK rounds reported from their location. This time, he heard the distinctive sonic snaps of slugs that were meant for him.

The trucks turned onto a dirt road that threatened to cut off their escape.

We have to make it across the road. If we can make it to the city buildings ahead, we’ll escape their line of fire.

Noise and heat in the air increased like the inside of a popcorn popper. Chris dug deep inside of himself to muster every last atom of strength as he bounded over the road ahead of Hannah and Sonny.

Gotta lose these AKs
.

Hannah and Sonny followed close behind. Chris passed between two buildings then cut a diagonal route left through the first block of buildings in the city, giving his team some protection from the enemy’s sight and bullets. They bolted through an outdoor market, closed for the evening.

Then they cut a right diagonal and ran straight under an arch. In front of them, a road stretched seventy-five meters until it reached a three-story-tall sandstone minaret. Chris’s eyes swiftly followed from the base to the shaft and up to the gallery on top. Instead of a call for prayer, a flash of light and a bang emitted from inside from the gallery.

Something that felt like a hot knife sliced the side of his neck. “Shit!” he yelled.

He spun 180 degrees, retreated, and bumped into Hannah. He grabbed her and pulled her under the arch and around the corner.
Damn
. Given the choice between fighting one sniper or truckloads of militia, Chris chose the sniper. He gestured toward the sniper’s location and signaled for Hannah and Sonny to defend his flank while he tried to take out the threat. He crawled behind a car parked on the curb. Lying on his belly, he poked his head and rifle around the tire until the minaret gallery came into view. Pushing farther, he spotted the gallery window opening and the sniper. Only the sniper’s upper shoulders and head were exposed. The sniper was no dummy. Chris would have to attempt a head shot, and if he didn’t shoot accurately and fast enough, the sniper would nail Chris’s head in the dirt.

He hardly had time to briefly assess the situation. The surrounding buildings blocked the wind, so a breeze wouldn’t cause his round to drift. Then he calculated the approximate distance and height of the sniper’s head from the ground. He adjusted his aim. There was no time to wait for the calm pause between his lungs inhaling and exhaling, so he held his breath to keep his lungs still. He squeezed the trigger efficiently—slow enough not to jerk it and throw off his aim but fast enough to have a fighting chance. He felt helplessly suspended without control in the fraction of a second before the truth be known.

A metallic crack sounded above his head. A sniper bullet hit the car bumper. His heart skipped a beat, but he was in a zone, and it didn’t matter.

The rifle’s butt stock recoiled sweetly in his shoulder. He already knew the result before he saw it.
Perfect
. The sniper’s bloodstained head slowly descended below the window sill.

Remembering the sniper’s first shot, Chris touched his neck—no blood.
Weird.
He crawled back out of his position.

“I can’t believe you said
shit
,” Hannah whispered.

Chris stood up to a crouch, still mostly concealed by the vehicle, and scanned the area. A ladder led up to the ledge beside the arch. He climbed up to the ledge and poked his head around the corner, looking out over the arch. A second-floor window in a building to the right had the best strategic field of fire to cover a large area. Chris saw the safest route to reach the position. He wasn’t the only one who recognized the strategic value of the window. Someone poked his AK out of it and panned toward him. Chris took a shot before the man in the window could take his. The man slumped out of sight.

Chris slid back down the ladder. He climbed up on the roof of a car, and Hannah and Sonny followed. Chris jumped from the car, grabbed a ledge, and pulled himself up to the second floor. Now they were terribly exposed to multiple angles of fire: street avenues, windows, doorways, building corners, and surely more places he couldn’t see. He had to move quickly to exit the danger zone. When he arrived in front of the second-floor strategic window, he came face-to-face with another man wielding an AK.
Shit.
He didn’t even aim, jerking the trigger four times at point-blank range. The man shook like a scarecrow in a windstorm. They were still exposed outside on the ledge, and he didn’t wait for the man to fall out of his path. He jabbed him with the HK416 muzzle and knocked him to the floor.

Chris bounded inside—a bedroom. He capped a round in the skulls of the two bodies on the floor, stepped over them, and turned a corner.

He followed a staircase down, but before he reached the landing, another man appeared. Chris and the man fired at each other at the same time. One round grazed Chris’s shoulder, but Chris’s round tore into the guy’s chest, followed swiftly by a second round. The man tumbled backward down the steps, out of sight. Chris rounded the corner of the landing. The body lay on its back on the stairs, his head pointed to the bottom. Chris administered the coup de grace—he would take no chances of tangos rising from the dead.

Chris climbed the steps and hooked up with Hannah and Sonny in the bedroom. “With all the activity here,” he said, “the rest of the neighborhood seems to know the strategic value of this window. Now this spot doesn’t seem like such a great idea anymore.”

“But this is prime real estate to knock the piss out of them,” Sonny said. “Then they’ll leave us alone, so we can get out of here.”

“I agree,” Hannah said.

“Okay,” Chris said. “Hannah, take that corner on the first landing and watch the stairs to the bottom floor and the front door. If they toss a grenade up the stairs to the landing or you get in too much trouble, retreat upstairs here to Sonny’s position.”

“I want this window,” Sonny said.

“It’s a magnet for bullets,” Chris said.

Sonny raised an eyebrow. “Find your own window, bitch.”

Chris couldn’t help but smile. He shifted his attention back to the situation. If he took the exposed ledge outside to the left, he could crouch down in a dark corner between the buildings. Although it wouldn’t protect him from bullets, he should be able to spot the bad guys before they spotted him. Most of their attention would be directed away from him, toward the window, anyway. It was probably a risk worth taking. The tangos in the trucks would show up any moment.

It’s now or never
.

“All right,” Chris said. “Coming through.” He passed Sonny, stepped out the window onto the ledge, and crept several meters to the place where two buildings pressed against each other. He crouched down.

The faint sound of a sound-suppressed rifle came through the bedroom window. It sounded farther away than Sonny’s position, so Chris figured Hannah had added a corpse to the stairs.

Ahead on the ground lay a T-section of dirt road. A man poked his head around a building, but his gaze remained on ground level, never rising to the second floor. Chris took him out with a head shot. The HK416 produced no flash, and its sound was no louder than the puff of a BB gun. Next, a burly guy with a machine gun jogged into the T-section, oblivious to the kill zone he’d just entered. Sonny planted him in the middle of the street.

More men with AKs appeared. Chris watched them carefully, noting that either their eyes stayed at ground level or they looked up at Sonny’s window. It was as if Chris were invisible in the shadow of the second-story ledge. As fast as the AKs arrived, Chris and Sonny dropped them. Several moved in from different locations, turning left and right—confused. Chris shot them from the front, side, and behind. Soon bodies littered the area.

The sound of someone sneaking around the corner drew Chris’s attention. It sounded like two, maybe three of them. He grasped a grenade, pulled the pin, and eased the spoon so it wouldn’t fly off and make any noise. No sense in exposing his position. He cooked off two seconds, leaving only two seconds on the fuse, then gave it a sidearm toss. The men barely had time to shout before it exploded.

Chris’s heart pumped more adrenaline, which fed euphoria to his brain. He recognized the feeling. Just as he began to enjoy the slaughter, he mentally pulled himself back—there should be no joy in killing.
This is a job.

On the ground in front of him, someone opened a shop door. That someone crouched and neared the doorway to take aim at Sonny’s window, but Chris had a clear shot at the crouching man. Chris gave him a sudden rug nap. At the same moment, Sonny opened fire on a position that Chris couldn’t see.

Then a man emerged who was tall like the man who’d kidnapped Chris as a child, the man whose lighter Chris carried in his pocket. His name was Kalil, more commonly known by his nickname, Little Kale. But Chris hadn’t seen Little Kale’s face then, and he had no idea what he looked like now, other than that he was impressively tall.

If you want a piece of us, come on. Come on
.

Tall Man snuck between buildings toward Chris’s position. Chris aimed, but Tall Man ducked behind a truck. When he reappeared, Chris aimed, but Tall Man passed behind a pillar, blocking Chris’s shot. Then he was gone.

Chris wanted to curse, but he held back.

No one else ventured into the kill zone. Initially Chris experienced disappointment that there were no more opponents to waste.
There should be no joy in killing.
They’d already stayed longer than they should in the same location. Even though it seemed as if no more challengers would come, it would only take one talented shooter, someone who knew the environment better than Chris, to put an end to his evening, or an end to one of his teammates—forever. Tall Man had escaped, but he could be the one to bring back that talented shooter. Chris told Sonny he was coming in off the ledge. They closed the shooting shop and eased out of the building.

Patrolling through the streets, Chris’s rifle and backpack weighed heavier, and he was unsteady on his feet—the extended firefight had drained him. He turned around to make sure Hannah and Sonny were still with him. They dragged their steps a bit. All three of them were tired. Even so, they had to get out of there.