Hostile Fire (9 page)

“There’s one chance. Twelve years ago we had a top man in Baghdad. He married an Iraqi woman, has a family. When it was time for him to come out, he declined. Said he was retiring and we should send his check to an address in Baghdad. We did. We found out later that he’s been on the bottle religiously, that he’s never been compromised as an agent, and that he’s evidently happy enough living in Baghdad. He does some writing for a Baghdad newspaper as an expatriate who knows America and can tell the Iraqi readers a slant on life they don’t know about.”

“We still go into the capital and try to find out where the bombs are located?” Rafii asked.

“That’s your job. It just got about ten times harder. You can contact this man. His name is John Jones. We have his address. He won’t be easy. Lately he’s been on the wagon. His wife is helping him. The last time we heard he had a hundred and thirty-eight days clean and sober. The probability is he’ll flat out refuse to help you, not wanting to jeopardize his setup there.”

“Great, a burned out ex-spy who’s now a drunk,” Ching said. “Will he be any help at all?”

“We’re not sure. For all I know he’s a sleeper, still an
agent, but posing as a real-life drunk and waiting until we need him. I’ve talked with the deputy director, but can’t get any confirmation. Even if he is a sleeper, the only one who would know is the director and he wouldn’t tell us. You’ll have to contact Jones and see if he’ll help. If he won’t, you’ll have to rely on three other sources who might be able to assist you, and might not. You’ll memorize their names and contact points before you leave The Farm.

“All this time we’re supposed to stay undercover in a land where every man, woman, and child have been indoctrinated to hate Americans?” Rafii asked. “Isn’t that a huge problem for us?”

“It’s larger than huge. This is also a volunteer mission. Any of you SEALs can opt out at any time right up to boarding the VC-11 day after tomorrow morning.”

“We’ve had tougher operations,” Murdock said. “We’ll want a complete description of Mr. Jones, and any identifying marks so we can be sure it’s him before we spill our guts to him. We don’t want to find out he’s been replaced by an Iraqi superspy just waiting for somebody to contact him.”

“No worry there, Commander. Jones is talking to us through e-mail out of one of the popular Internet cafes that have opened. It’s all in the clear and in a kind of doubletalk we used twenty years ago, but damned effective.”

“Then can you contact him by e-mail?”

“No chance. We don’t want to alert watchers he’s getting anything in return from his e-mail talk.”

He let that soak in a moment, then went back to business talking in Arabic. He made sure all of them, especially Ching, knew the words he used and what they meant. It would be a long, slow process.

Two hours later, Ching grinned. “Hey, I’m getting some of this chatter. It’s a lot like Spanish. Not the same, but there are similar sounds.”

“Now say that in Arabic,” the leader told him in Arabic. Ching snorted and tried, but he didn’t have all the right words. The lessons continued.

In another building the rest of the platoon, under the watchful eyes of the J.G., worked over the weapons choices.
They would keep a number of H&K MP-5D4s. A man in blue coveralls and wearing a blue hat that had “CIA Weapons” embroidered on it shook his head when J.G. Gardner said they would be taking seven Bull Pups with them.

“That weapon has ties to the U.S.,” the CIA man said. “I can’t approve your taking it.”

“H and K makes the body of the weapon, and three other firms are involved in all the components,” Gardner said. “The gun isn’t even in production yet, so there can be no tie-in with any country. It’s got to be with us. It turns any infantryman into an artillery piece.”

Gardner handed his Bull Pup to the man. “Take a look at it. The CIA doesn’t have them yet. These are prototypes made especially for our platoon. Nobody else in the world has this weapon. Besides that, almost nobody else knows that it is operational by us. We’re taking them in.”

That decided, Gardner selected other weapons that they would take. Each man picked out a hideout weapon for his ankle. They at last agreed on the German Sauer M1914. It held a six-round magazine of .32 ACP and weighed in at 570 grams, or a pound and four ounces. They would all have the same weapon so they could share ammo if they needed to. They would keep the H&K PSG1 sniper rifle, and the EAR, the Enhanced Acoustic Rifle, that shot out a blast of compressed air for over four hundred yards and put any troops down and unconscious for four hours but left no aftereffects on the victims.

The CIA weapons man was fascinated with the EAR, but Gardner didn’t let him look at it too closely. “Hey, we get to have a few secrets, too,” he told the gunman. The J.G. asked the man about shotguns.

“Figure we should have one scattergun for close work,” Gardner said. The man showed him one made in Spain. It was semiautomatic and the magazine held five rounds. Pump and shoot, pump and shoot.

The SEALs checked their weapons and ammo supply and ordered what they needed. They had brought their own double ammo on the Bull Pups and the sniper rifle. They would need the .32 ammo and magazines, and ammo and weapons and magazines for five of the sub guns. When he was satisfied
with the weapons and supply of ammo, J.G. took the platoon out for a ten-mile hike. He talked to one of the guards who gave him a route all on the Farm property.

“Come on, ladies, it’s time to sweat,” Gardner told them. “We go out at an eight-minute-to-the-mile jog, and after we get warmed up, we get serious. We’ll go with full combat vests and weapons. Let’s get cracking. We need to be back before lunch.”

Kat talked her way out of the march. “I need some retraining on the firing range,” she told Gardner. “I want to fire the sub gun, and my Sauer pistol and the Bull Pup. Gardner agreed and had an arms instructor from The Farm take her to the range with the weapons and five rounds for the 20mm and fifty for the other weapons. The CIA weapons instructor was as anxious as Kat to test fire the 20mm.

“Only thing I thought fired the twenty was a fighter jet aircraft,” the instructor said. His name was Monroe and he came from Michigan.

At the range Kat went prone, propped the short Bull Pup barrel on a sandbag, and fired off her first shot.

“Not nearly the recoil I expected,” she said. “How do they do that?” She fired the next round with the laser sight on an old snag of a tree just off the rifle range. The airburst was spectacular. She let the instructor fire the last three rounds. One was a WP that he used as an airburst on the snag with a brilliant flash of white phosphorous and then a pall of smoke.

“You’re right,” Monroe said. “This Bull Pup makes every infantryman his own artilleryman. That thing can fire in back of buildings and over the reverse slope of a hill. All you need is a friendly tree.”

Kat fired the MP-5 then. The sound and the rise of the muzzle soon came back to her and she could keep the weapon on the target. The Sauer was easy after that.

“This is not a long-range weapon,” the instructor said. “It’s for defense only and good for ten to twelve feet at the most. If you need it in a sudden confrontation to save your life, just keep pulling the trigger.”

Kat went back to the main compound with a slightly sore shoulder and a big grin.

That evening after chow the troops were shown a war film in the recreation center. But Murdock, Ching, and Rafii weren’t there. They had night classes in Arabic, Iraqi customs and dress, and the Muslim religion.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

The sleek Gulfstream II VC-11 landed at Riyadh slightly before dark. They had been halfway across the Atlantic before the pilot received word that he could land here. King Fahd ibn Abdul Aziz had made a special call to the American President to talk about the situation. It was an encrypted call from the American Embassy there. The President had confirmed that Iraq had four atomic weapons and they very well could use them on, or use them to threaten, their neighbors. Saudi Arabia would be a good first choice for Iraq. After a few tense words through interpreters, the President assured the king that this would be a one-time, lightning strike with no tie to Saudi Arabia or to the U.S. That American Navy SEALs would do the work and there would be no atomic detonations to worry about.

He had approved the landing at Riyadh, for the SEALs and an air transport to bring in additional support and vehicles to move the SEALs and a small group of soldiers toward the northern Saudi border.

Their usual CIA contact, Don Stroh, met them at the airport and led the way to an army complex where they would stay until the exact location of the bombs was known. Murdock, Ching, and Rafii would fly out on the VC-11 the next day, for Kuwait, which would be their jumping off point for Baghdad a day later.

Murdock whacked Stroh on the back when he saw him. “You old billy goat, I didn’t think you were in on this one.”

“What’s not to be in on? I set up the whole thing. Actually I bring you goodies. Wait until it gets dark. Have I got a new toy for you guys.”

“Is she pretty and is she willing?” Jaybird called.

“So Jaybird made the cut?” Stroh asked. “I thought he was on the trading block, going back to Second Platoon.”

“They wouldn’t take him,” Gardner cracked.

“A new toy, like what?” Murdock asked.

“Get settled in your quarters and I’ll show you. Probably right after chow. Hope you like this Saudi food.”

“Dog stew?” Lam asked.

“Cat curry from what I hear, but it’s tasty,” Stroh said. “I’d stay and chat, but I’d miss the first seating at the officers’ mess.”

The quarters they were trucked to were about the same as what they were used to. A barracks is a barracks. Only single-story bunks here. They had chow at the enlisted mess and found they were eating a stew of some kind.

“Hell, eat up, you guys. This is pure beef stew,” Luke Howard said and they all relaxed.

After chow and back in the barracks, Don Stroh came in with two small boxes.

“Jaybird, go down there to the far end of the room and wait. Just stand there, don’t get wise.”

When Jaybird was in place, Stroh took a device out of one of the boxes. It was about half the size of a football, had a handhold on it and a strange lens out the front. In back there was a viewing screen.

“Okay, Murdock, kill the lights.” Stroh held up the device and aimed it at where Jaybird should be. Nothing showed on the screen. He moved the device back and forth then stopped. A weird white glowing figure showed on the black screen. “Jaybird, you’re crouched down beside a box up there but I can see you. Bang bang, you’re dead. Stand up, Jaybird, and walk across the back of the room there.”

“What the hell is that?” Fernandez asked.

“It’s called a thermal imager. Aim it at a spot and it picks up the thermal signals from a body, or a large animal. They’ve been around for years, but now they made this small handheld one especially for firemen to use in burning buildings. I talked them out of four of them for you misfits. They have a special adapter so they can be mounted on most of your weapons. They’ll fit easily on the Bull Pup. I want each of you to come up here and work this thing.”

He handed it off, and one by one the SEALs and Kat checked Jaybird moving around. They told him exactly where he was and what he was doing.

“Ain’t it about my time to see through that thing?” Jaybird called.

“Omar, go up and be the target,” Murdock said. He had his turn with a second imager and followed the Saudi on the screen up the aisle between the bunks and then lost him. They found him crawling around a bunk.

When they turned the lights back on, the men were convinced.

“Oh, yeah, I like it,” Vincent Van Dyke said. “Much better than night vision goggles.”

“Twenty times better,” J.G. Gardner said. “We can nail guys creeping up on us. Blow them out of their socks. This is the best new weapon we’ve had since the Bull Pup. It could get us out of a terribly murderous situation.”

“That thing sure bugged me when you were spotting me in the dark,” Jaybird said. “I figured I was completely hidden then an arm or a foot would be enough to give me away.”

“Bravo Squad gets two of them,” Murdock said. “Alpha takes one and we’ll take the other one to Baghdad. We’ll keep it handheld so it will be easier to conceal. Then, too, we won’t have any long guns with us.”

“Murdock without a Bull Pup?” Jaybird asked. “Now, there is a first.”

“Had to happen sometime,” Murdock said. “We three leave first thing in the morning. Tomorrow night we should be in Baghdad. Any questions so far?”

“This is the weird place,” Kat said. “Nobody here knows that I’m not one of the guys. Can we keep it that way?”

“Aw, Kat, you just want to watch us undress when we hit the sack,” Bradford said.

“I grew up with three older brothers. Unless you guys are not all that normal…” She stopped and the SEALs laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ll try not to embarrass you. I will be in the far end of the barracks, however.”

“Good idea,” Murdock said. “In this country women must be covered head to toe at all times, they can’t drive a car or work outside the home, and they can’t be in public without
a male member of their household. Fundamentalists rule here. Yes, keep your hat on and no makeup.”

“Hell, she don’t need none,” a voice shouted. The SEALs cheered.

“For you new men, I don’t know what you think. These old-timers are just mad because I can outrun and outswim all of them. They’ll settle down after a while.”

“You really win a full iron woman triathlon?” somebody asked.

“Three of them to be exact. But we won’t be doing much biking or swimming on this one. Now, if any of you want to disable the bombs we’re finding, I’ll trade places with you.”

“Hey, no way,” Derek Prescott said.

“Teen hut!” somebody bellowed. The SEALs snapped to attention. Three U.S. Air Force officers walked into the barracks.

“At ease, men. Just a little visit. I’m Colonel Livingston. I’m your official host for your stay here. My staff of two and myself will do everything we can to take care of you. Whatever you need, talk to Major Wilbur or Master Sergeant Phillips. We’ll work with the Saudis to let you do your conditioning. No live firing, so keep all ammo out of your weapons. When we know where you need to go along the Iraqi border, we’ll get you up there, probably by truck, but maybe by Saudi choppers. Is Commander Murdock here?”