Countdown, p.2
Countdown, page 2
“Zulu One.”
A hiss of static, more gunfire.
“Zulu One!”
A very loud gunshot, a grunt, and a whispered obscenity.
“Jeremy!” I say, raising my voice and breaking radio protocol, as if doing so could magically make him hear.
A harsh cough.
His voice comes back, speaking rapidly.
“Zulu One and Two are signing off, destroying our equipment. A pleasure working with you all.”
Before I can say anything else, there’s dead silence.
Chapter 3
JORDAN AND Santiago stare at me—so bulky and confident in their background, their experience, and the deadliest and most up-to-date weaponry in the world—and I know they’re feeling exactly what I’m feeling: utter failure.
We’ve lost our comrades.
I stick in the earpiece and nod. Like the pros they are, Jordan and Santiago keep moving. Ahead of us, we all hear a low hum that sounds like a leaf blower at work.
There are no leaves here.
And positively no leaf blower.
But that soft noise is our way out of here.
As the wadi comes into view, it’s 8:59 a.m.—a minute ahead of schedule. But I can already sense the catastrophe that’s going to echo loudly between Langley and London in the next few days. Jeremy and Oliver will shortly be captured, tortured, and probably paraded around or made the topic of a propaganda tape by whatever armed group has found them.
We’ve all been “sheep-dipped,” meaning that whatever paperwork we carry identifies us as contract workers for Global Security Solutions. That means in the event of our capture or death, our respective governments will have plausible deniability for us mercenaries in the field.
A nice cover story, which would no doubt last about as long as it would take an al-Qaeda type to come after one of our feet or hands with a chainsaw.
We’re off the trail and at the outskirts of the wadi. Santiago mutters a prayer in Spanish, then says, “There she is. Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?”
Truth is, this latest classified and stealth helicopter is one ugly bird. It has droopy rotor blades and retractable landing skids, and its current color matches the rocky slabs nearby. The fuselage, all sharp angles, has a high-tech liquid-crystal exterior, meaning that when the helicopter finally gets off the ground, its exterior will match the surrounding sky.
Radar can’t see it, and bare eyes will detect only flickering shadows, like a distant flock of birds.
Oh, yeah, it’s ugly, expensive, and a bitch to fly—and I want to be on it so bad I can taste it. Its engine is humming along nicely, and we move forward and the rotors start to rotate. I look behind me, tail-end Charlie, watching our six, hoping against hope that our British comrades have broken free and are now running down the trail.
No such luck.
The engine is at full power now, the sound a loud hum, the blades spinning into a blur, and I see the frame of the helicopter rise just a bit.
So close.
I check my watch.
It’s 9:02.
One after another, I clap Jordan and Santiago on the shoulders.
“Hold!” I yell.
I hunker down and they do the same, all three of us looking back up the empty trail.
Waiting.
Waiting.
The seconds whizzing by.
Jordan leans into me. “Amy! They’re not coming.”
I check my watch.
It’s 9:03.
I yell back, “We wait!”
Santiago swears, but he and Jordan stick with me. Dust is starting to kick up, biting our eyes. I blink hard and look up at the trailhead.
“C’mon, c’mon,” I whisper, knowing the odds of their showing up are near zero. But you have to believe sometimes. Believe they can make it. Believe in miracles.
Santiago tugs at my shoulder, points to his watch.
It’s 9:05.
“We stay!” I yell back.
Santiago looks at Jordan, Jordan looks to him, and the two of them then look at the chopper, ready to scoop us up and take us out to a Navy vessel in this part of the Mediterranean, on a routine training mission.
Routine.
That’s how the deaths of Jeremy and Oliver are going to be reported, if they get killed outright, without the horror of captivity and torture: Died while on a routine training mission.
And me?
Lost half my crew in a foul-up.
Almost as one, Jordan and Santiago scream my name, and I look at my watch.
9:06.
The nice crew over there from the Night Stalkers has given us an extra sixty seconds, and maybe I’ll live long enough to thank them. But then the helicopter lifts straight up, its landing struts retreating into its belly.
The chopper rises up out of the wadi, soars over a rugged set of rocks, and then it—
Disappears.
Just like that.
Now even its engine sound has gone away.
All I can hear is the heavy breathing of my crew, Jordan Langlois and Santiago Sanchez, who stare at me with murder in their eyes.
I stand up from my crouching position.
“Saddle up, fellas,” I say. “We’re going back to get our guys.”
Chapter 4
JEREMY WINDSOR, once with the 22nd Regiment of the Special Air Service and now a member of MI6’s Expeditionary Research Branch (code name E Squadron), is squatting in a corner of a dirt-floored farmhouse, wrists handcuffed behind him, rope tied around both ankles, waiting.
He hates waiting.
His head, back, and arms throb from the beatings he and Oliver Davies received after their quickly dug-out foxhole did little to delay their capture. Now he and Ollie are in this stinking room, alone.
Jeremy gives his spotter a reassuring smile. Like him, Ollie has let his hair and beard grow, but Ollie’s blue eyes are darting around the interior of the small room. Their clothes are dusty, torn, and soiled. Like him, Ollie came to MI6 via the 22nd Regiment.
“Guess our intelligence boys fouled up,” Ollie says. “I never thought we’d get captured.”
“Occupational hazard,” Jeremy says, wishing he could say more to comfort his mate. “We’ll be all right, just you wait and see.”
“Too bloody confident, aren’t you?”
“Somebody has to be…”
From its smell and shape, this room has been a storage area for seed or grains. A couple of rough muslin bags sit in a corner. Two high, small windows—open to the air but barred and covered with chicken wire—allow light in.
When he and Ollie had been sent to work with the CIA paramilitary group, Jeremy initially said no. A bird leading two sniper squads into the field? But he had seen Amy Cornwall’s records, saw that she had been one of the few women to pass the U.S. Army’s grueling two-month-plus Ranger course—and thought, Well, she might just work out.
And she had done exactly that on their two previous missions.
Jeremy was a pro. So he shut his mouth and went along.
But even professionals have a bad day.
“Cheer up, Ollie,” he says, once again wishing he could say more to his fellow shooter and friend. “It’ll all get sorted soon.”
Ollie smiles, but there’s a flicker of uncertainty in his face. “Remember the bagging drill?” says Jeremy. “This will be nothing in comparison, I promise.”
His spotter’s smile widens, and Jeremy recalls all too well the secret and highly illegal bagging drill: being suddenly and quickly stuffed into a large sack by your SAS trainers, then dumped in the barren hills surrounding their base in Hereford, leaving you to find your way back without being noticed or requiring anyone’s help.
“If you’re right,” Ollie says, “I owe you a pint at Berber’s.”
Jeremy is about to say, “Make it two” when the door is unlocked and flung open.
Five men enter, and Jeremy takes a moment to eye each one. All of them save one are carrying an AK-47, and he has a memory flash of a particularly rugged exercise one rainy day in the Shetlands—and God, the rain could get cold up there—when their trainer, Burke, a scar-tissued and rugged old Scot who had served behind enemy lines from the Congo to East Germany, had made a pronouncement.
Some of you wee ones have fantasies ’bout going back in time and killin’ Hitler, he had said. If I’d my way, I’d go back an’ kill that Russkie bastard Mikhail Kalashnikov. Every would-be revolutionary and rebel piece o’ shite loves to kill innocents with that bugger’s invention.
The man in front seems to be their leader. He has on dark boots, gray wool trousers, and a khaki jacket. In his filthy hands he carries an AK-47, and around his thick waist is a weapons belt stuffed with ammo magazines, a Russian Tokarev pistol, and a long knife. He has a thick mustache and stubbly cheeks, with a checked kaffiyeh around his head and neck.
Three other men in the group look like they could be his brothers or cousins, for they are similarly dressed and armed. The fifth man is unarmed, older, and filthy, wearing a black robe, cotton trousers that may have been white at one time, and a black scarf around most of his face. He hacks up mucus and spits it on the floor, then goes to the wall next to the door, squats down, and starts fingering a string of dark brown misbaha, or worry beads.
This bunch had been part of a much larger group that ambushed and pursued them; the five had then split off to take Ollie and him to this stinking little farmhouse.
The lead man turns and whispers to the older man, who just shrugs and spits again on the floor.
Now he’s looking at Jeremy.
In Arabic, Jeremy says, “As-salāmu ‘alaykum. I apologize for my friend and I trespassing on your lands.”
The lead man smiles widely. His teeth are brown. In return he says, “Wa ‘alaykumu as-salām.” Then the strong voice switches to English.
“You are British, correct?”
Ollie keeps quiet, and Jeremy says, “Yes, we are British.”
He speaks quickly in Arabic—“Get them both up, now!”—and two of the men sling their AK-47s over their shoulders, come forward, and gently help Ollie and Jeremy to their feet.
Jeremy allows a moment of relaxation.
It seems to be going well.
The leader smiles again, as do the other men, and he too slings his rifle over his shoulder.
Now it seems to be going very well indeed.
The man taps his chest. “I am Farez.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Jeremy says, breathing easier. Ollie seems to sense his relaxation. Jeremy says, “Again, my apologies for trespassing. My uncle George promises he can sort it all out.”
“Ah,” Farez says, “your wealthy and influential uncle George.”
He laughs and the rest of the men—except for the old man sitting against the wall—laugh as well, then Farez comes forward and punches Jeremy squarely in the face. Jeremy gasps more in surprise than pain—the code word and acknowledgment had been used!—and staggers back as Farez quickly removes his AK-47 and drives it into Jeremy’s abdomen.
He lets out a cough and he’s on the ground, and so is Ollie, and the kicks and the blows from the automatic rifles rain down, and he squirms and tries to curl into a ball to protect himself as much as possible, but the handcuffs and ropes make that impossible, and he’s drifting into unconsciousness, knowing it’s all gone horribly wrong.
Chapter 5
ONCE UPON a time I had been a captain in the U.S. Army, serving as an intelligence officer, but a series of unfortunate and bloody events had led me to the precipice of a dishonorable discharge and a life sentence to the Army prison in Leavenworth, until a heavily tanned man working for the Central Intelligence Agency had offered me a way out.
His exit path meant joining the CIA, undergoing their training sessions, then accepting overseas assignments at a moment’s notice—missing my husband, Tom, and daughter, Denise, terribly—to do serious work on behalf of an unknowing and mostly uncaring nation.
It was either that or go to prison.
Some days I almost think it was worth it.
But not today.
I’m with my two very skilled and angry killers, about to crawl up to the edge of a ridge, and it’s nearing noon on this warm day in the wild mountain areas between Syria and Lebanon. The night before in our little encampment, we and our British friends could see the glow of night raids going on in Syria, not sure if the Russians, Turks, or Americans were doing the bombing—but all of us agreeing it probably didn’t make much difference.
It was a damn lonely feeling, but now I feel even lonelier. Jordan and Santiago are professionals, good at following orders—even if it’s from someone who uses sanitary products once a month—but I can feel the smoldering anger coming off them after abandoning the exfiltration point back at that wadi.
Now, instead of showering and eating good ol’ greasy and fattening American food aboard the USS Essex near the Lebanese coastline, we’re deep in hostile territory, with few good options facing us.
But there’s a hard core of me that knows I’m right.
To hell with our orders.
Classified mission or not, I’m not leaving anyone behind.
We three are strung out in a line and now we’re peeking over the ridgetop, using the jagged rocks and boulders for cover. By now Jordan has reassembled his .308 Remington—putting a standard tactical scope on the frame instead of the spooky Star Wars aiming system—and Santiago is using standard binoculars as well.
I say, “There it is.”
It being a sad-looking one-story farmhouse and attached small barn, both made of wood and stone, with an orchard of scraggly trees, a fenced-in area where goats are doing whatever goats do, and a small courtyard off to the left, surrounded by a knee-high stone wall.
Looking through his rifle’s scope, Jordan says, “Doesn’t look like much.”
“Langley told us this farmhouse is used as a transit point for smugglers and jihadists. It’s the closest building to our ambush site. If our Brits were taken someplace, this is it.”
Santiago, his binoculars in his hands, says, “Crappy looking place.”
“Yes,” I say. “But check out the parking lot.”
A dirt lane leads to the farmhouse, and three dark and dented Toyota pickup trucks, as well as a black SUV, are parked in a semicircle outside.
“I don’t think this is the far outpost of Honest Ahmed, used-car salesman,” I say. I gesture to the left. “Spread out. Santiago, that little lump of rock…and Jordan, that chunk that looks like a doghouse. Sound off if you see anything.”
They silently pick up their gear and move as ordered.
I look down at the farmhouse.
The only sign of life is the goats.
I hate goats.
In the few minutes it takes for Jordan and Santiago to take up their new positions, only a handful of words are exchanged.
Quietly Jordan says, “She broke orders.”
Santiago says, “Yeah.”
Jordan pauses, takes off his rucksack. “If my ass ever gets captured, hope someone does the same for me.”
“No argument here,” Santiago says.
“See you later.”
Santiago moves forward. “You bet, Bro.”
I check my radio gear.
Still no signal.
Being in the mountains will do that to you.
What now?
I look down through the fine German optics at the Lebanese farmhouse, where I hope my two British comrades are being held. It’s a damn UN meeting, it is.
What now?
We can sit here for a while, try to see what’s going on. Those parked vehicles mean something of importance must be happening.
But maybe it’s not Jeremy and Oliver—those polite, charming, humorous, and utterly stone-cold killers in the service of MI6 and the Queen.
Maybe it’s something else.
I could leave Santiago and Jordan here while I find a location that will allow me to reestablish radio communications—and, after getting reamed out, try to pinpoint resources that I could use to find Jeremy and Oliver.
But my gut tells me they’re in that building.
How to get them out?
I’m hungry, thirsty, and my feet hurt, and the bandages wrapped around my torso make me feel like I’m going to lose a cup size when this particular op is wrapped up.
What now?
As I start going through the options once more, I think I see a hint of movement off to the left. Then Jordan makes up my mind for me.
“Amy!” he yells, holding his rifle, face to the scope. “We got a situation!”
Chapter 6
IN A luxurious yet poorly heated and maintained country estate about thirty miles northwest of London, Horace Evans of MI6 is sitting at his desk, slowly sipping his second cup of coffee—he gave up tea years ago after working for a year at the British Embassy in Ankara—looking over his day’s paperwork, neatly set in one pile in the center of his antique desk.
The office is small and suits him. He has been with MI6 for three decades, spanning two centuries, and has enough power and influence to set up his office here, instead of in that ziggurat monstrosity at Vauxhall Cross in London, the butt of many a well-deserved joke and an obscenely explicit target to every sort of enemy overture imaginable, from rocket-propelled grenades to overhead surveillance.
His office here in Lindsay Hall is cold, the radiator rattles, and parts of the roof leak. The entire four-story building with its various rooms and salons is under the control of the National Trust, save one part of the building that’s being renovated and is forbidden to tourists or other visitors.
Ever since Horace has been here, the renovations have been ongoing. God willing, they will never stop.
During World War II, Lindsay Hall was used as a training facility for the Special Operations Executive. Here exiled Poles, Norwegians, Frenchmen, and many others were trained in killing and sabotage, and were later parachuted into occupied Europe.
