Scott Roarke 03 - Executive Command (40 page)

Washington, D.C.

A telephone ring in the middle of the night is truly one of the most disturbing sounds on the face of the earth. It usually means something terrible has happened. When two phones ring, it must be worse. By zip code and city, there are probably more of those calls in metro D.C. than anywhere else in the country, if not the globe.

First, it was Katie Kessler’s cell phone. She left her BlackBerry in her pocketbook in the kitchen. So even though the sound woke her, she didn’t reach it in time. Four seconds after it stopped, her landline rang. She ran back to the bedroom but just as she reached for the handset on the fourth ring, her voice mail picked up. She heard her announcement, but when she said hello, no one was there.

Katie was wide awake now and worried. The noise and the alarm it raises had fully shaken the sleep out of her. She turned on her bedside nightlight, grabbed Scott’s T-shirt that she liked to wear when he wasn’t there off the floor, and slipped it on.

Just as Katie was trying to convince herself that everything was okay, both phones began ringing again. She quickly answered the landline. With great urgency she said, “Hello, who is this?”

“Kate?” replied a woman, speaking precisely and authoritatively.

“Yes. My other phone is ringing, too. Can I…?”

“That’s me too. I’ll drop that,” the woman said.

Katie’s cell stopped ringing.

“It’s Louise Swingle. Will you hold for the president?”

“Yes. Yes, but why.”

Katie’s fears, the ones she lived with and shared with Scott overwhelmed her. Her heart rate increased. Her body tensed and her chest tightened. She gasped for a breath as she waited. Katie never had had asthma, but she believed this was what it must feel like.

Five seconds. Ten. Fifteen. All agonizing as she waited for the president of the United States to get on the phone at,
God, what hour?
She looked at her clock radio. It only made her feel more anxious.

“Katie,” Morgan Taylor began.

She immediately tried to gauge the quality of his voice. Comforting? Serious?
It was serious¸
she thought.

“Yes, Mr. President.” Without waiting for what she now considered the inevitable, she said, “It’s about Scott. Isn’t it?”

Tears welled up.

“Yes. He is on a mission right now. But he’s all right.”

She let out a long, relieved, and cleansing breath that the president heard.

“I’m sorry my call alarmed you. But I decided you had earned the right to join us in the Situation Room for the operation. That’s if you want to come.”

“What operation?”

Taylor interrupted. “Can’t explain now. There’s a driver waiting outside your apartment. I recommend that you get here in twenty minutes. We’ll have someone ready to bring you on in.”

Katie was already standing, figuring out what to throw on. A sixty-second shower would bring her to her senses. After that jeans, a warm shirt and…
No,
she thought. It’s still the White House.
Business.
But the
UGGs
would have to do
. There was a new snowfall.
Not a good time to trip and break a leg.
Oh, and
makeup in the car.
She ran the entire exercise in her mind between Morgan Taylor’s sentences.

“Is that okay, Katie?”

“Yes, sir.” She wanted more reassurance that Scott was really safe. But that wouldn’t happen on the phone. Not now. Whatever he was about to get into was going to be dangerous. Monitoring from the White House Situation Room was a true indication.
Better to be there.
“I’ll be downstairs in ten minutes at the latest.”

She made it in nine.

It was a combination of the medication he was taking, his insatiable appetite for the news from the United States, and his personal desire for revenge. The three combined to keep Ibrahim Haddad awake most nights. He spent hours logging on to local American newspaper Web sites, searching for updates about the great price he was exacting from America for something it had never done. His sworn enemy and its president were not responsible for the death of his wife and daughter, but his hatred of Israel fully transferred to the United States.

He felt untouchable now. Beyond the reach of any civilized law in one of the world’s most lawless places. Maybe the only thing missing was the attention and notoriety. He was, after all, America’s Number One Most Wanted. The aging terrorist didn’t doubt they had some vague suspicion of his involvement by now. However he took no credit; made no pronouncements. After his narrow escapes from Miami and Chicago, he concentrated on remaining committed to achieving his goal and remaining as off the grid as humanly possible.

“Get me a sandwich,” he told the guard outside his room.

“Are you certain, sir? It’s well after two.”

“A sandwich,” he barked again.

The guard, a member of Hamas hired a month earlier, radioed downstairs to the control center on the ground floor.

“He wants a sandwich.”

“Did he say what kind?”

Idiot,
the guard thought.
He only eats turkey.

“The usual. And make it quick.”

Katie was driven to the White House Southwest Gate. Her identification cleared her past the Marine Guard. A Secret Service agent on night duty accompanied her up what was called West Executive Avenue to the West Basement entrance. Here, she was checked again and allowed to pass.

They went down a flight of stairs and came to the White House Mess on the left and the Situation Room on the right. Another Secret Service agent examined her ID outside the closed door to the Sit Room.

“Katie Kessler?”

“Yes, sir.” The agent checked her picture. Once satisfied he said, “I’ll need your cell phone and tablets.”

“Only a cell.” Katie handed her BlackBerry to the agent.

“Thank you, Ms. Kessler. The president is inside. You may go in.”

Katie said thank you in return, not knowing if she’d be really grateful for what she was about to experience.

This was her first time in the Situation Room. She took it all in. The multiple workstations, computers, and communication equipment. The bank of programmable TV screens, the austere long oak desk.

The president was talking quietly to J3. Everyone else seemed completely engaged in their own space, monitoring video feeds, typing quickly on laptops, and speaking to various people on headsets. She’d just walked into a hot command center and it scared the living hell out of her.

On the multiple TV screens in the front of the rectangular room were what seemed to be three different angles on one building. One was a shot that constantly panned from windows to doors. The camera operator, whoever it was, zoomed to a man with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth and a rifle slung over his shoulder. Next to that monitor was another video image. This one appeared to be pointing straight down at a man. Under the images, running time on a twenty-four-hour clock and a reference: SAT 535. When Katie grasped that she was viewing a live shot from a satellite that showed, with amazing clarity, the same man, she was astounded. On another monitor to the side, a clock that was running backwards; a countdown. She watched the seconds tick down to fourteen minutes.

“Oh my God,” was all she could muster. That brought the attention of the president.

“Katie, thank you for coming.”

“Coming to what?” she asked.

“Operation MERCURY. Quick in and out of a building and a country.”

“A country?”

Less than a year ago, Katie Kessler was a young junior attorney in a Boston law firm. Today she stood in the White House Situation Room before what appeared to be
a target.

“Paraguay, Katie. A city on the Tri-border with Brazil and Argentina. Not a particularly ideal spot for a week away, which is why we’re planning on doing this in under twenty minutes.”

“I’m sorry Mr. President, doing what and why?”

“Scott figured out who we were after. We discovered where he was.”

Suddenly it became all too apparent why Louise Swingle called.

“Scott’s there.”

“On his way. I thought you’d want to be here.”

“Oh no,” she said, covering her mouth with her right hand.

The president extended his arms for a hug which she gratefully took. “It’ll be okay. He’s with SEAL Team 6. They’re the best in the world. He’s there only as an observer. My observer. He’ll be yours, too.”

Katie stepped away and worked to compose herself.

“There’s a seat across the table there next to Eve. It’s yours. Just toss your coat on one of the chairs behind you. Water?”

“I’ll start with that,” she said, trying to see if a joke would calm her.

The president reached for one in the center of the table and handed it to her. “Maybe we’ll crack something stronger in an hour.”

The
maybe
did not set her mind at ease. Not one bit.

“Nervous, Roarke?” asked B.D. Coons.

Roarke nodded. “On alert. I’ve been here before.”

“You’ll have to tell me about it sometime. I tried to read up on you and there’s not much. You’re listed as Secret Service and you served in the army with distinction. But even that’s not public record. I can figure out your pay grade, but beyond that little else. A Facebook page would have helped me, that’s for damned sure.”

Roarke laughed. “I like to keep a low profile.”

“Low doesn’t begin to describe it. More like spook level.”

“Well, I’m not that,” Roarke laughed. “Not even close.”

“Whatever, you’re one of us now. Stay alert. Drop in
only
after we have secured the target. On my order. Got that, Mr. Roarke.”

“Affirmative.”

Roarke did understand how dangerous it would be and how he could compromise the SEALs operation. But he was there to certify Haddad’s capture or death.

Ciudad del Este

D’Angelo continued to report all normal as it had been night after night…until 0225.

At ten minutes prior to execution he stared into his binoculars and did not like what he saw. He adjusted the focus on his tricked-out Night Optics USA/TG-7 Digital Thermal Imaging Binocular Goggles, switched to 2x and whispered, “Shit” into his open mic.

Vice Admiral Gunning beat everyone to the response. “Say again, Enterprise?”

D’Angelo adjusted his focus and steadied his body.

“You watching this back home?”

They were—at MacDill AFB, the CIA, on the incoming C-40s, and in the White House.

Shit, shit, shit,
he mouthed.

Haddad’s guard knocked at the door of his master bedroom suite.

“Yes?”

“Your food, sir.”

“Fine. Bring it in.”

The guard opened the door for the cook who brought in a silver tray.

Haddad glanced over. “Good, over there on the table,” Haddad said.

“May I move the papers, sir?” The table was covered with printouts from Internet coverage across America.

“Yes…no! Leave them.” He pointed frantically. “The table in front of the TV. And turn CNN back on.”

That assignment went to the guard, not the cook.

As soon as the guard found the right channel, Haddad left the computer and moved to the TV.

“Sit down. Watch,” he implored. It was part of the evening ritual. Someone had to listen to Haddad reminisce. They caught the news just as American deaths were being updated.

“Eighteen more cities have reported incidences,” the anchored intoned. He stood in front of a graphic of the United States swollen with red hot spots.

“Another good day, Ali.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Though I would have preferred to see more dead by now,” Haddad offered.

A on-screen list ticked upward nearing twenty-eight thousand deaths.

He completely ignored the Prophet Muhammad’s actual teachings on revenge and Quaranic passages that spoke against it. Haddad’s fight began as personal and remained there, with a degree of radical religious and political fervor thrown in whenever necessary. He never questioned what he was doing on an ideological or theological basis. Ibrahim Haddad, driven by hate, had become a mass murderer who liked turkey sandwiches, chips, warm coconut cake, and a glass of fresh water from Ciudad del Este’s abundant source, the Gurani Aquifer.

“Perhaps tomorrow we will break thirty thousand,” Ali added.

“I shall pray for that,” Haddad said as he took his first bite.

At that moment, the doorbell rang two floors below.

D’Angelo zoomed in tighter.

“Civilian.” It was repeated by another, “Shit.”

“Describe.”

D’Angelo followed a man walking to the door. He carried three flat boxes.

“Pizza delivery?” It was clearly more of a question than an observation. He hadn’t seen any such activity before and wondered,
Why just before a shift change?
It would put the guards on the move, in the wrong place and off schedule.

He looked at his watch. Nine minutes to infil.
Come on pizza man, take your fucking money and get the hell out of there.

The American commandos were coming in low and fast in helicopters that the government had basically kept under wraps until the killing of Osama bin Laden. These UH-60s had modifications which boggled the mind. They no longer sounded like helicopters.

Generally speaking, helicopters produce a distinctive percussive chop-chop rotor sound caused by the positioning of the blades. Adjust the blade angle, increase the number of blades in the main and tail rotors from four to five or six, and the noise diminishes, blending into the background sounds. Moreover, these Sikorsky Black Hawks had been re-engineered and reimagined with swept stabilizers and a noise suppressing “dishpan” cover over the tail rotor. Further refinements included reducing the rpm, especially in forward flight below maximum speed. To the untrained ear, it appeared that the helicopters were much farther away, not heading in, but away from a target.

There were also changes that reduced the chances of returning radar signals. Retractable landing gears and fairings over the rotor hubs cut down the radar cross-section (RCS). And sharp edges, standard on the UH-60s, were replaced with curved surfaces coated in a special silver-loaded infrared skin. These important conversions served to scatter incoming radar hits, sending them in multiple directions and confusing an enemy’s air-defense systems.

Multimillion dollar changes that transformed noisy machines into stealthy aircraft.

Take your money and leave!
D’Angelo thought.

But his best efforts to will the delivery man away didn’t work. He tilted up to the bedroom. Target Alpha, the man they were coming for, walked past a window. He tilted down again to watch the front door.
Shit.
Pizza man was still there.

“Uncle.” He used Command’s sign. “Definite civilian in the zone.”

“We’re watching, Enterprise.”

“Schedule?”

“As planned.”

“Options?”

Command had none to offer. “No.”

“Roger,” D’Angelo said more quietly.

With that, he decided to follow the SEALs into the compound and try to avoid any
collateral damage.

Roarke heard the interchange between D’Angelo and Command. He watched the feed from the CIA agent’s Night Optics USA/TG-7 on a make-shift bank of 5-inch monitors facing the passenger compartment.

Judging by the door frame, the man was about six feet. Maybe a little more. He wore a hoodie and slacks and sneakers. It struck Roarke that a hoodie might be too warm for the surroundings. But it certainly was
derigueur
for so many young men today, and at night it could be in the low ‘70s. Still he had a nagging thought as he flew closer and closer to Ibrahim Haddad’s lair.

At exactly 0229 cell phone service throughout the country club and the neighboring area went dead.

This was George Brewer’s work. Two electrical detonators wired to a timer fired a brief charge, which in turn set off a small amount of explosive material. This applied an instantaneous shock wave that triggered the C-4 to explode. The 1.5 ounces didn’t have to bring the cell phone towers down. Brewer just needed to take out the power supplies.

Get the fuck out of there!
D’Angelo wanted to shout!

“I need an open line to Enterprise,” Roarke keyed into his mic. He could hear D’Angelo, but he couldn’t speak directly to him without SOCOM’s help.

“Too late. We’re under two minutes.”

“Do it!” Roarke shouted. The Navy SEAL beside him read the urgency.

“What’s up?” Commander Bob Shayne asked loudly over the sound of the rotors.

Roarke pointed to the monitor displaying the video from D’Angelo’s binoculars. The front door opened and a guard looked at the pizza boxes.

“I need Enterprise. Fast.”

Shayne tapped his watch and shook his head. They were very close to the drop.

“Tell them!”

Shayne, who had hopes of working in the movies post military, barked into the mic in his helmet.

“Link up Sidekick.”

A few long beats later Roarke heard a scratchy, “Putting him through. You have fifteen seconds. Go.”

“Enterprise, this is Sidekick.” Roarke’s handle. “Can you ID the civvie?”

D’Angelo whispered. “Negative, Sidekick.”

They both watched as the guard took the three boxes of pizza and walked to his right. The delivery man followed him in and closed the door behind him.

“He’s inside.”

“Do you let your pizza man in?” Roarke asked. But the comm line was already closed. They were slowing down over the Paraná River. Another thirty seconds.