Buch lesen: «Critical Exposure»

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

Quote

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

Benghazi, Libya

Lieutenant Commander John Falk, leader of SEAL Team Four, emerged from the murky waters off the pier at Dock 17. He lifted his goggles, disconnected his lips from the mouthpiece and withdrew waterproof binoculars from his pack. Through the enhanced NVDs he could make out at least a dozen sentries aboard the massive cargo freighter that had arrived in port early that morning.

While the freighter claimed to hail from a port of call in Capetown, Falk knew better. Military signals intelligence—MIL-SIGINT—reports claimed the raw materials such as the metals and other goods the freighter officially hauled were actually weapons to supply Islamic dissidents that had formed a local rebel group in Benghazi designed specifically to foil U.S. interests. The fighting had grown fiercer in Libya the past few weeks and the government leaders in Tripoli were screaming for U.S. assistance.

Personally, Falk didn’t like the people in power. He didn’t see much difference between them and the former regime headed by Moammar Khaddafi. But he knew the Islamic radicals running through the country unchecked weren’t any better. They were an offshoot of Ansar al-Sharia, with sympathizers sent in to shore up Islamic terror-group operations. Those operators were active members of the AQIM and U.S. intelligence circles knew the Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb bankrolled Ansar al-Sharia efforts in Libya to the tune of millions of dollars. They were basically out of control. Many civilians and innocents had died at their hands, and this new cache of weapons and explosives aboard the freighter was only going to make a bad situation worse.

Enter SEAL Team Four to neutralize the cache by Executive order.

The mission parameters were simple. Get aboard the freighter, locate and blow the weapons cache, get out and await extraction. Simple and straightforward tactics for which they had trained time and again. Whether the mission itself would be simple remained to be seen—Falk didn’t wear any blinders on that point. No mission, however standard it might seem, was ever without potential complications.

After one more sweep of the entire deck, Falk stored his binoculars and then reached to the laser light on his belt and keyed the button built into its base three times. A moment passed before five more figures surfaced. The alpha squad of the team would make the actual breach through the maintenance hatch in the hull while the second team provided a distraction for the sentries on deck.

“You guys ready?” Falk asked his men.

Each gave him the proverbial thumbs-up. He nodded, donned his scuba gear and they all submerged in unison. The swim through the coastal waters in the dark was nothing less than hazardous. Tides were rough and their safety margin was minimal at best. The waters in the port were horrendously dirty and rife with potential hazards. They could swim through the wrong spot and rip their bodies open on sharp scrap metal or acquire some sort of bacterial infection—or even worse.

Falk didn’t let it faze him. There were more hazards to be concerned with; hazards such as human enemies toting subguns and harboring a distinct and unyielding hatred for any Westerner—especially Americans. Like those water-bound hazards that burned in the back of Falk’s consciousness, they were without remorse and wouldn’t hesitate to kill the SEAL team members if they were detected.

They swam toward the vessel, keeping to a depth of about twenty yards beneath the surface, Falk in the lead. They reached the target without injuries and Falk signaled his men to ascend. As soon as he broke the surface, he heard the shouts of men and reports from at least two dozen SMGs.

What the hell...? he thought, removing his mouthpiece.

The operation had been blown! There was no other reasonable explanation for them to be engaging the team intended to provide the distraction. Somehow they had given themselves away and it had resulted in an all-out battle on the top decks of the freighter. Falk whirled toward the heads of his men now just bobbing above the surface and was about to order them to submerge when the entire area suddenly came alive with light.

“We’re compromised!” he shouted. “Evacuate! Evacuate now!” He gestured to his men to abort the mission.

Some of the men dipped immediately beneath the surface. He fitted his mouthpiece and whipped his body into a dive, moving toward the bottom as fast as his legs could propel him. He knew the best place for safety would be the keel of the ship.

Falk turned, headed for that point and more toward the stern so the docks would provide additional safety. His intent proved short-lived, however, as underwater lamps illuminated his position and temporarily blinded him. His instinct was to go deep, but even as he turned to do so he felt something lance his leg and a burning sensation ride a point from just above his right knee all the way to his hip.

Falk looked down toward his leg—or was it actually up since he was in a descent maneuver?—and in the light saw the source of the pain. A speargun projectile had gone completely through his thigh with such force that it had severed most of the nerves in his thigh muscles and nullified further use of that leg.

Before he could decide on a new course of action, someone grabbed his left arm. He sensed the body of another man in dive gear next to him.

Falk turned as he withdrew his diving knife. He was ready to plunge it into his assailant when he realized it was Cantrell, one of his own men and the team medic. They looked into each other’s eyes, visible through the goggles, and Falk saw the crinkle of a smile just a moment before he watched his teammate’s expression melt into horrific realization. Then the light left Cantrell’s eyes and the water became cloudy with blood. Falk looked wildly in every direction trying to find the attacker, but there was too much confusion.

Then the world around him exploded into a series of lights and ear-splitting concussions, and he realized they were being bombed by a form of antipersonnel depth charges, perhaps even grenades. Falk broke free from Cantrell’s grip and kicked off the body. There was nothing he could do for his friend and he had to evade capture. He gained maybe thirty yards’ distance before another burning ripped through his body, this time from a point in his lower back to a point in his left upper chest.

The water around him clouded once more and Falk realized he’d just taken a bullet in the back. He spun and twisted, trying to avoid further injury as every muscle in his body seemed to scream with protest. He realized in the delirium that the screams were his own. The regulator seemed to disengage from his mouth and he sucked water into his nostrils. His lungs burned, and he knew the pain in his mouth had been from the force of his jaw clenching against the regulator stem. The burning in his lungs increased and his panic turned to terror. Stars popped in his eyes and blackness rimmed the edges of his sight.

Within a moment, Falk’s sense of direction had left him and he realized there would be no escaping it. The limbs in his body no longer seemed capable of function and the initially controlled movements of swimming turned fiercely and irrevocably into thrashing as he lost control of other bodily functions. Falk never came to the realization the loss of sensation signaled something more ominous and terrifying than anything he’d ever experienced before.

Quietly and unwittingly, Lieutenant Commander John Falk slipped from life into death.

Munich, Federal Republic of Germany

ELI BRIGHTON CHEWED absently at the plastic tip of an unlit electronic cigarette.

He’d given up smoking more than eighteen months earlier; a fanfare event that had not spread beyond the boundaries of his own small and relatively impersonal world. As head of a Delta Force unit assigned to counteract terrorist activities in the European Common Union, Brighton had other things on his mind more important than self-improvement. Quitting smoking had improved his physical health, sure, but he could hardly consider it anything other than what is was: a victory over personal habits.

Oddly, Brighton hadn’t been a smoker when he’d first started with Delta Force. The opportunities had come rarely, if at all, during initial training and he’d wanted to maintain peak physical conditioning. The demands of the job called for the omission of such self-indulgence. He’d taken up the habit while playing a role undercover, the byproduct of social acceptance inside the neo-Nazi group calling itself the League of Aryan Purity. When he’d first undertaken his cover to penetrate the group, he’d been amused by the oxymoron. This group boasted anything pure in body, mind or soul—they hated anyone who wasn’t like them and, as in most such organizations, wouldn’t hesitate to kill the racially impure.

“What’s eating you, Eli?”

Brighton looked at his partner and longtime friend, Sol Gansky. The big man’s shadowy outline—features marked by a bulbous nose and prominent forehead—bore out his Irish roots. His fiery red hair was subdued by a knit stocking cap, and he sat bolt upright in his usual sense of alertness. Their car sat at the curb of a run-down neighborhood in central Munich, beneath a broken streetlight.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re quiet,” Gansky replied.

“So what,” Brighton groused. “We aren’t hosting a talk show here.”

“You’re just usually a little more talkative.”

“I like my silence sometimes, Sol.”

The man shrugged. “Okay. If you say so.”

Brighton returned his attention to the club they’d been staking out for the past three hours. The expected arrivals, two of the top guys inside the terrorist group headquartered in Munich, were more than forty-five minutes late for the meeting. Their contact inside the club, intelligence specialist Greg Hiram, had been doing everything he could to maintain an air of indifference.

Brighton had just about given up on the whole scenario and was minutes from calling it quits when a lone vehicle turned off a side street and made its way in their direction.

“This could be it,” Brighton said as he and Gansky immediately hunkered down in the vehicle.

Brighton watched with concern as the late-model Citroën approached, icy fingers of nervousness prickling the back of his neck. At the speed the vehicle was traveling, and given the cramped space on the street, it was likely anyone driving by might spot them in the vehicle, even if both sides were crammed with parked cars. The moment passed when they saw the vehicle whip abruptly into a space just past the club entrance in a feat of parallel parking only achievable by an experienced European driver. Two men emerged from the back and Brighton immediately recognized their expected company. “Those are our guys,” he muttered. “Get ready.”

They waited until the pair swaggered down the sidewalk and entered the club.

Gansky pulled the stocking cap tighter on his head, climbed casually from their two-door VW and began to stroll up the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. Brighton waited until Gansky was parallel to the Citroën before starting the engine. He could barely see the driver who seemed to scrutinize Gansky as he walked past, but Gansky played it perfectly and ambled along the sidewalk, pretending not to notice the driver. Gansky could hold his own if it went sour since he had a .38-caliber snub-nosed pistol concealed in his jacket.

Brighton waited; his gut rumbling with anticipation. This was what it had all come down to, the months of preparation and undercover work. If they could take down the two leaders of the LAP here and now, they could glean enough intelligence to dismantle the group and its operations and strike a crippling blow to the head of the organization that had spread its poisonous doctrine insidiously to like groups inside the U.S.

Brighton counted down two minutes, put the gearshift in reverse and eased back, depressing the clutch just in time to tap the bumper against the car behind him so he could stop without engaging the brakes. He cranked the wheel hard left and waited with the clutch to the floor and his right foot hovering over the gas pedal.

As soon as Gansky made his appearance and eased into view from the rear of the Citroën to come up low on the driver’s side in a crouch, pistol at the ready, Brighton swung out and turned on his headlights. The light blinded the driver temporarily and Gansky made his move. The big man whipped open the door and stuck the barrel of his pistol to the driver’s temple.

Brighton pulled parallel to the vehicle and screeched to a halt as Gansky yanked the driver from the car. The two climbed into the backseat of the VW and Brighton tore out of there, driving two blocks before turning into an alley.

“Wait here,” he ordered Gansky, who kept the barrel of the gun to the driver’s head.

Brighton killed the engine and bailed from the VW. He jogged up the street, turning up the volume on his headset as he ran. He couldn’t make out the conversation between Hiram and the two LAP heavies over the dance music, and he cursed. He didn’t know what was in store for him, only that they had to get the neo-Nazi leadership out of the club without creating any sort of ruckus.

Brighton got within twenty feet of the club entrance before the heavy wooden door swung out and three men emerged. Brighton immediately recognized Hiram and the two LAP leaders, one of whom had his arm around Hiram. Odds were good he also had a weapon on the intelligence agent.

Brighton skidded to a stop and reached for his pistol but in the next moment he found his arm didn’t work right, most likely because of the silenced bullet that had entered the upper part of his back and severed his spinal cord.

Brighton opened his mouth to scream but nothing really came out and in that moment he registered the reason for all of these events culminated in the fact that he’d been shot by a sniper. White-hot light exploded in his sight and his breath exploded from his lungs as he pitched forward and his chest hit the sidewalk. The last thing Brighton saw was a flash where Hiram stood with the two neo-Nazi terrorists and the gory explosion of intestines and blood from Hiram’s stomach.

Brighton never heard Hiram’s body as it toppled forward and bounced down the stone steps—neither did he hear the explosive sound of the pistol pointed at Gansky’s head through the back window of the VW.

Homs District, Syria

ON AN ABANDONED road less than half a mile outside the village of Sadad, Gunnery Sergeant Dusty Morrell of Recon Platoon, 8th Marine Expeditionary Force, waited patiently for nothing to happen. Just a few days earlier a detachment of Syrian Arab Army regulars had maintained tactical control, however loose the term, on that road but conflict in nearby areas had forced them to abandon their hold. The Marines had penetrated the region via a low-level airborne jump into the neighboring region and were now in a defensive posture designed to protect the village.

There were less than three thousand Syrians residing in Sadad, but in the past couple of weeks NATO had sent civilian workers to the village to assist the victims of a previous attack by Islamic militants in the al-Nusra Front. While it held no strategic value for the United States, or even the SAA for that matter, NATO inspectors were concerned about a possible resurgence of NF attacks if it became known the SAA had been sent elsewhere. Although the SAA commander left behind a small contingent of soldiers in Sadad, they were by no means equipped to repel any kind of significant attack.

“Holy cripes!” Morrell complained, squashing a fly that bit his neck. “Could this place be any more miserable?”

Lance Corporal Jack Ingstrom chuckled. “Don’t know, Gunney. Never been in a place quite like it.”

Morrell looked at his Hummer driver. “Well, neither have I, Ingstrom, but when the recruiter told me I’d visit exotic places I sure as hell didn’t have anything like this in mind. Put me back in Iraq killing insurgents. At least there I won’t die of boredom.”

“Aye, aye, Gunney,” was all Ingstrom could think to reply.

Morrell muttered a flurry of curses under his breath and then informed his men and platoon leader in the back seat he was going to take a leak. He jumped from the Hummer, swung his Colt IAR6940 rifle across his shoulder and picked a nice, dark, secluded spot in which to conduct his business. He was midstream when he heard it, checking over his shoulder where he had a somewhat clear if not totally panoramic view of the road. There were headlights visible in the distance. But as Morrell stood there, pondering this sudden turn of events, he realized the sounds he heard weren’t engines.

First, the lights on the road were much too far off for the engines to be heard already. Second, these weren’t engine sounds he was hearing. They sounded more like...choppers!

“Yo, Gunney!”

Morrell jumped and nearly urinated on himself, catching the edge of a finger as he buttoned his fly. He turned to give Ingstrom a tongue-lashing when the area immediately behind the young lance corporal erupted in a white-orange flash. Their Hummer had been the target of the rockets from the chopper, which was now upon them.

In the aftermath of the explosion, Ingstrom got a funny look on his face and then his knees turned wobbly and he started to fall. Morrell rushed to the man and caught him before he hit the ground. Something warm and wet connected with his sleeve. He realized it was blood coming from Ingstrom’s back where dozens of shrapnel fragments from the destroyed Hummer had pierced his flesh.

Morrell turned the young man over, calling his name, but the light had already left Ingstrom’s eyes. Morrell lifted his head as he heard his platoon respond with audible effect, the dozen or so small arms firing on the chopper and its twin that had launched the attack.

Morrell dropped the limp body to the gravel-and-sand floor of the Syrian Desert and brought his assault rifle into play. He jacked the charging handle to the rear, thumbed the safety to full-auto and began to trigger short, sustained bursts at the choppers as they flitted about. One of the many volleys from the Marine platoon finally scored and sparks erupted from a chopper’s side panel. An explosion occurred, then something seemed to flash. Morrell blinked and the next thing he saw was the chopper spinning wildly out of control and rushing to meet the ground while canting at a hellish angle. Over the brilliant explosion that occurred on impact, Morrell thought he heard the glorious shouts of victory from a number of his Marines.

Semper fi, boys, he thought.

They continued to do battle with the second chopper, but it was quickly becoming difficult as the pilot cleverly stayed high and in motion, making it impossible for them to get a bead on their target. Additionally the enemy was armed with rockets and using them with deadly accuracy, destroying two more Hummers and a five-ton truck. Morrell wanted to call for air support, but he knew there were no units within proximity—any requested assistance would arrive far too late.

The battle continued for another five or ten minutes, Morrell couldn’t be completely sure, before the chopper blasted out of the area, having left plenty of destruction and death in its wake. Morrell ran toward the last known position of those vehicles that should have survived and picked up any survivors as he went, one with a leg wound and being assisted by two other Marines.

By this time the vehicles on the road were fast approaching and Morrell had only managed to collect a handful of survivors. He asked a squad sergeant named Hicks, “We got anything heavy left? Squad machine guns, crewed light artillery...anything?”

“I got one .60 we pulled from our Hummer,” Hicks replied. “The rocket got the front of it and flipped us on our side. Gunner got squashed, but I managed to salvage it.”

Morrell nodded. “Get it set up at that high point overlooking the road. I suspect those trucks are NF, and under no circumstances are you to allow them through. I’ll start collecting whatever explosive ordnance we have, including grenades and any launchers I can find. Whatever happens tonight, Sergeant, those trucks are not to get through. Is that clear?”

“Aye, aye, sir!” Hicks turned and ordered the man with the M-60 to find high ground and to take another man with him.

Morrell called after the young man, a private, and said, “Listen good, Marine. Your orders are to fire for effect and prevent those trucks from getting through. Go for the equipment, first—especially since you got limited ammo. When you’re out, it’s time to start making bodies. Understood?”

“Yes, Gunney!”

“Semper fi, Private,” he muttered as the young man turned to follow orders.

Morrell knew he’d probably just sent two Marines to their deaths, but there wasn’t anything he could about it. Their mission was to protect the village and that’s what he planned to do, whatever it cost.

“Sir, I don’t get it,” Hicks said. “How the fuck did this happen? This mission was supposed to be classified.”

“I don’t know the answers,” Morrell said glumly. “I don’t know that we’ll ever know the answers. But I can promise you this much. If we get out of this alive, I sure as hell will get those answers—if I got to go straight to the Pentagon myself.”

“If you do that, Gunney, I can guarantee I’ll be right behind you,” Hicks replied.