Tier One (Tier One Series Book 1) Read online

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 Brian Andrews & Jeffrey Wilson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503936805

  ISBN-10: 1503936805

  Cover design by Brian Zimmerman

  Cover illustrated by Paul Youll

  To the heroes of Extortion 17, who gave the ultimate sacrifice for freedom on August 6, 2011 . . . fair winds and following seas.

  And to the men and women working quietly and tirelessly in the shadows so the rest of us may be safe and free.

  CONTENTS

  TIER ONE

  PART I

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  PART II

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  PART III

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  EPILOGUE

  GLOSSARY

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  TIER ONE

  Elite, covert special missions units tasked with conducting counterterrorism operations, strike operations, reconnaissance in denied areas, and special intelligence missions. Their existence is often denied.

  PART I

  The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break, it kills.

  It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.

  —Ernest Hemingway

  CHAPTER 1

  The Arabian Sea

  March 13, 0030 Local Time

  Jack Kemper ran his fingertip along the place where the jihadist’s dagger had carved him to the bone. The scar wrapped his forearm like a serpent, but it had long since lost its bite. It was an old wound, pearly white and smooth, all the pink and tenderness bleached away by sea and sun and time. Sometimes he displayed it brazenly, like a badge of honor; other times he rolled down his sleeves to hide the reminder of the mistake that nearly cost him the use of his left hand. But now, in the dark of night, pride and prejudice were irrelevant.

  In the dark, a man could hide his scars.

  He watched the water through the open cargo door of the modified Black Hawk helicopter. Below, green rollers and whitecaps whisked past at 150 miles per hour, painted in high-contrast monochrome by his night vision goggles. Somewhere down there was the Darya-ye Noor, a cargo ship sailing from the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas to Aden, Yemen. The Darya-ye Noor—Farsi for Sea of Light—was registered to and operated by the Khazir Shipping Company. According to the analysts, Khazir functioned as a front company for the IRISL, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines, transporting both legitimate and illicit cargo between Iran and various Middle Eastern, African, and Asian ports. Intelligence indicated that the Darya-ye Noor was carrying a cache of chemical weapons to Al Qaeda affiliates in Yemen. The proliferation of WMDs didn’t mesh with US counterterrorism strategy, so the brass did what it always did—tasked a team of Tier One operators to take care of business.

  Although he had a knack for remembering bullshit trivia, Kemper did not consider himself a “details guy.” He really didn’t care what JSOC wanted him to blow up, clean up, or pick up; just tell him when and where, and he would get the job done. He had participated in so many missions as a member of the Joint Special Operations Command’s covert Tier One SEAL team during the past twenty years that he’d lost count. But the human toll he remembered with perfect clarity—twenty-eight American casualties, fourteen team members wounded or killed in action. He stopped tracing the scar and leaned his head back against the rear bulkhead of the passenger compartment. Tipping his NVGs up away from his eyes, he let the darkness chase their faces away—every last one—until his mind was blank. Regret was an unproductive preoccupation for old men. Besides, he still had work to do.

  And debts to pay.

  He stared out into the night—so black he was unable to see his leg dangling out the side of the helicopter. The wind buffeted the inside of his calf and thigh, snapping the fabric of his gray utility pants against his skin. The thrum of the rotors and rhythmic vibration of the Black Hawk’s superstructure was a wonted lullaby. He yawned as he fished his rope gloves out of his vest pocket.

  He felt a tap on his shoulder.

  He pulled his NVGs back down and stared at the green-gray face grinning at him beneath a matching set of goggles. Special Operations Chief Aaron Thiel held up a hand—the one with half its pinkie finger missing.

  “Five minutes,” Thiel said, shouting over the wind.

  Kemper leaned in. “You mean four and a half?” he said, gesturing at Thiel’s old wound.

  Thiel’s grin transformed into a smirk, and he flipped his hand over, gesturing now with only one finger.

  Kemper laughed and flipped Thiel a bird of his own. Two other SEALs crowded in beside him, completing his party of four for the port-side drop. Four more SEALs clustered on the starboard side. Thiel wrestled the massive bags of rope into place on both sides of the helicopter while Kemper shifted into position, then arched and twisted his spine—cracking the vertebrae to relieve the pent-up tension he’d accumulated during the uncomfortable flight out. Then he rolled his neck, each wrist, and cracked his knuckles. With age, he’d become a cracking addict. He knew it probably wasn’t good for his joints, but damn, it felt good.

  “Senior Chief,” said a voice, barely audible over the comms circuit.

  Kemper found the volume knob on the radio clipped to his left shoulder and turned it up. His Peltor earpieces canceled out most of the background noise, but twenty years riding these damn helicopters meant he needed the extra volume. He turned his head to see who was talking to him and found Spaz in his face. “What, Spaz?”

  “Help me settle an argument.�
�� Spaz’s hands flew over his gear, checking his loadout and weapons while he talked. “Pablo thinks that Spider-Man would make the best Tier One operator. I told him only Batman is badass enough to make the teams, much less our unit.” He slid the bolt on his M4 partway back to check the round in the chamber, then clicked the power on the holographic sight and infrared laser target designator. “Whadaya think, Senior?”

  Kemper rolled his eyes behind his NVGs. “I say you’re both idiots. We’re on a combat mission, and you assholes are arguing about comic-book characters. Get your heads in the game, for Christ’s sake.” He looked past Spaz to Thiel and gave the two-finger signal that meant they were two minutes out.

  Thiel nodded.

  Kemper snapped the sights and lights on his SOPMOD M4 assault rifle and then ran his fingers over his ammo pouches, counting them off in his head. He felt the Black Hawk’s nose pull up slightly as it bled off speed on the approach to the target. He sidled up next to Thiel and tightened the straps on his rope gloves.

  A moment later, the helicopter pulled up sharply and settled into a static hover. Kemper and Thiel kicked the rope bag together, and it disappeared out the hole into the blackness below. Kemper tightened his grip and pinned the rope between his boots. Then, looking at Spaz, he said, “Everyone knows Spider-Man is a pussy. Without tall buildings for his webby shit, the dude’s got nothing. Every SEAL I know could kick his ass . . . every SEAL except maybe you, college boy.” With a grin, he slipped out of the helicopter into the cold, black air.

  Kemper hit the deck on the fantail of the cargo ship hard. He moved left, dragging the heavy rope bag with him to straighten out any bunches near the bottom. He worked fast, clearing the bottom of the rope just as Spaz landed beside him. Spaz dodged right, and Pablo hit the deck, followed by Thiel a split second later. They moved swiftly to the left, away from the falling rope as it pounded the deck beneath the departing helicopter. The starboard-side team completed its drop with mirror-image perfection. All eight SEALs were now on board, fanning out along the stern of the ship.

  Kemper scanned the vessel’s superstructure, comparing the reality before him to the reconnaissance photos he’d studied hours earlier. By container-ship standards, the Darya-ye Noor was relatively small; her two-hundred-meter length and 2200 TEU carrying capacity were leagues below the size of a typical Panamax vessel. But from his vantage point, looking out across a cargo deck the length of a football field, the ship looked enormous. The package was somewhere in the middle of a maze of metal boxes and tarp-covered shipping crates, sandwiched between the soaring bridge tower near the bow and the elevated stern deck on which he stood.

  He held no illusions they had arrived undetected. Despite the whisper-quiet stealth technology of the helicopters belonging to the Army’s elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, the Darya-ye Noor’s Iranian captain had undoubtedly posted lookouts. A five-second drop time, while tactically impressive, was not fast enough for eight heavily armed operators to descend onto the deck of a moving ship unnoticed. Any second now, he expected floodlights and gunfire.

  The key was to keep moving.

  The SEALs maintained their port- and starboard-team orientations as they pushed forward—Kemper, Pablo, Spaz, and Thiel working the port side of the ship; Rousch, Gabe, Helo, and Gator split out to starboard. In rapid succession, they descended a short flight of stairs leading down to the cargo deck. At the bottom, Kemper dropped to one knee and covered his three teammates as they passed him. After clearing the next five meters, Spaz took a knee and Kemper took his turn scouting forward.

  Hugging the port rail, he checked the first dark corridor between the rows of crates.

  Clear.

  He advanced to the next row.

  Clear.

  Fuck, he hated missions like this. It was so much better to land in the suck and get the fight over with, rather than sneaking around waiting for some fanatic to pop up and unload an RPG on your ass.

  He checked the next row.

  Nothing. Where the hell was everybody?

  Based on the overflight drone imagery they’d viewed during the pre-op brief, he’d expected to find shooters patrolling the cargo deck. He’d counted heat signatures for at least a dozen people moving topside. Sure, that data was ninety minutes old—maybe a little more at this point—but it seemed strange that every asshole with a gun would go inside at the same time. Maybe it was mealtime for the midwatch? Or maybe the ship’s captain only ran security patrols during certain hours? The Iranians knew better than that. Hits like this always happened under the cover of darkness.

  He quietly keyed his radio. “Demo team, move to the package.” Two clicks in his ear told him the other seven SEALs heard him.

  Together with Spaz, he scanned the cargo deck fore and aft for movement while Pablo and Thiel disappeared into the maze of boxes with their handheld chemical-weapons sniffers. On the starboard side of the ship, Helo and Gator would be moving to join them, while Rousch and Gabe provided cover.

  Kemper waited in silence. It was less than a minute before he heard Thiel whispering over the comms circuit, but it felt like an eternity.

  “Sniffer can’t find a chem signature.”

  Kemper grimaced. Shit.

  Their mission had two objectives: to detonate the package and to collect intelligence. Now he had a decision to make: continue to provide coverage for the demolition team and abort the intelligence-collection task, or proceed to the bridge tower and leave Thiel and Pablo to take care of themselves.

  Kemper paused, weighing the risks.

  As if his friend could read his thoughts, Thiel’s voice said over the wireless, “Lead, Two. We’ve got this. Go.”

  Kemper looked at Spaz, who flashed him a crooked grin.

  Kemper keyed his mike. “Bridge team, forward.”

  Two clicks in his ear.

  Spaz took the lead. Kemper followed silently up the steel stairway leading to the raised deck. Upon reaching the top step, Spaz spread out prone and Kemper took a knee, sighting over his partner. He fully expected to see sentries in the doorways leading to the bridge tower and crew quarters, but he saw nothing except empty space. He frowned and clicked on his PEQ-4 infrared designator. He confirmed he could spot the red targeting dot—visible only through night vision goggles—on the wall beside the open doorway. Then he tapped Spaz twice on the shoulder.

  Spaz moved fast in a low, awkward crouch, covering thirty yards in seconds. Kemper scanned right through his NVGs and saw another SEAL moving parallel to Spaz toward the mirror-image doorway on the starboard side of the raised deck. Once both men were beside the doorways, Kemper sprang from his crouch. His left knee popped, and he silently cursed his thirty-eight-year-old body. He darted across the raised deck while Spaz covered his movement, scanning skyward as he ran, surveying the ladders and catwalks that crisscrossed the superstructure of the bridge tower. All deserted.

  They were on a ghost ship.

  How could these guys be so stupid as to transport WMDs without a security detail?

  He hesitated. It all felt too easy. Why hadn’t he heard from Thiel yet? Why was it taking so long to find the package? Something was wrong. They’d missed something.

  Instinct and twenty years’ experience as an operator took over. He whirled 180 degrees and looked back toward the stern, across the main cargo deck from his elevated vantage point. With perfect night vision clarity, he surveyed the stacks of wooden crates, metal cargo boxes, and tarps flapping in the wind.

  The tarps . . .

  They were hiding under the fucking tarps.

  CHAPTER 2

  Kemper keyed his mike. “Demo team—you’ve got shooters on the cargo deck. Under the tarps. Repeat, shooters under the tarps.”

  Two clicks in his ear.

  A barrage of automatic weapon fire shattered the silence.

  And so it began.

  Kemper sprinted toward Spaz at the base of the bridge tower and threw his back against the bulkhead. He dropped to
a knee and peered up into the open ladder well that led up to the catwalks and the O-5 level. Through his NVGs, he followed the dancing red dot of his IR laser sight as it whipped across the empty runs of metal stairs above.

  “It’s coming from the cargo deck,” Spaz whispered harshly in his ear.

  “I know, but I don’t want to get shot in the back when we rally aft to cover.”

  Another burst of gunfire.

  “Heavy contact,” Thiel’s voice barked in Kemper’s earpiece. “Heavy contact at the package. Fuck.”

  Kemper heard a click and then a series of controlled pops from an M4 rifle. Probably Thiel’s. More gunfire, this time from an AK-47. The sound danced around the ship, reverberating off the superstructure from every direction. His heart pounded like a tympani keeping time.

  Fuck intelligence collection.

  His only priority now was to provide fire support to the SEALs trapped in that death maze of cargo boxes on the main deck.

  “Bridge team, rally back. Cover from the deck rails,” Kemper called into his mike.

  Spaz took point and Kemper followed, angling away from the hatch leading to the passageway and moving back onto the raised deck. From the raised deck, they transitioned onto the outboard deck rails, which gave them a slightly elevated firing position compared to the cargo deck six feet below. At a dogleg amidships, Spaz stopped and pressed himself into a corner. He steadied his rifle on the rail slat beside a stairwell leading down. Kemper slid left, looking for cover. He spied a three-foot-tall green box—a small generator, if he had to guess—and crouched beside it. He steadied his rifle and sighted through the railing.

  “Fuckin’ A,” he heard Spaz mutter to his right, as gunfire popped all around them.

  Kemper keyed his mike. “Two, Lead—do you want to abort?”

  “Negative, Lead. Five is wiring the package now,” Thiel’s voice came back.

  Tracers crisscrossed the cargo deck from three distinct points, all aimed at the center, where four of his teammates were pinned behind a stack of crates—the same crates they were wiring with explosives. A lump formed in Kemper’s throat. He wasn’t worried about the plastic explosives the demo team was setting; the moldable, green clay bricks could take a direct hit without detonating. But the contents inside the shipping crates were another matter. The assholes were firing at their own chemical weapons cache. Breach a single canister filled with sarin precursors, and it was game over for everyone.