Sons of Valor Read online

  Crazy . . .

  The doors opened, revealing a steel door five paces away, painted green and labeled Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. Flanking the stout green door were two armed guards, dressed in full battle rattle, rifles slung combat style across their chests.

  “Identification, sir,” the guard on the right said in a practiced monotone.

  The perfunctory “sir” was all Chunk would ever get out of this guy.

  The guard scanned his badge, then presented the scanner to Chunk for his left thumb and right index finger. The scanner flashed green—his fingerprints a match—and the stone-faced guard entered a rotating code into the keypad beside the door.

  The door hissed open, and the guard on the left waved him through.

  A star-shaped conference table dominated the center of the dimly lit SCIF—the six spokes formed by three long tables joined in the middle. Computer workstations were set up at each of the seats around what Chunk had come to think of as a star-shaped version of King Arthur’s famous table. Only one station was occupied, however, with Watts seated and typing, while Yi leaned over her shoulder and pointed to something on the screen. Chunk had given Whitney the green light to brief Bowman on her theory about the convoy attack. He wasn’t fully convinced she was right, but he’d decided to let her run with it—if for no other reason than that if she was right, the cost of missing this was too terrifying. In doing so, he’d stuck his neck out for her, but what better way to embrace the ethos of the new Tier One where spooks and operators were teammates under a single banner, as opposed to the divisive separate-but-equal paradigm that had grated on his nerves at Four?

  In his peripheral vision, a man dressed in a dark-blue suit stood talking to Captain Bowman. Despite seeing him only from the back, Chunk recognized the visitor instantly. He’d first met Kelso Jarvis while the former SEAL was serving as the Director of National Intelligence. In the time since, Jarvis had been tapped by President Warner to serve as Vice President after Warner’s former VP was killed in a terror attack in Kiev.

  Jarvis had an unmistakable presence about him. Wherever he went, he pushed an invisible bow wave in front of him, parting a room full of people just like an aircraft carrier parted the seas. To see him here for this brief, defied all logic and expectation.

  Bowman spotted Chunk and waved him over. En route, he couldn’t help but glance in Whitney’s direction. She caught his eye, and her face was a portrait of nerves.

  Oh shit, he thought, suddenly regretting his decision not to be more hands-on with her. What have I done?

  Jarvis turned to greet him and extended a hand.

  “Mr. Vice President,” Chunk said, returning the firm grip. “It’s an honor to serve here, in the house you built.”

  “Good to see you again, Commander Redman,” Jarvis said, his voice coarse gravel. “I was in the neighborhood and I couldn’t resist the opportunity to drop by and visit the new Tier One. It’s been a long time coming.”

  “Yes, sir,” was all he said, deciding to keep it simple rather than risk waking old ghosts.

  “Chunk, we’d like to hear your opinion of Gold Squadron’s readiness,” Bowman said. “The trainers have already given us their assessment, but you know the men better than anyone. Are they ready for field work?”

  Chunk weighed his answer carefully. The line between confident and overconfident was a fine one in this business, and the White House certainly was not interested in a cowboy leading a squadron of the most lethal operators on earth.

  “Got a few boxes left to check, sir,” Chunk said, walking that line, “but to a man the operators are five by. The skills and readiness are already there, and group cohesion is coming together remarkably fast. I’d say we’re damn close to operational.”

  Bowman looked to Jarvis, who folded thick arms across his chest and nodded.

  “Which platoon do you think could pull the trigger on a deployment right now?” Bowman asked.

  “First Platoon, without a doubt. We’ve been mixing up the squads in training to flesh out the best combinations. I have First Platoon whittled down to two fire teams: Riker, Saw, Trip, and Morales in Alpha; Edwards, Georgie, Antman, and Lieutenant Spence in Bravo. Second Platoon is gonna be badass, sir, but First Platoon has already meshed.”

  “Good,” Bowman said, then glancing over Chunk’s shoulder added, “Looks like the rest of the leadership team is here, Mr. Vice President. We can start whenever you’re ready.”

  Chunk turned to see the N3 Ops Officer arriving, along with the N2 department head, Lieutenant Commander Day. N2 was Navy shorthand for the Intelligence Department, while N3 was Operations. Both officers, who wore matching gold oak leaf insignia on their collars, looked as surprised as Chunk had been to see the Vice President in attendance.

  Jarvis glanced at his watch, then made his way to the table and took a seat, cuing everyone else to do the same.

  Bowman shifted his gaze to Whitney. “Watts, you’re up.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said and tapped something on her computer. One of the screens on the wall flickered to life with the opening slide of a presentation Chunk had, unfortunately, not seen yet. Watts moved to the front of the room as Yi took a seat behind the computer. Chunk shot her a little smile and a thumbs-up, and he saw her shoulders visibly relax.

  “Mr. Vice President, Captain Bowman, gentlemen,” she said with a nod to the assembled brass, “this photo was taken by CIA during inventory of a freighter seized last month off the coast of Pakistan.” Chunk immediately recognized the ship as the one he’d hit in his last action at Team Four. The image showed not the CONEX boxes on the cargo deck, but a series of crates in the hold. Another photo filled the screen, this time looking inside an opened box. “Half the crates contained electronics and drone components.” The screen split in half, the first image moving left while a new image popped up on the right. “And the rest contained weapons and ordnance, like these Chinese-made HJ-10 air-to-ground missiles.”

  “I’ve been briefed on this,” the VP said from beside Chunk. “You can skip the appetizers, Ms. Watts, and serve up the main course.”

  Whitney nodded, but Yi advanced to the next slide anyway.

  “The electronic components were manufactured by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, the Chinese equivalent of, say, Boeing or Lockheed Martin,” she continued, her voice cracking with nerves. “Because of their uncanny similarity to their US-manufactured analogs, these components were identified as navigation, communications, and control modules for UCAVs. Aviation electronics is not my area of expertise, but my understanding is—”

  “We’ll stipulate that those parts are what you say, Ms. Watts,” Bowman grumbled. “Like the Vice President said, please, let’s just get to the meat and potatoes.”

  Yi quickly advanced several slides, stopping on an image of burned-out military vehicles along a road. Chunk’s stomach tightened. They’d all lost too many brothers to gutless IED sneak attacks over the years. An IED didn’t care whether you wore a trident or not.

  “This image was taken in the aftermath of the recent convoy attack in Afghanistan,” Watts said.

  “That’s one hell of an IED,” Lieutenant Commander Day said. Chunk didn’t know him well, but knew his impeccable reputation. “Jesus, look at the blast radius.”

  “The same thing caught my eye,” Watts said, and the screen zoomed in on the crater surrounding the second and third vehicles. “The blast radius is big, but what really got my attention was the blast pattern. We ran these images past several experts in the tactical aviation community, and the feedback we received contradicted our initial battle damage assessment. The convoy did not hit an IED. What we’re looking at here is the aftermath of a missile strike, with a blast pattern similar to what you’d expect from a Hellfire. Now I know what you’re thinking, because it was my first concern as well—but we have confirmed that this was not a friendly-fire incident. We are not looking at a blue-on-blue scenario, gentlemen.”

  This conclusion was news to Chunk. He’d known Whitney was working on a theory, but he hadn’t had a chance to dialogue with her before this brief, the VP’s surprise visit having thrown the proverbial monkey wrench into both of their days. He looked at Bowman, who held his gaze as Watts began to narrate a series of slides on the technical aspects of buried charges versus aerial missile blast patterns. But everyone already knew where she was headed, and Chunk felt his pulse quicken.

  “Miss Watts,” Jarvis said, stopping her.

  “Sir?”

  “My time here is at a premium. I know you’re used to making a case to your bosses—of giving evidential details to support your conclusions—but I’m willing to accept that proper due diligence occurred. We’ve got people looking into this in parallel. So if you could please jump ahead to your conclusions and recommendations . . .”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, and Chunk saw she was flustered at having her rhythm broken yet again. She rocked from one foot to another.

  First she looked over at Yi, as if to tell her what slide to fast-

  forward to, but then made a “never mind” motion with her hand and put the laser pointer she’d been using down. Yi advanced the slides anyway, stopping on a photograph of an injured US Army solider lying next to a burned-up Humvee and pointing at the sky. The poignant image raised gooseflesh on Chunk’s forearms.

  “I believe that terrorists—either the Taliban or perhaps an al-Qaeda offshoot—have obtained an operational Chinese drone from the black market. I’m talking about a Rainbow Five or Pterodactyl-class UCAV capable of firing HJ-10 class AGMs, probably similar to those confiscated by Team Four on the Pakistani freighte
r. I believe that such a drone was used against our convoy, and I believe we should expect additional, and potentially deadlier, strikes against US military personnel in the very near future.”

  “And where do you think they are operating this drone from?” Bowman demanded.

  “The Hindu Kush, sir,” Watts said. “On the border between the Kunar and Nuristan provinces in Afghanistan.” She looked at Yi and held up one finger, then flashed five more—slide fifteen, Chunk surmised.

  A satellite view of eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan filled the screen, with the midline centered on the border between the countries. A series of overlapping colored circles spread out over both areas. Most of the circles were blue or green and fell on the Afghan side. A smattering of yellow and red circles, however, extended into northwestern Pakistan. The region was almost entirely Pashtun and a place where tribal law reigned and national government influence was severely lacking.

  “These colored circles mark areas where our signals and cyber experts identified radio and telecommunication transmissions temporally relevant to the convoy attack. The blue dots are confirmed to be friendly transmissions by American coalition operations.” She nodded to Yi and the blue circles disappeared. “The green are our Afghan partners.” These also disappeared, leaving only three yellow circles and three red circles. Two of the yellows were located in southern Afghanistan and the third over a town labeled Mingora, in the Swat Valley of Pakistan. “Yellow dots are mobile communications from suspected terror groups at the time of the attack, and the red circles are transmissions that fall inside the command-and-control frequency bands for a drone.” She nodded at Yi and the yellow circles disappeared, followed a split second later by two of the three reds. “If we drop the mobile comms and the two command-and-control frequencies completely outside the target radius, we’re left with this.”

  A single red circle hovered alone in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, on the southern edge of the range overlooking Jalalabad. Chunk knew the area intimately. He had conducted countless operations in that region; Taliban forces had lived and fought in those mountains for generations.

  “That’s Taliban territory,” Chunk said. “There’s a large village in the foothills just southeast of that point. Mano something-or-other.”

  “Mano Gai,” Yi said.

  “Right—Mano Gai. We used to run ISR on that shithole once or twice a month looking for HVTs. A lot of bad guys transit through there.”

  “It’s a hornet’s nest,” Bowman agreed.

  Jarvis folded his hands and waited for Watts to continue, but Day couldn’t contain himself.

  “Hold on, Watts, don’t tell me you’re suggesting that a bunch of goat-herding Taliban fighters somehow conducted an aerial attack against an American convoy—undetected, no less—just a couple miles outside of one of our major military compounds? The Taliban is, like, a thousand years from having an air force.”

  Watts pursed her lips, and Chunk was curious to see how she handled the challenge. From what he’d seen so far, she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind or stand her ground . . . but she hadn’t been staring down three O-4s, an O-6, and the Vice President of the United States.

  “For the record, Commander, I’m not suggesting the Taliban has an air force. What I’m suggesting is that they have gained custody of a combat drone. The Chinese are offering their version of the MQ-1 to regimes throughout the region, and the bargain-basement prices mean they’re selling like hotcakes at Denny’s on Sunday morning. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, Kazakhstan, and Pakistan all have Chinese drone programs. Is it really that big a stretch to imagine these same platforms making their way into the hands of terrorists? A million dollars, Commander; that’s all it takes to buy a Chinese Predator clone.”

  “Your theory is both sobering and compelling, Watts,” Bowman chimed in, “but I’ve been up in those mountains. It’s rugged territory—just rocks, goats, and a few caves. There are no runways where you could launch or land a Predator drone, Chinese copy or otherwise. Besides, I can say with one hundred percent certainty that the Taliban do not have a satellite network of their own, or access to one necessary for piloting these drones—nor do they have people with the education and training to operate this kind of equipment.”

  Watts nodded and looked down. Chunk read in her face that she had anticipated these arguments and was weighing whether she was willing to die on this hill or not. He hadn’t known her long, but he knew a gifted intellect when he saw it. She’d done the mental math on this already, or she would have balked when Bowman asked her to present her findings.

  Before she could answer, Jarvis stepped in. “I want to play this out,” he said to Bowman. “Whitney, tell us how you think it could be done.”

  She nodded at him, then looked to Bowman. “You’re correct when you say that the Taliban deploying a UCAV using satellite relay control is highly unlikely. But remember, these drones can also be controlled using a line of sight transmitter. Our default paradigm is to think of pilots flying Predators from bases on the other side of the world. But with the right antenna, a laptop, and a two-day training course, it’s feasible that even the Taliban could pilot one of these drones.”

  She was pacing now, and Chunk could see her confidence building.

  “Our overflight reviews show nothing up there right now, that’s true, and we have no imagery from the time of the attack. But there are several caves very close to the signal we pinpointed. And . . .” She turned to face the satellite image on the screen. Using her laser pointer, she drew an imaginary line between the ridge in the Hindu Kush and the site marked Convoy Attack. “Keep in mind, every foot of elevation extends the operating range of the drone. The radio horizon for an operator standing at ground level is five kilometers. Standing on the side of a mountain at five thousand feet, however, that radius grows to a hundred and sixty kilometers—well within reach of the convoy.”

  She retraced the invisible line twice more, staring at it as if reinforcing the conclusion.

  “What do you propose we do next, Ms. Watts?” Jarvis asked, but Chunk sensed the Vice President had already made up his mind on how he intended to proceed.

  She turned to face him.

  “I propose an ISR operation into this area to inspect the transmission site, including searching the caves, along with a HUMINT push to see if assets in the area know anything about the existence of a Taliban-controlled drone.” Two green stars appeared on the screen, both within less than two kilometers of the red circle. “How many Taliban have died as a result of our UCAV program? Hundreds? Thousands? What if what we’re seeing now is just the beginning of a move to level the playing field? I think the days of sending fifteen-year-old boys into markets to blow themselves up are coming to an end. We’ve been lulled into a false sense of security by the technological gap between our military and the terrorists, but the Chinese have closed that gap, and we need to start acting accordingly.”

  Jarvis cleared his throat. “I, for one, find Ms. Watts’s theory pretty damn compelling. We have plenty of Special Operations Forces in Jalalabad, including a detachment from the Army’s Fifth Special Forces and a platoon from SEAL Team Three. But our activity in and about J-bad is constantly surveilled and scrutinized by the enemy. If they see an operation moving toward them from the JSOTF compound there, they’ll scatter and we’ll hit a dry hole. I’d like to see the Tier One enter covertly and cut their teeth on this operation.”

  “Easy day, sir,” Bowman said, his gaze going to the middle distance as his mind worked the problem. “We’ll deploy Gold Squadron’s First Platoon to Kandahar, do a HALO insert from the north, move in undetected, and sweep the caves. At the same time, we’ll have OGA query their assets in the region, and we’ll start a satellite search for potential landing sites.”

  Jarvis nodded and looked at his watch. “The plane’s waiting on me. Get a copy of your plan to my Chief of Staff, Petra Felsk, when you have something concrete put together, and I’ll take a look when I’m back in DC and discuss it with the President. Assuming he gives the green light, consider this a historic day, ladies and gentlemen—you just pitched and sold the first operation for the reborn Tier One.”