American Operator Read online

  “Well, well . . . looks like I have a match,” Baldwin said, his voice taking on the air of a man perusing the jelly aisle at the grocery and finding the last jar of fig preserves.

  “Just give it to us,” Dempsey said.

  “More than ninety-seven percent that is Sarah Bonney in the hot tub. The other woman has her back to us. If she turns, Elizabeth, be sure to get a picture.”

  “Roger that, Stable,” she said, emphasizing his call sign to remind the Signals Chief he was slipping again, but Dempsey suspected Baldwin was oblivious to the subtext.

  “Sarah Bonney—the British aid worker?” Wang asked.

  “Yes. She’s a pediatric surgeon. She and an American nurse, one Diana Curtis, disappeared from a refugee hospital run by Medecins Sans Frontieres in Tunisia nearly two months ago.”

  “Ten bucks says the other woman is Diana Curtis,” Munn chimed in.

  “A sound bet, statistically speaking of course,” Baldwin came back.

  “I remember that kidnapping,” Dempsey grumbled, ignoring their banter. “Didn’t AQIM claim responsibility?”

  “Yes, Al Qaeda Islamic Maghreb issued a statement the next day,” Baldwin said. “The attack left three wounded and two dead. CIA analysts tracked the group to a camp south of Ajdabiya. A joint French commando and US SEAL team hit the site forty-eight hours later, killing a few dozen terrorists, but Sarah and Diana were not found among the dead.”

  Dempsey silently cursed Baldwin for identifying these women and sharing their story. Names made it real. Backstory made it real. Staying on mission had been a bitter pill for him to swallow before, but now it was going to be gnaw-off-his-fingers impossible.

  “So these girls definitely changed hands at least once,” Dempsey said, rubbing his beard. “I’m not aware of regular contact between AQIM and any Chechen terror groups, though.”

  “I’m inclined to agree with you,” Baldwin replied. “This is strange.”

  “We can’t leave them, JD,” Grimes said, talking off mike. “We just can’t. Let me take the leader out.”

  With a word, she could send the asshole in the hot tub straight to hell, and probably the pair of guards, too. But even if Grimes was perfect on the WinMag, she wouldn’t be able to headshot everyone on that boat. The bad guys who survived would cut anchor and run—killing the girls later and then dumping the bodies overboard. On top of that, the al-Fahkoury op would implode. al-Fahkoury would squirt, and it would be months, maybe years, before they got another shot at him.

  “What are we gonna do?” Munn asked in his ear.

  Dempsey said nothing as he watched the ringleader badger the girl in the hot tub into drinking champagne while the other woman rocked on the deck, hugging herself.

  Son of a bitch.

  “What is your tactical recommendation, Charger One? You’re the strike lead.” Dempsey knew Munn would see this as a test, but even a test would reveal where the man stood in his development as a team leader.

  “Rescue op. I want to go get them, like right fucking now.”

  “Understood,” Dempsey said. “But I didn’t ask what you wanted to do. I asked for your tactical recommendation.”

  He hated the cold-ass son of a bitch he had become. He hated how knowing the big picture had made him a spook—a Jones, they would have called him back in the SEAL Teams. At times like these, he wished he was still a door kicker. It was so much easier to hate the higher-ups for making the unpopular call than to have to make the hard call himself.

  “If we hit the yacht now, al-Fahkoury will squirt,” Munn said in a tight, strained voice.

  “That’s right,” Dempsey said. “But we have satellite coverage. We can track the yacht, notify the Italians, and they can sortie a rescue. It’s not a lost cause, people. So unless anybody can convince me of a way to rescue the hostages without jeopardizing the al-Fahkoury op, we stay the course.”

  Grimes lifted her head and turned to look at him. He met her eyes. She didn’t say anything; she didn’t have to. He hated himself for making this call, but it was the right call.

  “I have an idea,” Munn said, his voice suddenly hopeful. “Let me come up and pitch it to you.”

  Of course you do, Dempsey thought, shaking his head. He glanced at his Suunto watch. Assuming Baldwin was right, which statistically he invariably was, they still had more than six hours until the sunrise meet. “All right. Come up and tell me what you’ve got.”

  “We have a positive ID on the other hostage,” Baldwin suddenly announced. “Eighty-one percent confidence level she is Diana Curtis, mother of three from Canton, Ohio. Dale has just informed me her husband is a pastor. This was her first trip outside CONUS—a mission trip coordinated through her church.”

  “Wonderful, just what I didn’t need to hear,” Dempsey mumbled to himself as he began to pace. Whatever Munn’s plan was, he hoped it had legs. Because despite the risk, despite the orders, Dempsey knew himself. When it came to making the hard choices, his heart always found a way to fuck things up.

  CHAPTER 3

  Dempsey glanced at his watch as al-Fahkoury’s three-vehicle caravan pulled into the marina parking lot.

  0730—right on time.

  The driver’s window of the lead Mercedes slid down, and June Latif—one of two new Ember recruits—walked up to talk to the driver. This, what they were doing right now, was the revised plan—Munn’s plan—and it was insane. Insane enough that it might actually work. At least that’s what Dempsey told himself. To grab al-Fahkoury and rescue the hostages on the yacht, they had no choice but to insinuate themselves into the middle of the bad guys’ party. What Latif was doing right now, trying to convince al-Fahkoury that the plans had changed and that they would be playing escort on the water taxi, was the riskiest and most critical phase of the op. Latif had to succeed; otherwise, Ember would have no choice but to intervene prematurely, which virtually guaranteed an unsatisfactory outcome. While Latif negotiated, Dempsey forced himself into the slouch of a weary ditchdigger or tollbooth operator, body language that screamed, I’m just a hired gun; they don’t pay me enough to care.

  “It would appear that they have agreed to the terms,” Baldwin said in his ear, summarizing the rapid-fire exchange in Arabic between Latif and al-Fahkoury’s driver. A beat later, the rear passenger door of the middle vehicle, a black Land Rover, swung open, and al-Fahkoury stepped out. The terrorist was much younger than Dempsey had expected—no older than early thirties. Unlike so many of his jihadi counterparts whom Dempsey had hunted over the years, al-Fahkoury had eschewed the stereotypical gray tunic for hipster wear. His jet-black hair was coiffed David Beckham style, his beard short and meticulously trimmed. With his Persol sunglasses, expensive black loafers, and gray suit coat over a black T-shirt, the man didn’t look like any terrorist Dempsey had crossed swords with before. Was this the new face of terror—a millennial mastermind waging war from an app on his mobile phone?

  al-Fahkoury didn’t even spare Dempsey a glance as he strode past, briefcase in hand, toward the marina below. Latif fell into conversation with one of al-Fahkoury’s men and even managed to get the stern-faced bodyguard to smile at a joke. The former Green Beret officer had transitioned seamlessly into his role at Ember. And for missions like this one, Junayd Abd al-Latif, the only son of parents from the United Arab Emirates, was the perfect fit. Dempsey fell in at the back of the entourage, but immediately one of al-Fahkoury’s goons slipped behind him to control the rear of the human caravan.

  Three minutes later, the entourage reached the dock. The Damor water taxi had lines reminiscent of a thirty-one-foot Boston Whaler. Like the Whaler, this boat sat high in the water with a closed bow and tall pilot house. From amidships to the stern, it featured a generous open-air seating section, perfect for relaxing or fishing. The layout was ideal for what they had planned. Dempsey glanced up at the pilot house and resisted the urge to give a nod to Munn, who wore a faded blue fishing cap and manned the helm as the boat captain. al-Fahkoury paused on th
e dock, taking measure of the boat before boarding. Dempsey capitalized on his hesitation, stepped aboard the Damor, and took a corner position near the stern on the port side. Latif followed suit, taking up a mirror image position on the starboard side, and in doing so, they assumed tactical control of the vessel. Like two sentries at the corners of a courtyard, they now owned the space and could not be flanked by al-Fahkoury’s men. This was a tactical gaff on al-Fahkoury’s part, and the expression on the young hipster terrorist’s face showed he recognized as much as he climbed aboard.

  Not surprisingly, al-Fahkoury entered the pilot house and sat in the middle of a U-shaped bench seat on the port side. Munn gave the terrorist a cordial nod from where he sat with one ass cheek on the lip of a swiveling captain’s chair. al-Fahkoury nodded back, then propped an ankle on a knee and held his black case in his lap. Two of his bodyguards took bookend positions, one on each side, but remained standing, rifles held at the ready. The third goon stood between Dempsey and Latif—a position that would not work well for him shortly. The remainder of al-Fahkoury’s security detail stayed on shore—two men walking back toward their vehicles and one remaining on the dock.

  Luca Martin, a former Marine who was playing Captain Dan’s deckhand, cast off the lines and then hopped onto the bow as the Damor pulled away from the L-shaped pier. Martin scooted backward along the narrow gunwale outside the cockpit, nodding and smiling deferentially at everyone he passed on his way into the pilot house. Dempsey grunted and shook his head at the “lowly deckhand.” Then he shifted his attention to the bay, scanning the surrounding water for other boats that might be converging on their position or the yacht. So far, things had gone smoothly—a little too smoothly—and now was about that time in an op when Mr. Murphy liked to throw him curveballs. Who the hell knew what either one of these terrorist organizations was planning? If Ember had unwittingly insinuated themselves in the middle of a trap laid by one party for the other, then they were screwed.

  As long as we shoot first, he told himself, it shouldn’t matter.

  The five-minute ride from the marina out to the yacht went by in achingly slow motion. Dempsey had to fight back the need to be at combat ready when his cover required he look bored and nonthreatening. God, how he hated this spooky shit.

  “Okay, boys,” Grimes said through his earpiece from her sniper nest position back at the hotel. “Here’s the roll call. al-Fahkoury is HVT One. His three guards are Tango One, Two, and Three, moving aft to forward. HVT Two is the boss from the hot tub earlier. The two shooters who’ve taken up position on the stern platform of the yacht are Yankee One and Two, port and starboard respectively. Yankee Three is the guy standing beside HVT Two on the party deck. In the bridge you’ve got the skipper and Yankee Four and Five. The two shooters with the hostages belowdecks are Yankee Six and Seven.”

  As Munn closed on the bigger vessel’s stern from the starboard side, Dempsey forced himself to look away from the yacht, scanning for waterborne threats as he protected their “guest.” The plan worked only if everyone made the proper assumptions—the bad guys on the yacht assumed that he and Latif were part of al-Fahkoury’s security detail, while al-Fahkoury and his goons believed they’d been sent to escort him by HVT Two, a man Baldwin had identified as Malik from parsing pirated comms Wang had obtained during the night. Once the shooting commenced, Ember would exploit the precious few seconds of confusion before it became clear to both groups that they were unwanted party crashers.

  Munn turned the bow of the Damor west and eased the starboard beam along the diving platform of the yacht, which presented the Damor’s stern toward the beach and Grimes in her balcony room in the cliffside hotel. Dempsey noticed that Munn was taking his sweet time docking, giving Grimes plenty of opportunity to set up her shots. Martin moved back to the gunwale and threw the bow line to one of the Yankee shooters on the yacht’s stern. The line landed limply on the deck at his feet. Grudgingly, the man released his weapon and bent to pick it up. Then he helped Martin ease the Damor alongside.

  “Martin, you’ll need to drop flat when the shooting starts to clear my lines,” Grimes said, her voice tight. “Okay, here we go . . .”

  Dempsey gripped his rifle and tapped his finger on the trigger guard, forcing himself to look anywhere but the yacht.

  “Three . . .” Grimes said, starting the countdown.

  Martin called for the yacht-shooter-turned-line-tender to take up slack.

  “Two . . .”

  The man on the platform barked something back in Arabic.

  “One . . .”

  A bullet streaked inbound, invisible but accompanied by a faintly audible whistle.

  The line-tending shooter toppled over, hit the edge of the deck with a wet thud, then fell into the water. Dempsey turned to look aft. Everyone else froze in confusion, except Martin, who dropped low, and Latif, who charged forward into the pilot house. Someone hollered in Arabic. Then came another whistle, and Yankee Two’s head exploded in a geyser of red and gray.

  “Ahtami! Ahtami!” Dempsey hollered, still playing his role by ordering everyone to take cover. The man beside him, one of al-Fahkoury’s goons, clutched at his neck after a .300 Winchester Magnum round from Grimes’s death machine tore the front of his throat out. Dempsey felt wet spatter on the side of his face as he took a knee.

  “Lines are bad on Tango Two and Three,” Grimes said, referring to the guards flanking al-Fahkoury inside the pilot house. “Moving on to Yankee Three.”

  “What is happening?” one of the guards screamed in Arabic.

  al-Fahkoury was on his knees, his case clasped to his chest.

  “Take him below,” Latif shouted, pointing to the hatch at the front of the pilot house that led to the small sleeping cabin in the bow.

  The two bodyguards reacted immediately, pulling al-Fahkoury up and then pushing him toward the hatch. As they turned, Latif moved behind the guard on al-Fahkoury’s left and raised his rifle just as Dempsey sighted on the man to al-Fahkoury’s right. Latif nodded and they squeezed their triggers, delivering simultaneous headshots. al-Fahkoury whirled to look at Dempsey, his face ashen with shock and dismay.

  Dempsey put the iron sight on the terrorist’s forehead and smiled. “Mr. Jones, will you escort our guest belowdecks, please?” he said to Martin.

  al-Fahkoury’s eyes went wide with fear and recognition as he put together the pieces about what had just happened.

  “My pleasure,” the former Marine said and took al-Fahkoury by both arms, deftly whipped a nylon zip tie around the man’s wrists, and then shoved the terrorist headfirst through the hatch and down into the Damor’s berthing cabin.

  “All right, fellas, let’s do this,” Dempsey said, whirling toward the yacht.

  Munn wore a grin on his face but had fire burning in his eyes. He knelt, opened a compartment under the pilot console, and pulled out three tactical vests and an assault rifle. He tossed vests to Dempsey and Latif. The trio quickly kitted up and then moved in tactical crouches toward the stern while Martin stayed behind to guard al-Fahkoury.

  “Two shooters moving aft on the yacht—Yankee Four and Five. HVT Two and Yankee Three are retreating, moving forward,” Grimes called out. “My lines are bad. I only have one shot, the skipper on the bridge.”

  “Take him,” Dempsey said. “Before he hits the throttle and breaks our connection.”

  Dempsey heard glass shatter as he climbed off the Damor onto the yacht’s deck.

  “Skipper is down. Four and Five are still amidships in cover positions. No shot.”

  “Boarding now,” Munn replied, then, turning to Latif, said, “Call out to these guys. Sound panicked.”

  “Help!” Latif shouted in Arabic. “There’s a small boat. They’re shooting at us.”

  Dempsey took a knee and fired several two-round bursts into the open water. Munn squeezed off a burst as well.

  “Eijal! Eijal!” Latif shouted. Hurry! Hurry!

  “Yankee Four and Five just broke cover
,” Grimes said.

  Dempsey pivoted inboard. One of the two shooters stepped into view, charging around the hot tub and scanning over his weapon but confused about where and whom he should be targeting. Dempsey dropped him with two rounds to the chest. A heartbeat later, the second shooter appeared, and Grimes dispatched him with a headshot.

  “Yankee Four and Five are KIA,” Grimes announced. “Three and HVT Two are moving through the topside salon. Recommend you pursue before they get belowdecks.”

  “Charger Three, how is the package?” Munn asked.

  “HVT One is secure,” Martin answered.

  Munn nodded and then fell in beside Dempsey. They moved as a pair across the stern deck toward the sliding glass doors leading to a luxuriously appointed salon. Latif followed a stride behind. Ahead, two figures were fleeing, HVT Two in the lead, trailed by his lone remaining bodyguard.

  “Musaeada!” Latif shouted, calling for help in Arabic, his voice tight with fear and panic.

  The ploy had the desired effect, with Yankee Three hesitating just long enough for Munn to get off a shot. Munn’s bullet hit the bodyguard center mass, sending him stumbling. Dempsey followed a split second later with a headshot, dropping the guard. Alone and with nowhere left to run or hide, HVT Two froze. Raising his hands in the air, the man identified as Malik slowly turned to face the assaulters who had just taken control of his yacht. Instead of fear, however, rage contorted Malik’s face.

  “Who the hell are you?” he said in English, a slight British accent masking something thicker underneath.

  “On your knees,” Munn commanded.

  Staring daggers, Malik complied.

  “I have movement belowdecks,” Grimes reported on the comms channel. “One of the shooters is in the stairwell. Get ready . . . No, wait. He stopped . . . He’s heading back to the stateroom with the hostages. He’s securing the door . . .”

  “Cuff this guy,” Munn said to Latif, who pulled a pair of plastic flex-cuffs from his pocket. “Then we’ll head below and take the others.”