American Novelist

Chapter 9

2005-11-26T13:11:00.000-06:00

Washington, D.C.
Saturday, November 15, 1997
8:00 P.M. EST

Harvey Randall peered into the telescopic lens to stare at a lump of rock next to a park bench. Staring at rocks on a Saturday night is not the stuff of recruiting posters. It is the fundamental action of a cop chasing bad guys. This particular rock was a dead letter drop.

A dead letter drop is like a night deposit box at a bank. Only in this case, the bad guys used it to pass secrets from inside the government to a not-so-friendly foreign power. This particular dead letter had been dormant for six months. Tonight someone had used it.

Two hours ago the motion sensor, managed by non-visible laser light, detected someone moving the rock. This caused the PC connected to the laser via serial cable to activate a dialer program. The dialer flipped on the computer modem and dialed a series of special phone numbers. The software then waited for an answer and the triple chirp of the pager PBX to respond to the call. The computer responded with a preset number and disconnected.

A little less than two hours before, Harvey’s pager went off. He read the number off his pager display and realized something big was happening. The robotic sentinels were calling. Someone had just put something under the rock.

Simultaneous with the motion detector alarm, three low-light-sensitive video cameras activated. They were positioned to triangulate on the same spot. The high-speed film recorded a man bending down behind the park bench, lifting the rock up, and depositing a plastic wrapped bundle into the hole beneath the rock. The hole was lined with a PVC pipe four inches across and a foot deep. If needed, one could hide a full size automatic pistol and still have space left over.

Ever since the eruption of Chinese campaign irregularities, the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been tasked with surveillance of all Red Chinese intelligence operations. Perhaps the public had forgotten, but bagmen for the Red Chinese government influencing federal elections is a national security threat. The implicit payment for the contribution was to place several people into sensitive positions inside the administration.

The FBI is a member of the intelligence community like the Central Intelligence Agency. The FBI is the primary federal agency tasked with security issues related to domestic terrorism such as Oklahoma City and countering foreign intelligence services like the former Soviet KGB. When the Berlin Wall came tumbling down, America’s enemies became a far more diverse lot. The number of hostile foreign services attempting to penetrate and steal secrets from the American Government and industry had multiplied like a terrible cancer.

Larry Wheeler, Harvey’s partner, ran the videotapes again. “Any idea who he is?”

Even with three cameras triangulated to capture the drop from multiple positions, the only tangible evidence was the back of a head and gray raincoat. The face and hands were obscured. For all the modern technology, a cop on the spot would have been a much better witness. Due to budgets being what they were in a cost conscious Washington, and the unpopular nature of chasing Chinese moles, a cop on the spot was a fantasy that Harvey knew would never be realized.

Harvey shrugged and looked away from the telescope. “No, but something must be up. They haven’t used this drop in six months. I thought they knew it was being watched.”

Larry nodded. It bothered him. He suspected the Chinese knew they were under intense surveillance. He speculated that there was someone in the White House passing information over to the Chinese Embassy. They were not very far from 2300 Connecticut Avenue Northwest—the home of the Chinese Embassy. It was just a brisk evening’s walk. The question before them was, who would be servicing the drop? Was it a junior level flunky or someone higher up the food chain? The answer to that question would indicate the quality and urgency attached to the drop.

“I wonder how they make contact,” mused Larry. This was a point that bothered both men. The sophistication of their quarry suggested they were past the days of using chalk marks on sidewalks or changing the position of bricks in a walk. Maybe it was as simple as the position of the drapes on somebody’s windows, but the problem was that most everyone who might be the security leak lived outside the District’s boundaries. The Chinese had been strictly confined to a very narrow and manageable boundary.

Harvey shrugged as he poured some tepid coffee from his thermos. “Do we have authority to grab anyone?”

“Only Goldenrod,” replied Larry. Goldenrod was the suspected chief of station for the Guoanbu, China’s State Security Ministry. Of course Goldenrod was rarely seen doing anything but promoting Chinese culture. The only victory the FBI had been able to manage with the State Department was to restrict Goldenrod’s activities to the Washington—New York corridor.

“I say we start with the White House on this one. I think the leak is there,” explained Harvey.

Larry nodded. He popped the top on a Diet Coke. He never got used to the taste of coffee, especially coffee on a stakeout. “I know what you’re driving at, but I don’t think we’ll get to start there. They’re still upset over congressional testimony on campaign finance irregularities, at least, I think they’re supposed to be upset.”

Harvey flipped the video monitors back to real time. The gray-green shadows of the night-vision scopes reflected the nether world in the park. A shadow flicked in the background across the screen. Harvey took a sip of his coffee. A second and third shadow emerged flanking the first shadow. They moved like bodyguards. Their heads kept moving back and forth searching for any anomaly.

Harvey tapped Larry’s shoulder. “I think we’ve got company.”
Larry looked at the monitor over Harvey’s shoulder. He turned to a manila file folder and flipped it open. Goldenrod’s fish dead eyes stared back at him—a face without a trace of humor.

Certainly not the sort you would pick for a cultural attaché. However, if the Chinese had multiple assets in the American administration, then they would need a pro to manage those types of resources.

Goldenrod was the prize—a man with no known identity. He appeared across the world at several postings: Moscow, Berlin, London, Bonn, Tel Aviv, and now, Washington. The name was inconsequential and the embassy position usually benign. Each time he appeared the face had changed. What had not changed were the eyes. The British had developed a long-range retinal scan. They managed to match Goldenrod to three other legends around the world, and the powerful computer databases at Langley made the other connections. Each time a different legend meticulously developed, and the common thread was always a highly placed mole inside the host government’s elite power structure. Goldenrod was given a free reign because he produced intelligence product unlike anyone else.

He had another trait of usually disappearing like the fog on a bright day just before the scam collapsed. Now, Goldenrod was operating inside the United States. Harvey and Larry knew the pattern. They had read extensively the information shared with them by the British and American intelligence communities. They were dealing with an artist.

The face on the screen slowly swam into focus as he approached the dead letter drop. The bodyguards fanned out to form a box around the central figure. Two more were visible in the background, and they were doing very little to disguise the weapons in their hands. “You taping this?” Larry asked excitedly.

“Every second,” said Harvey.

He picked up the phone and punched the speed dial. The phone connected to a tactical response team on duty at the Hoover Building.

Larry looked at the green face blurring in and out of focus and back to the photo he had in his hand. “Do you know what we got here?”

“Pay dirt?”

“We got the man!” The face in the photo matched the face on the screen.

Harvey looked over his shoulder at Larry. A big grin was emerging across his features. They had Goldenrod in the act. “This is Harvey Randall,” he spoke into the phone. “I need an intercept on the Chinese Embassy. That’s at 2300 Connecticut Avenue Northwest. We’ve got hostile action by Chinese nationals.” Well, it was not hostile quite yet, but four bodyguards visibly brandishing firearms did not make for a nighttime picnic.

He dropped the phone back into the cradle. The figures on the screen had formed a protective circle around Goldenrod. He was bending over the rock like an uncertain cat—curious yet cautious. One last time he looked up and scanned the surrounding area. He sensed the eyes watching, but could not see them. The hand hovered over the stone as he weighed the risk of discovery against the value inside. Risk lost out.

Several blocks to the southeast a squad of black-clad Marines clambered into a helicopter. Two squad cars from the DC Police Department diverted from their normal patrol routes and headed for the entrance to the Chinese Embassy. A phone call was made to the office of the FBI Director. Any action against the Red Chinese drew the interest of the highest levels of the American government. Sometimes the interest was not devoted to protecting and preserving the Constitution.

Harvey flipped the tape system to full automatic. He grabbed his coat and followed Larry down the hall and out the back door of the house. Both had pulled their badges and guns. Neither wanted a shootout, but sometimes you did what you had to do.

“You got your vest on?” Harvey asked.

Larry shrugged. “I didn’t think I needed it for tonight.” These things always went down when you thought it was over for the day.

They raced around the front of the house and darted across 15th Street Southwest into the park. Harvey held up his badge in one hand and flipped the safety down on the Smith & Wesson 1066. Harvey liked the 10mm round, and did not mind the wrist twisting recoil it delivered.

Larry, like many others in the Bureau, had opted for the tamer recoil of the .40 S&W round.
Both men spread at diagonals once they crossed the street. Harvey waved the badge once before pulling his hand down and yelling, “Stop, FBI!”

Having seen the guns on the night scopes, and recognizing they were attempting to catch a Chinese spymaster in the act, Larry found the nearest shrubbery with a diving roll. Harvey came to a rolling stop next to a tree bringing the hefty Smith & Wesson 1066 to bear. The Novak LoMount sites had been augmented with tritium inserts. A perfect three-dot site picture emerged on the chest of the nearest bodyguard.

Time seemed to slow down as the startled Chinese spun towards the voice and started to raise his gun hand. It was obvious these boys did not intend to come away peacefully.

Before the bodyguard had raised his gun hand half way, Harvey squeezed off the first shot. He felt the kick and barely noticed the solid crack of the gun. His ears were already ringing from the blast. He reacquired his target and fired a second round. He dropped the weapon to his hip and rolled his body around the other side of the tree.

The 10mm slugs punched two convincing smacks on the trauma plate of the Chinese bodyguard’s Kevlar vest. He flipped backwards, coming down hard on his seat, before rolling over on his hands and knees to crawl away from where he had been shot. Harvey reacquired his target and grunted, “Figures—body armor.”

Goldenrod snatched the packet from the drop box and scurried back into the gloom of the trees and playground. The other forward flanking guard sent two rounds of return fire. They thunked into the tree trunk inches from Harvey’s head. Wood splinters punched out from the tree and threw dust into Harvey’s eyes.

Larry, having witnessed the resistance of the first guard, aimed for the kneecap of the second shooter. He was not the marksman that Harvey had become, so he opted for a pray and spray strategy. He pumped out six rounds before scuttling across the ground to end up behind one of those garbage cans chained to a post. He went prone since the thin sheet metal of the garbage can would hardly stop anything above a .177 pellet gun.

The rear two bodyguards had physically grabbed Goldenrod and were actively hustling him through the park towards the Euclid Street Northwest park border. If they got to a car, it would be far more difficult to capture and convict the Chinese of any wrongdoing.

Harvey rolled out from cover and headed in a sprint after the three retreating Chinese. A flash and zing greeted him from the second shooter. Larry’s pray and spray had missed. Harvey bent double into a crouch and held out the Smith with his weaker left hand. He fired two more rounds in the general vicinity of the second shooter.

Boom! Flash! Boom! Flash!

Harvey never saw the first shooter rise out of the bushes and rush him like the Green Bay Packer’s Gilbert Brown. It must have taken whatever was left of the bodyguard to make the hit, but he expertly buried his right shoulder into Harvey’s middle. The collision sent Harvey sideways and down a short hill. His gun spun away into the dark, and he might have gotten up again had it not been for the steel handrail on the steps. He slammed headfirst into railing, and the lights went out.

The second shooter retreated towards the thickening gloom. He squared his shoulders and presented a larger target to Larry. Larry pulled himself up to a picnic table and settled himself into a crouch that extended his arms over the table. He locked both arms and steadied the butt of the gun on the table’s surface. The bouncing target was becoming increasingly difficult to see. Spots danced in Larry’s vision from the first volley of shots.

He figured he had half a magazine left, but at best, he would get off two shots before his target changed direction and disappeared forever. He let out his breath, steadied his body, and started shooting. He continued until the slide locked back on an empty magazine.

He left the picnic table in a loping run, hoping to miss whatever obstacles remained. Night had fallen completely, and the few lights in the park provided little help in tracking down the second shooter. He pressed the magazine release, catching the empty magazine in his hand and depositing it in his side jacket. Hollywood always let their heroes throw magazines away, but at thirty dollars each, Larry would just as soon hold on to his. He slammed a fresh magazine home and thumbed the slide release.

Larry never saw the second shooter laying face down in a blossoming puddle of blood. He was heading for Euclid Street, already knowing he was too late. The slam of car doors and the squeal of tires told him he had missed his chance to catch Goldenrod. He came to a stop in the brighter lights of the street lamps, his gun held at his side, his chest heaving from the run, and a foul taste in his mouth.

He pulled the portable Motorola radio from his inner coat pocket. “Harvey—you there, buddy?” He clicked the receive switch and listened—nothing but the radio hiss. “Harvey!” he repeated anxiously.

Larry turned back to the park and cursed. He started running back towards where he had last seen his partner. They were out of the fight for now. It was up to the District Police and the Marines. Larry doubted Goldenrod would head for the Embassy tonight. They probably had a safe house somewhere in the city. There would be no protest from the Chinese because this never happened. It was one of those silent battles sometimes fought in exotic places, but more often in the mundane and everyday locales of picnic tables and playgrounds.

Larry never saw the first shooter slither through the shadows to the body of the second shooter. He was intent on finding Harvey alive and in one piece. The last two Chinese agents disappeared into the night as well. The explosion of gunfire in the nation’s capitol did not even elicit a 911 call. Drug dealers and gang lords had long since made this a common occurrence.

Harvey blinked his eyes open, then closed them again. His forehead felt like it had been used for batting practice in the World Series. His radio squawked. He found he was lying on a slope with his head pointing down. It was awkward to reach his radio, but he managed it on the second try.

“Yeah, Larry,” he said.

“Hey, buddy—you’re still alive!” He laughed with relief and happiness that comes from finding out everyone was still breathing after a firefight. “Eh, Harvey, where are you?”

Harvey looked around and swung his feet down. “At the bottom of some steps,” he answered.

“Larry, did we get them?”

A longer pause—a less exuberant reply. “No, they got away.”

Harvey nodded to himself in the dark and spat some blood from a cut cheek. “Okay, we start on the White House in the morning. This guy had some important stuff. Otherwise Goldenrod wouldn’t have come out tonight.”

Larry came puffing over the slope and spotted Harvey on the ground. He dropped the radio back into his pocket and said, “I know, but let’s go get a beer first. It’s been a long night.” He helped Harvey to his feet and found his gun. They limped towards the house where the surveillance system was still running.

“I wonder what was in that packet,” muttered Harvey.

Larry chuckled. “When we find out who, then we’ll know what. You got his picture, all it’ll take is some time.”

Harvey nodded. Their investigation had entered a new phase. It came down to knocking on doors and showing photographs. Usually this was an easy thing to accomplish for the FBI. The intimidation factor alone caused most people to tell all. Not so when the address was 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Chapter 8

2005-11-06T21:22:00.000-06:00

Bartlett, Illinois
Saturday, November 15, 1997
7:00 P.M. CST

Lynn Harper walked down the basement steps. From her vantage point, where the half wall of the staircase ended, she could see the back of her husband. He was sitting at his workbench. The gun safe was open in the corner, a canvas bag sat at the foot of his stool, and the computer screen flickered on the far corner of the bench. The Culpeper Minuteman Flag hung from the ceiling above him. Its motto read Liberty or Death / Don’t Tread On Me. That (and a few karate tournament trophies) was all that he kept as a reminder of a secret life and a secret past.

Metal ammunition cans were open and he was working bullets into several magazines. His stereo was playing Fernando Ortega’s Meditations. The haunting piano melodies lilted throughout the basement. She knew it was one his favorites. It was the same album that he had played over and over during those dark days when his father lay dying in a nursing home.

Cancer is such a devastating disease for it not only wastes the body, as in the case of Jim’s Father, it kills the spirit too. Taped to the monitor edges was a picture of Jim when he was ten. He stood in the garage with his father and a black Labrador retriever named Josh. Another photo was propped on the keyboard. It was very recent, with his father, mother, and their children clustered next to the fireplace during Christmas—photographs and memories without pain and suffering.

Behind him on the concrete floor rested a massive black Labrador retriever named Indiana Jones. The sad eyes looked across the basement to where Lynn was standing. Both wife and dog knew something was up. Jim had cleaned some of his guns. The pungent odor of Shooters Choice and Hoppes Number 9 permeated the basement air. Spent patches and lint free swabs were tossed in his garbage can. Jim always kept his guns cleaned and oiled, so any additional work meant he was preparing himself for action.

Action was one of those words Lynn could live without. Throughout the early years of their marriage, he had disappeared—sometime for months at a time, sometimes for a few brief days. It was a part of his life about which she never quite knew the specific details. There were the times he had returned beaten and bruised. The broken arm, dislocated shoulder, and bullet holes were not unusual injuries. Nor was it unusual for him to spend long hours brooding about what had happened.

There were the holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries he missed. The nightmares accompanied him home. He trained harder, with a quiet intensity. He gave his entire being to becoming the best shot and smartest fighter. His trainers never questioned his bravery or his ability to hit hard and fast. They chided him about taking a hit to give one. His attention to detail and near photographic memory gave him an ability to work through complex problems.

His passions ran deep, and his commitment to his family ran deeper. She never questioned his commitment or his love. He was truly her best friend, and now this very dear man was preparing for action again. She did not need much imagination to understand that her husband would probably face danger and possible death, nor did she have any illusions that he would dispense the same. It had been years since someone had brought the past back. She thought this part of his life was over, but maybe it would never truly end.

Lynn had exploded angrily at him when he explained he was going back to Iraq. He had tried to explain about honor and duty. He had mentioned he was the best man for the job—something about unfinished business—and he had broken a promise about going back to the field. He had stood before the sweeping fury of her tirade, and made no effort to defend himself against her pointing fingers and angry scowls. He could only nod and agree with her.

She regretted her anger now. She also knew the name of the man calling her husband away from her and the girls again—Louis Edwards! She knew the lever used to pry Jim from his decision never to go back—Jerry. Jerry had been the best man at their wedding. Jerry and Jim had been on so many missions together. A Batman and Robin duo who, according to the rumor and gossip, could accomplish anything, go anywhere, and do anything a Langley mole or Beltway bandit concocted.

Then the unthinkable happened. Jerry did not come back from a mission. Jim came back a sunburned and dehydrated wreck. He spent two weeks in a NATO military hospital in Germany. When he arrived home, he was silent. He established a fund for Jerry’s family, but not much got contributed. Today, they needed him again, and Jim extracted a steep penalty from Louis. A million dollar trust fund had been established this afternoon. The final cost might be very high, for Jim was leaving tonight.

Lynn knew his heart sometimes led his head, and she knew his sense of honor. Duty, honor, and fidelity summed up the man she had married twenty years ago. Over time she had learned to trust Jim’s heart. He had an instinct to know the right thing to do without always being able to explain why it was right.

She closed her eyes again. She had spent the past half hour alone in their bedroom praying. Of the two of them, Lynn was the prayer warrior. Jim had learned to fight with his hands and mind. She learned to fight from her knees, conversing with the Lord of creation. She prayed for her children and her husband every day. There were tearstains on her Bible. Lynn Harper knew the meaning of sacrifice, and, once again, she was being asked to sit tight, put on a stiff upper lip, and wave good-bye.

She took the final steps down the staircase into the basement. She knew very little about the guns he kept. She never liked them, and asked why he wanted another one. As far as she was concerned, they all did the same basic thing—pull the trigger and they go bang. Jim would talk about his guns like they were old friends, and she patiently listened to his descriptions. Eventually, he figured out she was humoring his exuberance.

She recognized the dull, black Glock and the Mossberg shotgun laid out on the bench before him. The third weapon was a Browning Hi Power. It was field stripped for cleaning and oiling. Lynn recognized the Browning from the distinctive hardwood grips and the stainless steel barrel. It was the gun he had brought back from Iraq. It was Jerry’s gun. He had kept it after Jerry had died.

It occurred to Lynn that Jerry had died in Iraq. There was one reason for Jim to go back. He intended to right a wrong or fix a misdeed. He had come to some decision deep in his heart, and perhaps, even he did not know what that decision was.

Indiana Jones lifted his massive head and slowly his tail thumped hard on the floor. He revealed two other things Lynn had missed from the staircase: a combat dagger—favored by the British Special Air Service—and a combat knife favored by the United States Marine Corps. They had also been recently sharpened and oiled. No wonder the dog was worried; her husband was preparing for war.

She rested her hand on his shoulder and squeezed him assuredly. He looked up and patted her fingers. His touch lingered for a several moments. She leaned forward and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

He nodded. “So am I.”

“You have to go, don’t you?’ she continued. There was no use fighting. She needed to send him to whatever fate he faced knowing she loved him—even if she did not completely understand.

“Yes.”

She pointed to the disassembled Browning. “It has something to do with Jerry?”

His bottom lip quivered. “Something.”

“And its something only you can do?” She needed to hear him say it was so. She needed to understand that he believed he was the only one capable. Even it were untrue, she needed to hear his conviction.

“Yes. Only me—I know how to get in and out,” he replied, knowing she had forgiven him again. How many times he had failed her he could not count. Yet she continued to forgive him. “I’m simply going to diddle a computer system or two.”

“You need guns to do this?”

“Well, the client might not agree with my approach to data management.” He paused, and said aloud what he had kept to himself when talking to Louis Edwards. “I don’t intend to leave it in one piece this time. I’m going to destroy it all—completely.”

“That’s what I don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head. “You have your guns, and your karate, and your shooting and sparring buddies. Why do you have to go and try to get yourself killed?” The terror she had calmed threatened to rise up and overwhelm her again.

“It’s a point of honor. I never finished the task, because someone thought it better to leave the Iraqis with certain capabilities in place.” He paused, grinding his teeth. “That decision cost Jerry his life.” He shook his head and muttered, “For what?” Had anyone watched Jim’s face, they would have seen the warrior’s mask descend on his features.

“Honor,” she said hollowly. “What about the honor of a husband and father? What about the needs I have as a wife or those of your daughters? Where is the honor in getting killed? Jim, there are other people who can do this. There have to be,” she said desperately.

He turned from the workbench and held her hands. He saw the tears held back and nodded. “Lynn, listen to me. I’ve been there. I went in and I went out. I know the technology better than any commando team they can drop in there. I know how to fight and I know how to survive. This is the last time. I promise you it’s the last time.” Even as he said those words, he wondered if it was truly the last time.

Lynn felt the conviction and the icy fear of her husband’s intentions.

“When do you leave?”

“Tonight—they’ll be here in less than an hour.”

She looked at the shotgun shells. They were a mixture of rifled shotgun slugs and various sizes of buckshot loads. Next to shotgun shells were the 115 grain full metal jacketed 9mm shells, and a collection of .45 ACP Gold Dot hollow points. They all weighed in at 230 grains. He had pulled them out of the ammo cans. Jim loaded them on the Dillon 650 XL reloader bolted into the bench’s other corner.

He decided to take the Glock 21 because he trusted the gun to perform in the harshest conditions with virtually all types of ammo. Regardless of bullet configuration, sand, water, grit, and congealing grease, the Glock had always performed. He had ten magazines for the 21, and decided to take a complete reload for each magazine.

The Mossberg was an obvious choice for close quarter combat. The last time they had penetrated the Data Center, the M16 A2 had proven to be a liability. There were too many angles and corners for the light 5.56mm round to deflect. The shotgun provided compact devastation without the fear of ricochet. Besides, the sound of a 12 gauge chambering a round has an incredible intimidation factor. People tend to run for cover.

The Browning was for luck. Jerry had carried the gun through several missions. The gun was considerably thinner than the Glock, and he had ten magazines loaded with hardball. He intended to use it as his backup gun stuck in a holster located on the small of his back. Since he was headed back to the place where Jerry had been killed, perhaps there would be a chance for payback.

“Why are you bringing your stuff?” she asked, “Can’t they supply what you need?”

He closed his eyes and breathed out. He dare not panic his beloved. “I know what I need; I have what I need.” He was the doctor again. He waved his hand at the weapons. “These are my tools. I know how they act; I know what they do. I shoot them all at least once or twice a month. I trust them, and I am betting my survival on things I trust. Should I take a weapon that I know nothing about? Somebody else’s gun?” He shook his head. “Trust me, Lynn, I know what I’m doing.”

He did not voice the other concern—his distrust of Louis Edwards and those who were sending him. He lived in a land ruled by people who had no honor, no integrity, and no allegiance to duty. He did not know yet what shape it would take, but a Judas would be along. Someone to ensure he did not get out of hand.

The most important weapon Jim would take with him was between his ears. But, it helped to know that when you squeeze the trigger and the firing pin punched forward, something went bang.

He squirted oil on the rails and behind the hammer down where the sear lived. He slid the barrel into the Browning slide, then attached the spring to the underside of the barrel. He slid the slide and barrel on the receiver’s rails and punched in the retaining pin before working the slide back and forth a couple of times. Finally, he slid an empty magazine into the well of the Browning and pulled the trigger. The hammer snapped forward on the empty chamber. He removed the empty magazine, and slid a loaded magazine into the gun. He racked the slide again, and pushed up the manual safety. It was now cocked and locked.

He holstered the Browning. Carefully he placed the shotgun shells, magazines, and reloads for the Glock into the canvas bag. He slid the Glock into a black nylon holster. He would secure that on his belt and around his upper leg. The Mossberg was a modified from the factory original. Tac Star pistol and Forend grips had replaced the normal stock grips, and it had a combat sling to carry it over his shoulder. He pushed six buckshot rounds into the sidesaddle carrier on the left side of the receiver.

The combat dagger was attached to his right leg above the boot. It never hurt to have things ready before Louis showed up. The combat knife was placed in the canvas bag. He felt the weight and was satisfied. It would be heavy, but not unmanageable. Finally, he loaded seven rifled slugs into the Mossberg’s magazine.

“Come on, let’s go talk to the kids before I leave.”

Lynn stood with folded arms, watching the man she loved change into a weapon. “You will be careful?” The cold ran its fingers down her spine.

He smiled and held her gaze. “I’m always careful.”

“I have something for you. I know you’ll be busy, but you’ll need this somewhere along the way.” She handed him her small pocket Bible, the one she carried in her purse. The gold leaf name at the bottom right corner said Lynn Harper.

“This is the one I gave you?”

She nodded. “It’s small, and I know you don’t have much room, but I would feel so much better if you took it with you.”

He took it from her and placed it in the canvas bag next to the shells and magazines. “Thank you. I’ll be sure to bring it back in good shape.”

She closed her eyes and grabbed him as a sob racked her frame. “Just bring yourself back.”

He patted her back and replied softly, “Always, love—always.”

Chapter 7

2005-10-30T08:55:00.000-06:00

USS Springfield, Persian Gulf
Saturday, November 15, 1997
8:30 P.M. (GMT + 3.00)

The USS Springfield slid through the dark waters beneath the Persian Gulf—a black hull on a black night in black water. She was a phantom cruising the sea on patrol. A constant vigil against enemies emanating from Iranian ports or interlopers emerging from lands further away. The United States had made it abundantly clear; they would tolerate no interference to keep oil flowing from the Arab spigots. This was a policy of national survival overriding the leadership vagaries residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Designated 761, she was one of the improved Los Angeles Class fast attack boats. This meant there were more options available in terms of armament coupled with a stealthier sound signature. The Springfield was a hole in the ocean constantly searching, listening, tracking—and if called upon—killing. She was a long way from Groton, Connecticut, the homeport of Submarine Group Two, Submarine Squadron Two. Her sister ships escorted carrier surface action groups like unseen terriers, watching and waiting. The Pittsburgh and the Toledo were improved 688 fast attack boats as herself—the rest were first generation boats.

She wore her colors proudly. Her crew of one hundred forty ventured out on six-month patrols, and sometimes longer. This time they were attached to the USS George Washington task force.

The George Washington was one of the newest Nimitz Class aircraft carriers. The aircraft carrier was a symbol of American power. Two carriers working in tandem provided air power totaling one hundred sixty aircraft. They were the forward presence of American authority and might.

The Springfield’s task was to ensure troublesome underwater predators did not come close enough to endanger the 80,800 ton behemoth. She was one of the silent killers that roamed the seas beneath 6000 man boats. If the National Command Authority gave the order, the small one hundred forty man crews in deadly boats would ensure the George Washington could deliver the 4,600,000 pounds of ammunition she carried. While some may question America’s leadership resolve, no one should ever doubt the ability of the American Navy to deliver.

Considering the Springfield’s mission, the FLASH message traffic she received tonight disturbed Executive Officer Rob Bremmer. He carried the message folder to the Captain’s quarters. Somehow, a Chinese Han Class boat had penetrated the protective barriers surrounding the carriers. Certainly, the Chinese Boat must have come close to the Nimitz or the George Washington. He knocked on the Captain’s cabin door.

“Come,” summoned Captain Jeff Andrews.

Rob entered and closed the door behind him.

Andrews looked up. “Robbie, what’ve you got?”

Rob set the folder on the Captain’s table and took a chair across from him. “FLASH message traffic from COMSUBGRP2. It seems we have a visitor.”

Andrews examined the photograph taken by the U-2. He looked at the map plot and let out a long, low whistle. “What’s a Han doing here?”

“It doesn’t look they were enforcing the UN embargo,” suggested Rob.

He pulled the photo from the papers and stared at it. “Any idea what they were giving the Iraqis?”

Robbie shook his head.

“Okay. It’s too small to be a missile, and no one in their right mind would try a nuclear transfer in the middle of the night on a choppy sea.” He reached behind him and pulled an Intel folder from its rack. “According to this, we’ve found most of the nuclear sites. What does that leave?” He stared at his XO.

Robbie followed his boss’s thinking. “Chemical or biological.”

Andrews nodded.

“It says here they think this boat might be hurt.”

“Yeah, I saw that too, but I don’t know what they’re talking about. All this photo shows is the sub and the surface ship.” He paused, “You have any idea what this is?” He pointed at the black square barely visible at the top of the Han’s hull.

“Looks like a hole to me.”

“Square?”

“Isn’t this where their missile hatches should be?”

Robbie traced the square shape backward along the spine of the boat. There were no missile hatches. “Yeah, you’re right. I don’t see anything like what should be there.”

Andrews picked up the photo again. He tilted his reading glasses forward to get a better look. “If I wasn’t looking at a sub, I’d say this was a cargo hold.”

“Maybe they know something we don’t.”

One thing submarine drivers despised were cute little intelligence boys sitting in their nice Virginia office buildings deciding what could and could not be shared with ships at sea. Andrews had a nasty feeling about this one. “Maybe they do.”

He flipped to the orders page. “Did you take care of this already?”

Rob nodded. “Yes. I’ve plotted a course to the southern gulf about fifty to seventy-five klicks inside the strait.” There was only one strait as far as the Persian Gulf was concerned. The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow choke point where an inordinate amount of the world’s supply of oil flowed in huge supertankers. It was another duty of the US Navy to ensure no one took it into their fancy to block the Strait. The only way for the Chinese boat to exit the Gulf was through the Strait, and it simply was not possible to do that without being noticed.

“It says here we’re supposed to be goal keepers,” Andrews scowled. “I wonder what they think that means. Deny sea passage to a Chinese sub? Does that give me authority to sink him?” He shook his head. An Admiral had not written this order. This order was issued by some flunky in Washington—or worse yet—Langley. Why would Langley write orders to submarines on carrier protection patrol concerning specific tactics in regard to a Chinese sub? He flicked his finger at the photo.

“I wonder how they got into the Gulf.”

“The Russians used to have a trick with the SOSUS line where they would try and get their boomers through by riding the wake of one of their surface freighters. A really dangerous game in case someone stopped too soon.” Andrews laughed. “It never worked really. The boys with the big ears at the NSA always heard them. We always knew when they were going to sortie a boomer and simply waited until they left their freighter before picking them up. I’d guess the Chinese followed a tanker through the Strait and we plain missed it.”

He shook his head and snapped a finger at the map. “Fifty klicks south of Al Faw.” He shook his head gravely. “That means they snuck up as close as possible to the coast without showing themselves.” His mind started to churn with the possibilities—the same possibilities that had surfaced half a world away earlier that same day. The inescapable conclusion surfaced for Andrews. China was working with Iraq. Nothing good could come from such an alliance. He remembered the rumors from back home about campaign contributions, the Chinese manipulation of the elections, and Iraq’s continued intransigence over UN weapons inspectors. Now, he had to find a Chinese sub. It all began to smell.

Sometimes it’s better to ask forgiveness, rather than permission. Andrews could ask for clarification from COMSUBGRP2, or he could use his latitude regarding the orders. He sighed.

“Robbie, make sure we have fish in tubes one, two, three, and four. Tubes flooded, doors closed.” He looked back to the photograph. “If we find this guy, he doesn’t get to open water. If he twitches, we send him to the bottom.”

Robbie looked across the table. Those were war fighting orders. “You think that’s wise?”

“According to this message there is a suspicion that the Han might be damaged.”

Robbie nodded slowly. “Damage can cut two ways. He may be slow or noisy or both.”

“Yeah. Put yourself in his shoes. Say you’ve got a damaged boat and some casualties. First thing you’ve got to assess is whether you can fix the problems at sea.” Andrews shrugged. “Maybe—maybe not. It would take some time to figure those things out and come up with a plan. I would rig for ultra quiet and go slow hoping to avoid detection.”

“So you think a sub driver with a damaged boat is more dangerous?”

Andrews shook his head. “More desperate. And desperate men tend to gamble closer to the edge of their performance envelope. Until we know otherwise, we treat this one like a hostile.”

Chapter 6 / the rest

2005-10-17T21:07:00.000-05:00

The sites were disguised from the air; there were no surface installations besides the simple blockhouses with security teams within a fifteen to twenty kilometer radius. Of course, there were teams inside the installations, but due to the need for stealth and secrecy those teams were limited in size. Iraq had maintained extensive communications during the Gulf War using fiber optic cables buried in the sand. While the arrogant Americans were searching for conventional copper communication cables, Saddam was calmly prosecuting his war from his German made bombproof bunkers. Unless the air assault obliterated a position, Saddam rarely lost contact with his commanders.

The same fiber optic network remained in place after the war. No one knew for sure whether the Americans could trace the fiber network, but it continued to send data throughout the dispersed weapon centers. The Americans knew there were secret labs, and the Iraqis knew the Americans knew. Saddam relied on the current administration’s lack of political will, and his belief in America’s naiveté to keep his regime intact.

In 1992, a two-man team penetrated the Iraqi Data Center. Duri had been a captain then. He watched the piecemeal commitment of fire teams to the emergency. In the main computer room, there had been a firefight between one of the internal teams and the intruders. The closed circuit cameras caught most of the action. A great deal of damage resulted from the intrusion. The intruders were obviously from a Western power; they wore body armor and fired American made weapons. One man raged with an M-16 A2; the other blasted with a short-barreled shotgun.

The firefight caused the intruders to abort their mission early as self-preservation overrode duty. They fled, leaving supplies and weapons behind. A trail of blood marked their passage until they encountered the second internal team. The cameras showed incapacitation within seconds. The cameras also captured the best photographic evidence of the intruders. The faces were now part of a computerized database designed to match a face to existing graphics. Every Israeli, British, and American Special Forces intelligence officer known to the Iraqi SSS had been entered. It also included rogues like the two who penetrated the Data Center.

By the time sufficient security teams converged, the intruders had escaped into the desert. Iraq’s computer systems were crippled for nine months. It had cost the General responsible for Data Center security his life. Second chances were not available in the Iraqi security services.
Duri survived the purges and came to Saddam’s attention during the spring of 1996. He helped uncover a large-scale embezzlement ring inside the Sixth and Fourteenth Republican Guard divisions. Military weapons and material were being sold off to civilians in exchange for gold, hard currency, and sometimes food. Over one hundred fifty administrative officers were arrested. They took up new residence at Abu Gharib prison.

Abu Gharib had become a holding center for human guinea pigs. As with so many other things, the arrest and punishment of the Republican Guard officers became an object lesson. This lesson was directed both to those who might consider similar actions against Saddam’s regime as well as to those who were the regime’s defenders. Duri was charged with the transportation of the entire group from Abu Gharib—where they might have simply starved to death or received a merciful bullet—to Al Salman.

Al Salman had become a place cloaked in mystery. It was one of the secret special warfare sites people entered and never came out. It had started out as an agricultural facility. There were even studies published regarding strains of wheat and corn. Most of this information was culled from the Internet and regurgitated for international consumption. Al Salman’s true purpose was to test chemical and biological agents, first on animals, then on human subjects. The stench of urine, feces, and vomit lingered throughout the facility. It was protected by Special Republican Guard troops wearing biohazard uniforms and respirators. Visitors were not issued respirators or earplugs in order that the sites, smells, and sounds from Al Salman would have a lasting impression. Failure could cost much more than death. The lesson was not lost on Duri.

This night found Colonel Duri rushing towards the waters between Al Faw and Jazirat Bubiyan. He had risen through the ranks to become a responsible and trusted member of the security forces. Responsibility and success now raised the twin specters of failure and disappointment. Duri had no desire to join those he had sent to the chemical and biological warfare labs as test subjects. Even a man who had cut himself off from the pleasures of family and devoted his energies to survival could not erase the sights and sounds he witnessed at Al Salman.

His particular charge was a delivery from the Red Chinese, and his specific problem was the two idiots riding chained together behind him. While those two would find their deaths this night, Duri intended to see the sun rise many more times. To do that he had to recover what he could of the shipment. Saddam’s precious target list and his goal for revenge would probably cost more lives before it was over.

The lorry came to a halt on the shoreline of the Gulf. The sound of the surf rolling against the rocks and sand replaced the engine noise. Only a faint light from stars was visible over the sand. Duri got out of the cab and walked around the end of the truck. He pounded on the side of the vehicle. The flap covering the interior flipped open.

“Bring them,” he commanded and walked towards the surf casually unsnapping his holster.

His driver remained seated inside the truck. He, too, had learned the object lessons of Al Salman.

The two sailors were prodded forward at bayonet point. Chains jingled with their shuffling steps. The divers hung back by the truck, waiting for instructions.

Once the shuffling stopped, Duri turned from the surf to the prisoners. He looked at both of them. Even in the cool autumn night, these two were sweating. He shrugged. “I will ask these questions one time.”

Both nodded quickly.

Fear induced such compliance in people. Certainly, these fools knew what was coming. Their cooperation simply bought them the mercy of a quick death versus a prolonged torture at Al Salman. Duri enjoyed the fear he induced. He understood the nature of accelerated heart rates and adrenaline pumping like a raging river into their blood streams. It would change nothing.

“Where did you come ashore?”

Both sets of eyes leaped from his face to the shoreline. A manacled hand rose and pointed down the shoreline. “I think I see the raft we landed in.”

Duri followed the raised hands to where they were pointing. A crumpled yellow shape lay some two hundred meters down the beach. Duri started walking towards the spot. The others followed him in the jingling shuffle through the sand. No one spoke over the shuffle, jingle, and surf. Their fear spilled forth like a spreading oil slick on a calm sea. Both were praying to whatever gods they might know that it was the survival raft.

The divers and truck followed at a distance. Eventually, they arrived at a punctured raft pulled up on the beach. Two life preservers lay in the bottom of the raft. “This is it?”

“Yes.” They nearly fell over answering him.

Duri turned to the pair. He considered shooting one of them. His hand fingered the leathered flap on his holster. Perhaps these two could still be useful. After all, no one would want to handle the casks any more than required. Dead men should have no qualms about cleaning up the mess that they had created. The guards tensed, expecting the Makarov to emerge in Duri’s hand.

The moment passed.

Duri motioned the divers forward. They were special troops from his SSS command.

“Where’s the ship?”

“Out about one hundred meters,” explained the first officer. “It’s about twenty meters below the surface.”

Duri pursed his lips. He waved the truck and divers forward. He looked back to the two sailors. “Sit.” They dropped to the beach like pair of highly trained dogs.

Now the wait began. Duri lit a cigarette and paced down the beach towards the surf. He took several deep drags before flipping it into the sea. An entire crew poisoned by the Chinese gift. If the story was to be believed, the entire crew succumbed to the chemical agent—men clawing at their respirator masks while their eyes dissolved at the same time. A toxin so deadly, the Captain made the decision to scuttle his ship rather than risk moving through the Shatt Al Arab waterway.

Instead of a few sailors lying dead at the bottom of the Gulf, an epidemic could have spread on both sides. The Captain could have killed both Iraqi and Iranian citizens. Duri doubted the Mullahs would understand such a mistake. The Captain pulled his ship away from the densely populated banks of the Tigris River towards the waters between Iraq and Kuwait. He managed to scuttle the boat before they all died, and more importantly, before dawn.

Duri wondered about the American satellites and the spy planes. Did they know what had happened? Did they have pictures popping out of their computers and analysts examining the evidence? No one doubted their ability to search for things, but Iraq had developed an even greater ability to hide things.

A buoy broke the surface. Its tiny red lamp flickered advertising its position. Duri leaned forward. Perhaps he would survive this setback. His own heart rate accelerated as he began to believe his life would continue after tonight.

A second buoy sprang up two meters closer. Both casks had been found. Duri turned back to his prisoners.

“You have a chance to redeem yourselves. I want you to get those casks into the truck and make sure they are secure.” He lit another cigarette. “Release them.”

Incredulous, they lifted their hands to the guards. A key appeared and the manacles dropped to the sand. They galloped towards the surf.

Duri walked back to the truck and pulled out a map from his tunic. He opened the map for the driver and pointed to a red X. “Do you know how to get here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. We leave immediately after the casks are secured in the rear. I don’t care how fast you drive, but no accidents; that would be the least of our problems.” He turned back to the surf. His prisoners were gleefully pulling the casks back towards the shore. If they dropped dead from anything other than bullet holes Duri had another problem. They were his canaries in the coalmine. The miners knew enough to leave when the canaries died.

He walked back to the guards. “I intend to leave you here to clean up the mess. When they have finished with the casks, shoot them. I’ll send another vehicle for you in the morning.”

Duri turned back to the truck. He climbed into the cab and lit another cigarette. He closed his eyes wondering how much longer he could continue in this present life. Sometime soon, it would be time to get out. He dare not ascend to the rank of General Officer. The truck engine turned over. A noisy putter overpowered the surf outside. The gentle rumble worked its way through the frame and a drowsy Duri barely heard the stutter of two automatic rifles. Another failure was buried in the sand.

Chapter 6 / Page 3

2005-10-13T07:53:00.000-05:00

During the Gulf War, Duri stood behind hunkered down troops waiting for the Americans. Incredibly, men under his watch began surrendering en masse to the United States Army and Marine battalions as they punched through the berms without slowing. The Iraqi regulars broke under the pressure to fight. They emerged from the holes in the sand throwing away rifles and raising their arms. These men had survived the relentless air war. Day and night without end, the air forces of Desert Storm pounded their positions. Incendiary and anti-personnel bombs rained from the sky. They never knew a moment’s rest.

Duri attempted to stop the mass desertion. He took his pistol and fired at men until he ran out of bullets. Stupidly, he yelled himself hoarse, his uniform torn and smoke blinded his eyes, an empty Makarov in one hand. Nothing more than a fool overrun by the Americans. They crisscrossed the sky in their Apache Gunships, and churned the sand with their Abram M1 Tanks. When dawn finally came during that hopeless night, he found himself a prisoner of war.
American and British medics were tending his wounds and plastic restraints held his wrists tight. He still limped from the 5.56mm round he took that day in his leg.

Iraq’s utter humiliation before the world was complete. For some unknown reason, the Americans stopped after one hundred hours. There was hardly anything left. The road leading from Kuwait to Al-Basra was nothing more than a smoking wreckage of armor and men. Nothing survived the horrendous pounding delivered by the A-10 Thunderbolts. Death on land and in the air was complete. Baghdad lay defenseless before the American armies. Oh, there had been token brigades from other countries, but no one doubted the aggressor. The Americans decided to stop before obliterating Baghdad and the Iraqi government. They left them in place as a gesture, perhaps to serve notice to others as to what they were capable of accomplishing.

Slowly, Iraq emerged from the rubble. Bridges were rebuilt; some equipment restored. The precious secret weapons were dispersed around to special sites. Duri had been repatriated after the war. He was attached to the Data Center security team—another fiasco. Iraq’s strategy for hiding banned weapons became a refined shell game. With oceans of trackless sand deserts and sixty-nine Presidential palaces, Saddam had plenty of places to hide things. His chemical weapons labs, two hundred anthrax bombs, and eighty SCUD and modified SCUD al-Hussein missiles were dispersed. The existing infrastructure facilities, such as the central Data Center and the nuclear separation labs, remained hidden beneath tons of rock and sand in buried bunkers.

Chapter 6 / Page 2

2005-10-08T22:13:00.000-05:00

During the Gulf War, carrier based aircraft used the same inlet leading to Umm Qasr to navigate towards targets in Kuwait and southern Iraq. The shoreline’s angle points like a dagger towards Al Basra, and the Tigris leads straight to the heart of Baghdad. Even when navigation computers failed in the shot up A-6 Intruders, pilots still found their way home following the inlet back to the waiting carriers. Had an amphibious landing taken place, as many speculated, part of it would have been against Jazirat Bubiyan—the island forming the eastern Kuwait border.

Tonight Al Faw took on a greater significance. A single lorry drove away from the populous riverbanks and into the desert night. A curious mixture of men rode into the darkness this night. Two sailors huddled in the rear of the lorry. Each was bound with heavy police-restraint handcuffs and leg irons. One was the hapless crane operator, who had killed several Chinese sailors the night before. His inattention with the crane and the ensuing panic left several men to the mercy of the sea. The other sailor was the first officer who had made the mistake of reporting the disaster.

Four members of the Special Republic Guard watched them. None of the soldiers spoke. They knew the price men paid for failure under Saddam’s regime. These men had failed on a particularly important mission. They had no need to know the specifics of the mission, and if the truth were known, they had no desire to learn further secrets of their masters. Knowledge could get a person killed. It certainly doomed these sailors. No one doubted the outcome of tonight’s activities.

The last two in the rear of the lorry were dressed in neoprene diving suits. In the dim light, they meticulously checked over their SCUBA gear, and the additional gear required for the salvage operation. An inflatable rubber raft, grappling hooks, lines, and underwater lamps lay in the far corner of the lorry. Each checked their weight belts, survival knife, regulator, and tanks. They would be operating underwater at night—something akin to near total blackness. Should the lamps fail, they might never find their way back to the surface from inside the ship’s hold.

Colonel Taha Duri sat in the passenger side of the lorry. He had no friends. Colonels of the Al Amn al-Khas—Iraq’s Special Security Service—were supposed to be feared, not liked. He understood better than most the shifting tides within Iraq’s security structures. It was like riding a wild horse through the night. He had learned to expect the unexpected. Betrayal and treason were always just beyond the horizon. A sharp knife between the ribs or a bullet in the back of the head often became a remedy for troublesome issues.

Chapter 6 / Page 1

2005-10-07T06:57:00.000-05:00

Fao Peninsula, Iraq
Saturday, November 15, 1997
8:30 P.M. (GMT + 3.00)

The Al Faw oil depot sits on triangle shaped strip of land called the Fao Peninsula. It is the southernmost Iraqi outpost and serves as the final surface oil depot for the underground pipeline running from the massive Rumaila and Zubair oilfields. The pipeline runs parallel to the Tigris River as it races towards the Persian Gulf. Once out of land, the pipeline continues submerged to the twin oil terminals, Kohr al Amaya and Mina al Bakr.

It is amazing the sand is still gray and not blood red. Across the Fao Peninsula, the Iraq/Iran war extracted a two-year vengeance from the hapless people living there. The Iranians gained the peninsula, and the Iraqis were determined to regain the same piece of land. The cost was horrendous. At one point, the Iraqi army stored tens of thousands of corpses in huge refrigerators. To prevent an uprising against the regime during the Iraq/Iran War, the dead bodies were parceled out as carefully as any other rationed commodity. Saddam believed that if people learned the truth regarding the toll in human life, a revolution might have brought the regime down.

River traffic navigates north on the Tigris moving shallow draft boats from the Persian Gulf to as far north as Al Basra. Traditionally, Al Basra is Iraq’s port city, serving as the gateway to the Gulf. The Gulf War, and the resulting southern uprising, changed everything. The Republic Guard crushed the rebellion with murderous rage, leaving Iraq’s port city barely functioning. The port lies unused, and the city’s sewer system has never been repaired.

On the Tigris’ eastern bank lies Iran—sometimes ally and sometimes enemy. To the west is the waterway leading to Umm Qasr. It is a natural inlet between Kuwait and Iraq. The Raudhatain oil fields lay along the once contested border. Between Al Faw and Umm Qasr, there is nothing but rugged terrain, burnt out hulls, and craters left from the Gulf War.

Chapter 5 / page 8

2005-10-02T16:42:00.000-05:00

“Look, Jim, I know this is a painful subject for you, but I really do need you. I don’t have any time to get someone else prepped for this kind of mission. You know the desert.”
Harper focused his eyes on Louis again.

“All right, Louis,” he said calmly.

Edwards stopped talking and stared. A smile began to curl under his fading mustache.

“This is what it’ll cost you.” He flipped the lock on the door shut again. “You’d better get something to write on, Louis, and you’d better have it all taken care of before you come to pick me up.”

“What exactly do you want?” He pulled out a notebook.

“One million dollars, tax-free, for Jerry’s widow, and full scholarships for his kids—you never took care of them after he died, now, we make it right. No strings attached. Jerry already earned it. For anybody going on this mission, same deal—this time the million and scholarships pay off in case of death or serious injury. That’s a phone call for you, Louis.” He pointed at the office. “Go on, make the calls while I change. I want confirmation faxed back to this number.” He started back towards the locker room, then turned back to Louis. “Don’t even think of double crossing me on this Louis. You’d never be able to run far enough to save your miserable hide.”

“Now Jimbo, I can’t exactly—”

“You’ve got ten minutes.” Jim turned and walked towards the end of the school.

Chapter 5 / Page 7

2005-09-28T08:36:00.000-05:00

“Rifled slug—seven of them.” A rifled slug is a chunk of lead weighing one and a half ounces. It has the diameter of a penny and it is a little more than an inch long with a muzzle velocity of 2700 feet per second. A Mossberg 590 is capable of bulls-eye shooting these slugs out to one hundred yards. The close quarter combat situations that Jim found himself in made these things one-shot showstoppers.

The door leading into the bunker began to open out. Both men twisted towards the unexpected intrusion. Jim grabbed the Mossberg off the floor. He pushed the safety forward with his thumb revealing the red fire dot, and fired before the door was half way open. The first shot deflected along the angle of the door crunching into and through someone standing to side of the door. It also forced the door open faster than expected for the second man up there.

Pump. Eject. Fire!

The second round caught the next Iraqi full in the chest. He disappeared from the frame of the doorway. The slug pancaked on the trauma plate of his flak jacket and hurtled him backward six yards. The door banged closed followed by a whump! The doorframe seemed to buckle inward.

“Sounds like a grenade, Jimmy.”

Harper nodded. “I think we need to leave.”

They scrambled to their feet and hobbled up the steps. Jim kicked open the door and they emerged into a rock strewn quarry. Saddam had hidden his most sensitive sites either in the open, behind the façade of palaces, or under the plentiful amounts of sand. Stealth was used to secure locations rather than high security, high profile installations. While this prevented frequent visits from the United States Air Force, it did raise certain security problems when ground teams penetrated installations.

The Republic Guard survived due to resource dispersal. Small four-man fire teams protected these installations. In the case of Saddam’s Data Center, they were committed piece meal. Unfortunately, they were still arriving.

They hobbled past two very dead soldiers and two others who looked close to death. Jim folded Jerry into the passenger seat of the Jeep before clambering in himself.

“Don’t you think I should drive—in case you need to shoot?”

Jim shook his head. He could see his friend was losing consciousness. The best hope he had was to exit them from the battlefield. He pumped another shell into the Mossberg, and flipped the safety back on. “I think you should try to sleep.” He gunned the Jeep and sped into the desert night.

Jerry died two days later in the desert between Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Iraq. Jim buried him in a small grave under a cairn of stones. He said a prayer and marked the grave with a cross. It took another seven days on foot before Jim found a village in Jordan with a phone.

Chapter 5 / Page 6

2005-09-24T23:05:00.000-05:00

Jerry and Jim had just finished planting a series of special user accounts in Iraq military information systems. Jerry looked up from the terminal, sweat streaming down his face. His hands wrapped around the M-16 A2 as he observed the two dead technicians on the floor. Jim hurriedly typed in the last of the commands on the aging HP-3000 systems. They were a two-man penetration team attempting to infiltrate a major installation—madness.

The doors leading into the computer room slid open without warning. Jerry yelled something and charged, firing the M-16 from his hip. Jim rolled sideways, pulling the black Mossberg up and ready. Rifle shots whistled through the room hitting irreplaceable equipment. The zing of bullets coming too close brought an instant response as the Mossberg roared with its full 12 gauge fury. The firefight was over as quickly as it had started—three more dead men on the floor leading into the computer room.

Jerry had been hit twice in the chest by armor piercing rounds. The Kevlar vest stopped the first at the cost of a broken rib, but the second made it through. The wound made a sucking sound each time Jerry took a breath. Jim hefted his friend on one shoulder. They tottered drunkenly down the bunker’s long corridor. Thin trails of blood marked their exodus and alarms blared throughout the complex. A distant explosion rumbled through the compound—probably one of the charges they had set up wired into the alarm system.

They came to a corridor intersection and started towards the exit. They collided with an Iraqi fire team. Jim went sideways, burying an elbow in the first man’s ear. The Iraqi soldier’s head smashed against the concrete wall. He collapsed like a broken doll.

Jerry brought his Browning Hi Power to bear. He double tapped the soldier he was hanging onto. The much-maligned 9mm round is extraordinarily effective when jammed against someone’s stomach. Jerry jerked the trigger twice. His attacker staggered and pitched backward, carrying Jerry into the next soldier.

Jim turned to his next target. He sent a back leg front kick straight to the groin. His target forgot about holding his rifle and concentrated on breathing. Jim latched onto the back of his head and drove his other knee straight into the Iraqi’s nose. A bloody explosion erupted as Jim’s second target tilted backwards.

Jerry was weakening quickly. His left hand clutched at the rifle of the final fire team member. The Iraqi was kicking violently to free himself from the two men on top of his legs. He never saw Jim’s boot reach out and shatter the base of his chin—lights out a fourth time.

Jim lifted Jerry bodily off the two Iraqi soldiers. “How we doing?”

“Never felt better,” he wheezed.

“Liar,” Jim hissed.

They started their run for the door. Before taking the last half stairway to the outside, Jim slid Jerry back to the floor. Sweat was streaming down Jerry’s face, and his lips seemed a bit blue. Jim pulled open Jerry’s combat blouse and pushed back the Kevlar vest. The puckered entry wound continued to leak and wheeze. “We’ve got to do something about this.”
Jerry nodded and smiled, “It ain’t pretty, Jim. I’ve lost a lot of blood.”

Jim cut apart the combat blouse into two bandages. Not the cleanest solution, but maybe enough to get them out. From his backpack, he pulled a roll of duct tape and wound his partner’s chest until the worst of the sucking sound was gone. They had lost their first aide kit sometime earlier.

“What have you got loaded in that thing?” He nodded to the Mossberg 590 12 gauge on the floor. It was a black, nasty looking weapon with a twenty-inch barrel, ghost ring sites, a pistol, and forend grips. The grips were specially angled to control the considerable recoil of full powered rounds.

Chapter 5 / Page 5

2005-09-21T22:05:00.000-05:00

Jim snapped his attention back to Louis. “This time? There is no this time. I’m not leading more men into another ambush. I’ve been there, and done that. Louis, I took ten men in and came out with three. One of them will never walk again.”

“Yes. One of the three you brought was Jonas. He works for me now. I think he’s trying to be like you.” He raised his hands in compromise.

“Tell him there are better things to strive for than to be like me. What use is there to have a past that you can’t share with your wife and kids because they might think you’re a monster once they know.”

“Jim, you knew the risks. There aren’t any guarantees in this life. You lost some men. You got the job done.”

Getting the job done was Edwards’ mantra. Jim had always gotten the job done—it’s just difficult living with yourself after some of the jobs. “I don’t do work like that anymore, Louis. So why don’t you take whatever it is you’re pushing and get out of here. I’m sure the Beltway crowd you work for these days will figure something out.”

Louis chuckled for the first time. “The Beltway crowd I work for would have a hard time finding Florida on the map if it didn’t have a lot of rich contributors. This isn’t for the Beltway crowd. It’s for the country. We need you because you’ve done it before. We can’t mess up on this.”
Louis had always been quick to wave God and country or honor and duty. Of course, those were just words to Louis. They were more than words to Jim. Throughout his career in the nether world known as Spec War, or black ops, or whatever euphemism was current these days, he had attempted to maintain a balance and a code of honor. Men followed Jim because they believed in his ability to lead them through the hard parts. His ability to lead and his self-confidence in his ability to survive were intangible assets men followed into the hardest battles.

Louis was very good at sending men to die. The part about holding them in your arms as the life left their eyes was something reserved to people like Jim. “Get out of here.” He flipped the lock on the door and shoved it open. “Go on. Get out of here.”

“It’s Iraq, Jim,” he said quickly. “Something happened last night. I think it’s something real bad and I need you to go back to Iraq. I don’t have time to plan a proper penetration. I need a team leader who can think on his feet and improvise a strategy.”

Harper paused, a war seemed to rage across his features. Slowly he let the door shut. He closed his eyes, trying to forget Iraq—a magic word of sorts—the cradle of civilization where the Tigris and Euphrates ran together, and maybe the location of Eden. Rocks, sand, pain, and blood blistered his memory from a ground war that lasted a lot longer than one hundred hours recorded on television. Special Forces had been in country for over six months before Stormin’ Norman sent the tanks over the dirt berms. There were subsequent in country penetrations required to monitor the Iraqi madman, and the terrible, bitter loss.

“You hunted Scuds in the desert. You wrecked communication centers for the Republican Guard. You penetrated their computer systems. You’ve gone in and out three times since the Gulf War. We may need to get back into their computer systems again. You know them. You coded a backdoor so we could watch what they were doing. Well, they’re doing something again.”

Jim slowly shook his head. Louis certainly sanitized what he had done. Getting into Iraq’s Data Center had been easy. Getting back out had cost him a friend. It’s hard to visit a gravesite in the middle of the desert for someone who should have never been there.

“They received something last night. We think it’s a chemical or nuclear weapon.”

Chapter 5 / Page 4

2005-09-17T17:13:00.000-05:00

Harper shrugged. “Maybe we should go a few rounds, Louis. Best two out of three. I promise not to break too many bones. Better yet, why don’t I deal with your two flunkies? I’m sure we’ll be able to get the blood out of the carpet—eventually.” He paused. “I want you out of here, Louis. I don’t ever want to see you again, and if I do, I’ll break something on you.”

“Jim, we do have laws against such behavior,” he chided.

“Laws never bothered you before, Louis. In fact, nothing moral, or right, or good, or pure, ever bothered you.” He spat the last out like bitter peanuts.

Louis nodded again. “We need you, Jim. We need what you, and only you, can give us. We need you.”

“The last time you needed me, a whole bunch of people got killed. Good people got killed for very bad reasons.” He walked around the parent wall to the door and flipped the lock shut. “What did you ever tell those mothers as to why their sons came home in body bags?”

Louis turned to face Jim. “We told them—”

“We!” snapped Jim. “There’s no we here, Louis. What did you tell them? Did you go to their homes and knock on their doors? Did you fold up a flag and hand it to a young wife with a little child? Did you give a medal to a heartbroken father with some letter written by our President? Did you do that Louis? Did you make the calls?”

A thought occurred to Louis. Maybe the truth would work with Harper. It was a rare concept for Louis Edwards; he would have to think about it before employing such a bold tactic. “No. I didn’t make those calls. A Marine Corp Major and a Chaplain made those calls. I did write the letters, and those boys did die for their country. They followed you, Jim, because they believed in you.”

Harper closed his eyes, not wishing to see those men. “They followed me for duty, honor and country. Nevertheless, somebody knew we were coming. Somebody told them where to find us. And they kept shooting.”

“You lived and a few others made it out. They lived because you brought them out, Jim,” he reminded. ”There were some who wanted to nominate you for the Medal of Honor. Of course, it was a black op and everything—big time presidential awards would be somewhat out of step for what never happened. You’re a hero.” He leaned back against the half wall. “Those boys you brought out alive, they’ll always remember you. And this time it’ll be different.”

Chapter 5 / Page 3

2005-09-13T17:35:00.000-05:00

He pulled off his hand and elbow pads, tossing them towards the corner along with the cage mask. Harper never took his eyes off his target and examined his situation. The feral nature of his training kicked into overdrive as he started walking across the floor to the trio behind the parent wall.

Louis quit clapping and grinned. “Always a teacher. It’s good to see you haven’t lost your edge.”

“Really?” He shot a hard look at one of Edwards’s flunkeys.

Louis glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, I did hear about your encounter with Mister Smith and Mister Jones this morning. Caught them completely off guard.”

Jim had covered half the distance to the wall. He nodded. “Did they tell you what I’d do to them if they showed their ugly faces again? We don’t allow garbage in this school.”

Louis sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose. “Perhaps it would be best if they waited outside.”

Jim nodded again. “Tell them to get lost, Louis—and while you’re at it—you can get lost with them. I don’t work for you anymore.”

Louis nodded to his men who walked backwards to the door. Jim Harper was not a small man. He carried very little body fat. His posture resembled a cat ready to strike; he projected total menace. “Yes, I suppose you might feel that way, Jimbo.”

Harper hated being called Jimbo. He stopped a few paces short of the wall. “What do you want?”

Louis clapped his hands together. “Always one to get right to the point aren’t you—no subtle moves—no finesse, just straight to the point. Well, it made you what you are.”

Jim folded his arms, waiting. The brown belt he had been fighting came out of the locker room. Louis said nothing and smiled. Jim looked behind him. “Have a nice week, Terry.”

“Thanks for working with me, Mister Harper.”

Jim smiled and waited until the kid left the through the front door. He turned back to Louis. “You never answered my question. Of course, that’s nothing new for you. What will it be this time—lies about North Korea or the perils of Red China? Maybe we need to find what’s going on in Bosnia. It’s obvious you folks haven’t got a clue these days.”

“Yes, well, they did warn me you might be less than receptive to a visit.” Louis suggested. “Maybe I could buy you lunch?”

Chapter 5 / Page 2

2005-09-11T20:47:00.000-05:00

His opponent came with a double round kick, but Jim was no longer where he had been. The kicking leg dropped. Jim stepped in and back punched—not full power, but enough to remind his student not to make the same mistake again.

“Combinations—kick punch or punch kick,” he explained.

The brown belt nodded and turned towards him again. He tried a back fist and punch combination, but Jim slid sideways. He delivered a round kick to his middle and dropped a hammer fist inside the shoulders next to his ear. Again, the brown belt turned.

“Remember to fake next time.”

He came with a kicking blitz that looked more like a one bladed helicopter than a trained fighter. This time Jim blocked the kicks with his front hand. The brown belt made a common mistake of most young fighters. He was so intent on kicking high and fast that he forgot to cover his stomach. His rear hand was waving behind his hip in an effort to keep balance. Unfortunately, this opens up an enormous target called the body. Jim swung under the leg and struck with a double punch.

“Control your hands.”

The fighters danced for another twenty minutes. Jim did little more than counter or jam. Occasionally, when the opportunity was too great to pass up, he landed a sidekick on the brown belt’s hip. Sometimes he rolled left and sometimes right. A few times straight in with a hand blitz or a backhand ridge hand. The odd ax kick or turn sidekick. When finished, they stopped, bowed, and clasped hands thanking each other for a good fight.

A good fight usually meant a soaking wet T-shirt and sweaty hair as the cage masks came off. The front windows steamed up from the heated bodies. Jim popped the Velcro tabs holding his rib guard, and started walking towards the locker room at the end of the school.

The slow, ponderous clap from behind the half wall, where parents gather to watch Johnny and Suzy learn how to kick, caused him to turn. A man in his mid fifties stood with a topcoat slung over his arm. The faded blond mustache and bear-like paws belonged to Louis Edwards. The men on either side of him were the same two Jim had chased off earlier that day. His eyes narrowed and his pulse quickened. These people were not supposed to be here. This part of his life was over, and was never to follow him again!

Chapter 5 / Page 1

2005-09-07T16:44:00.000-05:00

5

Roselle, Illinois
Saturday, November 15, 1997
1:30 P.M. CST

Karate schools are simple places. In the best ones, there are mirrors on one wall, handrails along the other walls, and a fairly good industrial grade carpet. The carpets usually have a different colored square in the middle. It defines a ring without the need for ropes and posts in the conventional sense of a gymnasium. This floor had a red center with a gray border, and it contained two fighters. Each was clad in workout pants and T-shirts. They looked more like aliens than people with their cage masks, rib guards, and hand pads flashing about.

For some, the best part of martial arts is the intricate forms. A form, or kata, is simply telling a story of a fight in classical stances and moves. Indeed, classical basics have their place in training and self-discipline, but for others, it is the chase and the fight that holds the allure. Most instructors will explain to new students: “This is a contact sport and you will get hit.” In the very next breath, they explain that the first rule in sparring is to not get hit.

So it was for Jim Harper. He had learned his forms, and worked on his classical basics, but fighting was the chance to test himself against another trained fighter. The most difficult challenge seemed to be against people he fought on a regular basis. They began to recognize the feints and fakes. They understood the tendencies to hook kick towards the head and sidekick towards the stomach. Good fighters made good friends who pointed out things to each other like steel sharpening steel.

Jim Harper was no novice to fighting. A fourth degree black belt represents at least ten years of training as a black belt, and probably another two or three years as an under belt. Today, he was working with an under belt, just as his trainers had worked with him. He was giving back to another generation what he had been given. He surveyed his opponent—a brown belt teenager. Teenage boys were fascinating adversaries. They had magnificent physical capabilities. They could kick and jump higher and faster than Jim could. But youth and speed was rarely a match for age and deviousness.

Chapter 4 / Page 6

2005-09-05T15:21:00.000-05:00

* * *

“Plot a course for open water. Ahead slow.” He flipped off the monitor. “I’ll be in my cabin. Report when you have a damage assessment.”

He had his damage assessment and a casualty list. Tze Wong thought about praying, but who would listen? He had failed in his mission and in his command to safeguard his boat. He had seventeen dead sons and no bodies to return to grieving mothers. He had five severely injured men, and limited facilities to treat them. He had a ship with the handling characteristics of a pregnant whale and a maximum speed of seven knots. He had the American Navy with its aircraft carriers, destroyers, and attack submarines. He wondered when they would start hunting. He could fight, but he could not run.

Chapter 4 / Page 5

2005-09-04T20:53:00.000-05:00

Wong turned away from the monitor showing the sail camera’s perspective. “Override elevator and close the hull.” He looked across the control room. The ready board had more red than green showing. “Prepare to dive.” He looked back at the sail monitor. The elevator was not closing. A sick feeling crept into his gut. “Elevator status?”

A moment passed before a weak voice answered, “Captain, elevator is jammed open.” It came from the intercom. Wong locked eyes with his Number One. Dead men at the bottom of the elevator were piling up, and those that remained had already been poisoned.

Wong turned to his Number One. “Manual override.”

The officer shook his head. “Manual override can only take place from inside the biohazard room.” He flipped the channel switch on the monitor. “The biohazard room, Captain. Those men are dead or close to it. There’s no one left to raise the elevator.”

They could not stay on the surface. The American Navy would find them in daylight and discover the terrible weapon they had been sent to deliver.

“Take her down.”

“Captain, we’ll have flooding in the hull.”

Wong shook his head. “Secure water tight doors. Rig for shallow dive.” There was another moment’s pause, but the age-old tradition that a captain is lord and master took hold.

“Yes, sir.” Number One turned and shouted the correct orders.

He turned back to the monitor. The deck canted slightly and the 404 began to disappear beneath the surface of the Gulf. Water rushed in from the open wound in the hull. Waves flung the inert bodies about the biohazard room before the camera failed, and the relentless sea took for its own those men still clinging to life.

That was when they discovered the periscope had been hit by one of the Iraqi bullets. Water began dripping from the eyepiece, and the delicate Japanese electronics did not react well to salt water. The pressure hull integrity was compromised. A vessel that could be tracked by American sonar now made more noise than ever due to the hole in the hull.

Chapter 4 / Page 4

2005-09-03T09:51:00.000-05:00

Wong hit the biohazard klaxon. Instantly, special biohazard and watertight doors dropped inside the 404. A seal was created around the storage and elevator rooms, where the casks were stored. Anyone who remained in the biohazard area was a walking dead man. Once the biohazard doors dropped inside the 404, they could not be raised again until they returned to their homeport. Wong was trying to save the rest of his boat. He had no idea how many men he had just condemned.

Incredibly, the Iraqis started shooting. Three Iraqis opened up with automatic weapons—as if steel core bullets could cripple the death spewing from the cask. It was panic fire. The bullets went wide, walking across the deck and ricocheting into the men still standing. Eventually, something important came under fire as well. A submarine has a variety of sensors in the periscopes jutting like misshapen sticks from the sail. The main periscope was shattered by a lucky shot, and all crew on deck that night were cut down.

The Iraqi crane operator yelled for someone to grab an axe. With the clattering of automatic weapons, no one heard him. If there had been enough light, they would have recognized the atomization of the chemical weapon. It began to drift like a cloud over the open elevator shaft, slowly settling towards the deck and seeping into the bowels of the submarine. Fright overrode discipline, and no one noticed the coating of death drifting towards the Iraqi boat in the aftermath of the accident.

Realizing no one could hear him, the crane operator found an axe and chopped through the steel cables holding the ruptured cask. The lines snapped like angry snakes hoping for one more kill before sliding away from the Iraqi barge. The cask could not have landed more squarely on the elevator—still leaking its green death. The cables attached to the hook swung around in a vicious tangle, and the elevator platform continued to lower into the hull of the boat. What little chance the men inside the biohazard chamber had for life ended as the cables and cask snagged the machinery necessary to bring the elevator back up and close the hull.

The engines on the barge surged to life. One of the Iraqi sailors had dropped his AK-47. He was clawing at his air mask. Somehow, he ripped it off, gagging for air his lungs could no longer process. His lungs were disintegrating with each beat of his heart, and soon it, too, would be nothing more than ruptured tissue. His crewmates delivered the same fate they had rendered to the Chinese. Rifle bullets ripped into his body. The bullets’ impact shoved him over the side. Less than ten seconds had transpired since the cask first ruptured.

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2005-08-30T13:11:00.000-05:00

The casks were hoisted from the elevator platform to the deck of the Iraqi boat. A crane moved—a phantasm steel arm drifting through the night. Attached to the crane was a heavy hook and cables manipulated by a pulley system. The casks were fitted with a leather harness and chrome carbuncle. The strap enabled swift ship-to-ship transfer. It had been tested several times. Of course tests performed in calm harbors and research labs never take into account the vagaries of the ocean.

The crane’s hook seemed to move faster than the last time. The sea swells may have moved the ships closer together, or the alignment of the decks tilted at the wrong time. Instead of an orderly movement, the hook slammed into the back of one of his men. Cast iron and weighing over one hundred kilos, it smashed him in the back. The audio microphones from the platform recorded a sickening slap. The splintering of bones and the snapping of a spinal column kept pace with the image of a human being suddenly turned into kindling. His man catapulted over the cask. He hit, slid, and disappeared over the side. The sea swallowed him whole and dutifully washed the blood from the deck.

The hook did not end its night’s work with the death of one sailor. It turned after its first murder and rammed like a missile into the side of the next cask. Double hulled, stainless steel was no match for the simple physics of mass times velocity. The barrel designed to transport a deadly toxin looked like a crunched pop can. Impaled on a hardened chunk of metal, the breached barrel rose up, smashing the sailor opposite the first casualty. He caught several hundred pounds of metal under the chin. He flipped backward into the sea. They were the first to die. They were the lucky ones.

Another planning disaster—no one was supposed to be hit by container hooks. Men were not supposed to die on a black deck under a moonless sky. The double-hulled casks were supposed to resist small arms fire. No one considered the transfer mechanism to be capable of such mayhem.

A green jet spewed from the ruptured cask. It spun like a child’s pinwheel, painting the deck, the men, and the sea. A macabre death dance began with the twirling cask—a deadly pirouette. The green spray slashed a sailor across the middle. In seconds, the yellow biohazard suit parted, exposing bare skin to whatever concoction they had been ordered to deliver. It continued to eat right through the third sailor.The planners never checked the biohazard suit’s durability. Or perhaps they had, and this stuff behaved exactly as advertised. The biohazard suits seemed to smoke. Most likely, the chemical agent was fundamentally an airborne acid capable of defeating most safety systems. Wong’s men were beyond the safety systems.

Chapter 4 / Page 2

2005-08-29T20:09:00.000-05:00

The sea had been somewhat choppy—nothing terribly dangerous. A light overcast and moonless night made it relatively safe for the 404 to surface. Al Faw was to the north-northwest and Bandar-e-Khomeyni due north. They lay in the steady ocean swells fifty klicks south-southeast of the Tigris River.

The 404 had been specially modified for this mission. A nuclear boat had a better chance of relying on stealth than one of the antiquated diesels. An elevator was cut directly into the top of the hull aft of the sail. It lowered into a special storage facility capable of transporting chemical, biological, and nuclear materials. The chamber was sealed off from the rest of the boat. So were the men who served this hazardous duty. Nothing should go wrong with routine material transfers. There was, however, nothing routine about their material.

The elevator dropped like a sinkhole into the back of the 404. Special infrared lights were rigged to reduce the detection signature from overhead reconnaissance. Wong’s men wore night vision goggles to facilitate movement in complete darkness. During these operations, the watch was cancelled. The rest of the boat must be secured from any leakage. Night vision goggles are a marvelous invention, until you combine them with heavy biohazard suits and realize two kilograms of metal are hanging just beyond someone’s nose. Depth perception, normal movement, and balance are all suspect. Add a rolling sea and pitching deck, and accidents can happen.

Wong’s masters might understand an accident, but disaster and the possible loss of a nuclear boat were different matters. Other boats had been lost. Everyone knew about the Thresher—another failure by planners who did not realize the need for precision and care when sending boats to sea. All hands were lost off the Atlantic coast because the plumbing failed.

There were five stainless steel double-hulled casks. Each weighed three hundred kilos and required three men to safely manhandle them on the elevator platform. When it came down to it, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) still relied on its abundant manpower to settle most problems. The platform was large enough to handle eight men. This night it carried four men and a cask up and down three times.

It was the third cask that caused the problems. It rose from the bowels of the submarine; a deadly bottle held by four men. The orange biohazard insignia were visible even in the darkness. Maybe this was where the elaborate preparations failed. Men working in bulky biohazard suits fitted with night vision goggles on a sloping deck. They would probably never know exactly what happened, but Wong would never forget what he witnessed.

Chapter 4 / Page 1

2005-08-28T21:10:00.000-05:00

Persian Gulf
Saturday, November 15, 1997
7:30 P.M. (GMT + 3.00)

Captain Tze Wong stared across the confines of his stateroom. His gaze fixed on a portrait. It was a color photograph remembering the grand day when the 404 was launched. She proudly flew her colors, slicing through the South China Sea like the shark she was. The 404 was China’s challenge to the arrogant Americans. No longer would anyone look upon the People Liberation Army Navy as a toy fleet. The Han Class was a nuclear answer to the surviving superpower. A replacement for the hapless Russians—a people no longer masters of their own destiny. Russia was for sale, and the buyers were American and Japanese bankers.

He was her master. His authority extended to the ninety-two crewmen and the mission he had been given. His responsibility settled heavily on his shoulders. The numbers were overwhelming. In one maddening moment, he had lost a quarter of his crew and damaged his ship. He understood hazardous missions. After all, he was charged with the protection of his nation. He had been chosen to deliver this cargo. His ship had been selected to be the envoy.

Wong kept replaying the disaster as he struggled to come up with a solution. Even now, the American task force might be hunting them. The only escape lay in the Strait of Hormuz. If they had been detected, then a Los Angeles Class attack boat would be waiting. Considering the damage to the outer hull, tracking, trapping, and killing them would be child’s play.

Chapter 3 / Page 10

2005-08-26T23:07:00.000-05:00

“I don’t suppose you’ve asked the Iraqis if it’s okay to raid their database, call up the US Navy on the phone, and bomb their research sites back to the Stone Age. I presume they might be somewhat upset with our presence there. They might even be shooting at us. Besides, it takes time to raid a database and find the right data.” He held up his hand. “But I know the answer. We have four Marines to hold off the Republican Guard, that makes all the difference in my mind.” He spat out the last.

Chapter 3 / Page 9

2005-08-25T20:28:00.000-05:00

“We believe the HP’s shipment arrived in Amman, Jordan. It is a simple matter of trucking the equipment across the border and into the desert. If all software licenses were left in place, the Iraqi’s have gotten their hands on about twenty gigabytes of hard disk, five hundred megabytes of memory, and two Oracle 7.1 databases. The software is more than adequate to assist the Iraqi government in managing any secret weapons’ research.

“One of the things we learned during the Gulf War was the existence of an extensive fiber optic network. With this equipment, they can connect from a variety of locations to central servers. Such a network enables the Iraqis to continue moving weapon prototypes about in an elaborate shell game. Even with satellite and reconnaissance over flights, we are not completely certain where everything is located. These databases have the precise information we need.

“We know these machines exist. We know approximately where they are located, and we have an electronic backdoor into these systems.” He looked around the table. “Jim Harper’s last mission, before retiring, compromised this network. We have some hidden user accounts at both the operating system and database level. Unfortunately, the Iraqis do not allow any dialup access at all to their networks. They have hardened their systems to outside attack. We need to get to a terminal and execute an attack from inside the Iraqi network.

“Jim Harper is the logical choice. He knows how the network was put together. It is our assessment that you, Mister Stillwell, working with Mister Harper have the best chance of figuring out where and what weapons systems still exist in Iraq. We believe the data would be in real time. Therefore, we could effectively take out all weapon sites in one stroke.”

It sounded so tidy on paper. Brian shook his head, smiling in spite of himself. If they had so many clever facts about Saddam’s computers, why not use a couple of stray smart bombs and blast them to bits? Why allow the equipment into Iraq in the first place? Brian had so many questions, and quite a few bad answers. The other nagging fact: it was doubtful that even a massive Tomahawk cruise missile and air campaign could completely eliminate the threat.

“You have a comment?” inquired the NSA.

Chapetr 3 / Page 8

2005-08-24T17:36:00.000-05:00

Lisa Borden was as dumb as she was loud. “I don’t care if he’s King David returned from the dead. You don’t send some Bible thumper into Iraq with the possibility of the whole Arab world exploding if he gets caught!”

The NSA closed his eyes. Stillwell watched the hammer drop, and wondered as it fell—what is the agenda? He was sitting in a room with a no name spook, a Spec War Two Star general, a White House hatchet man, the National Security Advisor, and an openly hostile deputy Secretary of State. They were discussing a mission to do what? To capture chemical or nuclear weapons delivered by the Chinese. Perhaps the intention was to lose those weapons. After all, the administration owed its reelection to illegal contributions from the Chinese Government. The politics might dictate certain sensitivities towards Chinese involvement. However, there were other elements equally distressed at the prospect of heavy-duty chemical weapons being made available to Saddam. Evidently, the NSA feared the practical national security issues over a more muddled political agenda.

“Madam Secretary, I am not interested in your proclivities towards or against a person’s religion. As you are well aware, our administration is an inclusive administration. The word of the day is diversity. Now, according to Mister Stillwell here, our focus should be on the containment of what we saw this morning. I believe he would like to stomp on everything. It’s my job to make national security decisions, and it is my job to determine the best tool to implement those decisions. I’ll repeat for the last time: You are here as a courtesy, and we are talking about a very sensitive issue here. Leaks to the press or others will not be permitted. On this point the President has been explicit.” Lisa Borden seemed to shrink back into her chair with each statement. Both knew who would prevail today in this room. It was only a battle, not the war.

“Perhaps we can proceed with Mister Harper’s credentials,” he concluded.

The nameless spook looked up from his report. “I believe some background may be in order. We know Iraq has been able to get its hands on a number of Hewlett Packard (HP) machines. Our best intelligence indicates these machines were diverted from France during a replacement of HP-9000 with IBM RS-6000 systems. The excuse for the replacement is a general market trend towards IBM equipment in Europe. The HPs were supposed to be transshipped back to England. However, the computers returned were about a dozen 386 PC clones and the HP boxes disappeared.

Chaapter 3 / Page 7

2005-08-23T20:35:00.000-05:00

“All right, so we’ve got our weapons expert and some marines to shoot bad guys. So who’s the computer whiz and team leader?”

“You have such a way with words, Lisa,” snapped the NSA. He flipped the page on the briefing folder to a photograph of a soldier in fatigues. “May I present Major James Harper, United States Special Forces Retired. He will serve in both capacities.”

Brian found it somewhat curious that nowhere on the dossier or photograph was there an indication of service branch or unit designation. There were no insignia like Navy SEAL or DELTA. This Harper seemed as faceless and nameless as the spook sitting next to him. Special Forces was an ambiguous title.

“He was at the top on both lists of available personnel who fit our mission criteria,” continued the spook. “Major Harper is conversant with most information technology likely to be encountered on the mission. He has previously broken into Iraqi computer systems and—”

Lisa Borden looked up from the briefing book. “It says under the psyche profile that he’s a born-again Christian.” She laughed—not a very nice laugh. “You’re going to send some fruitcake Jesus freak on a mission into the desert? What are you, nuts?” Her voice rose with passion and volume. “Everyone knows these type of people favor Israel over everything else over there.”

Brian was unsure whether these type of people or Israel received more derision from Lisa Borden. But then, she was from the State Department, and American Foreign Policy seemed to be dedicated to a mission designed to deify Yassir Arafat and blame Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for most Arab terrorism.

“That’s all we need at the UN. Saddam gets his hands on a Jew-loving, Jesus freak on a black op to one of his presidential palaces. No, gentlemen, I’m afraid State can never approve of this choice. I—”

“Ma’am!” interrupted the Two Star. “I don’t care whether State will approve or disapprove of Jim Harper. From 1980 to 1992, he took care of some this country’s biggest problems. He’s something of a legend in the Spec War community. Most everything we know about the inside of Saddam’s computer network came from Jim, and one of the reasons you’re here today is because Jim Harper stopped a mess like this once before.

“I’ve had men under my command. I wish all of them were like Harper.” Something seemed to boil out of the Two Star who no longer cared about promotion. He was obviously destroying his chance for career advancement. “We are going to send in a team without support, without backup, to find something the Red Chinese gave to a crazy man. Now the only reason we don’t go in with all guns blazing is because we want the Red Chinese to like us. So, we’ll ignore the problem of a sub running loose in the Gulf, and the transmission of a weapon to the Iraqis because it is politically expedient to do so. We’re talking about sending my friend back to hell, and you’re upset because he goes to church.”

Chapter 3 / Page 6

2005-08-22T20:35:00.000-05:00

“The protective service fire team is being selected as we speak,” the Two Star read from his own notes. “It will be a Force Recon detachment. These men will not have any immediate family and only limited ties to extended family. Their service records have been altered to indicate training accidents, discharge, or disqualification for other reasons. Obviously, we can’t use the same excuse for everyone. In the event someone decides to look, we need a clean slate for these men.” The General looked across the table at a civilian who had just become a soldier again. He found it astounding that a reserve officer would be sent on a covert op into Indian country.

“Their weapons will be standard issue. Their clothing will be authentic to the region and all are Arabic speakers.” He paused again and looked at the nameless spook. “All, that is, except Lieutenant Stillwell here. Country infiltration and exit will be accomplished by land vehicle. Air evacuation is only a last resort.”

If anyone had bothered to look at a map, they would have realized the supporting details for this mission were bogus. The Iraqi Data Center was deep inside the southern no-fly zone in fairly rough terrain. The ground was rent with gullies gouged through soft sand and hard rocks. It was uneven and it rained very little. The wind could be fierce, raising deadly sandstorms, and the heat could leach the water out of any man.

They were heading for the edges of the Syrian Desert while Saddam lay to the north along the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. To the west lay too much desert and hostile Arab territory before arriving in Israel. To the East awaited Kuwait, but if anyone figured out what they were about, an exit back to Kuwait would vanish. Of course, the map indicated a border to the south and refuge in Saudi Arabia. Considering the prize they were after—Saddam’s total order of battle for both conventional and unconventional weapons—simple lines drawn on maps would not impede the pursuit. Besides, the great Saudi desert might do the job nicely for Saddam.

Stillwell nodded slightly. The unspoken truth here involved his capture. A weapon expert of his caliber could not fall into Saddam’s hands. He wondered who had the chore of killing him to avoid capture. If Brian were designing this mission, all four of the Force Recon Marines would be given the same order either as a group or in private. “Do I get a blindfold or a cigarette, Sir?”

The NSA chuckled, “Brian, let’s not be so glum. No one is going to get killed, and as soon as you’re back, this letter Arthur has disappears. You’ll have the personal thanks of the President and the heartfelt gratitude of the country. We find out what Saddam’s up to and fix it so it doesn’t work anymore.”

Chapter 3 / Page 5

2005-08-20T21:34:00.000-05:00

Brian’s icy tingle frosted over into a full-fledged glacier. His eyes were riveted to the words weapons expert. Oh, he had passed a test today, but not for being the annoying analyst in the back of the room. The test Brian passed was a database search, and he was still fogging the mirror. His name must have come out on top. This was not going to be handed off to an ineffective UN Weapons Inspection Team. This was going to be Uncle’s little party—a party where people usually end up dead, or missing, or both.

“I believe you’ve found your role in all of this,” smiled the NSA. He withdrew an envelope from his suit coat pocket. “You’ll find everything very much in order. The only abnormality is that this letter is actually signed by the Secretary of the Army.” The smile turned to a prankster’s smirk. “We had to get him out of bed this morning to sign it. Arthur took care of all the paperwork.”

Brian stared at the proffered letter like it was a wiggling, venomous viper. Letters from politicians in meetings like these never came to good ends. Gingerly, Brian accepted the letter.

Brian opened the envelope and stared at the letter.

“It says you’ve been reactivated as a First Lieutenant, United States Army. I hope you didn’t have any plans this evening, because as of now, you’re in the army, son.”

Brian stared open-mouthed at the NSA. Lisa Borden found it all rather amusing. It was comeuppance due for such a rude man.

“You do remember how to fire a gun?” asked the NSA.

Stillwell snapped back to reality. “Oh yes, sir. Wish I had one right now.” Arthur leaned forward and plucked the letter from Brian’s fingers.

“I’ll keep it safe for you,” explained Arthur.

“Just make sure you shred it both ways,” suggested Brian.

Arthur nodded as he stole the letter away into his suit coat pocket.

Stillwell realized what was strange about the Two Star General. He had no nametag. All officers were required to wear a nametag. The medals and chevrons looked real enough. He had the bearing of man who had been there. Blood and death were no strangers to this warrior. Yet Brian could not place a name with the face, and this nameless, faceless general sat at a table deciding his future. A future with limited possibilities.

CHapter 3 / Page 4

2005-08-18T17:49:00.000-05:00

The spook rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath, “To answer your question about the team leader.”

“Yes, my question,” snapped Lisa.

“To accomplish our objectives, we need someone with knowledge of the desert, language skills, proven combat experience, and who can not be tied directly to the US government,” explained the spook.

Another political calculation was revealed to this select group: a black operation where only someone named Arthur would allegedly have any knowledge or planning. An icy tingling reached down Brian’s spine. The administration was scared. This entire scenario had not been concocted this morning. They must have preplanned for something like this. They were following some sort of war plan. As with any plan, it tended to unravel once the shooting started. Brian wondered if anyone besides the Two Star and spook realized this was going to happen. Perhaps Arthur was polishing his sword so he could fall on it at an opportune moment.

“What sort of team? If you don’t mind me asking,” pressed Brian.

The spook handed them a black covered briefing book. There were no numbers, titles, or logos on the binders. Usually, these things had a bar code in the lower left-hand corner. Brian looked at the spook again. Who was this guy?

“If you’ll turn to page two, I’ll explain the team composition.”

Page one consisted of a map and plot of the U-2, the Iraqi boat, and the submarine paths. Brian fingered the map for a moment before looking up. “Is anyone tracking this sub?”

“You don’t have a need to know, Mister Stillwell,” replied Arthur.

Stillwell locked eyes with Arthur. Arthur looked away quickly. Well, one thing was certain. Arthur was no Ollie North, and this administration better make sure Arthur never appeared in front of a Senate committee. He would sound more like Janet Reno than Ollie North. Brian turned to the next page.“

The team composition requires a team leader, weapons expert, protective services fire team experienced in chemical, biological and nuclear weapon disposal, and a computer database expert. That’s a seven-man team. They will be able to communicate via satellite link to our command post.”

Chapter 3 / Page 3

2005-08-17T08:04:00.000-05:00

Of course, if anyone believed Arthur volunteered out of the goodness of his patriotic heart, then someone should examine his Bahamian bank account. Arthur would eventually become another of those faceless, nameless bureaucrats that were never hired and never fired, but had complete access to the inner workings of government. Even the cynical Stillwell was somewhat shocked at the NSA’s blunt political calculation.

“Who’s going to lead this team?” Lisa’s eyes were aimed at the NSA, but her question was answered by the spook.

“Our recommendation is to insert a covert team into southern Iraq and penetrate Iraq’s central Data Center. We have no reason to believe we will be able to apply the correct resources in tracking these weapons down now that the Iraqis have had sufficient time to move them in country.

“However, the central Data Center is a major Iraqi installation. It is connected to every major weapon, command, and control center in Iraq. We believe that the Data Center holds the information to tell us exactly who, what, where, and how the Iraqis are preparing banned weapons systems.”

“How do you know that?” snapped Lisa Borden.

“The tooth fairy,” offered Brian.

He received a collective set of dirty looks from everyone except the spook and the Two Star.

The spook looked over the table to Lisa and replied, “We know this because we’ve been inside once before. Back in ’92.”

“Why aren’t we still there?” she demanded.

Brian thought of another one liner, but managed to restrain himself.

“We had a presence on their network for almost twelve months. We learned a great deal about how Saddam moves money, how he shuffles his doubles, and the post-war condition of his major command bunkers,” answered the spook.

“You need to understand the West Germans; they’re suppose to be our allies. They built several nuclear bomb-proof shelters a hundred meters below the ground on top of big springs,” explained Brian. “If we didn’t think Saddam was a bleeding maniac, we might think he’s a flipping gopher. He has tunnels with electric cars to take him from bunker to bunker. Do you know what we developed during the Gulf War? A bomb that could drill down over a one hundred meters and then blow up. It was really quite ingenious—kind of wish I’d thought of it. Unfortunately, the media folks and State Department schmucks fell in love with the one-hundred-hour war and we never got a chance to blow Saddam all over the inside of one of his pretty German bunkers.”

Chapter 3 / Page 2

2005-08-15T17:29:00.000-05:00

The spook broke his silence for the first time. “I’ve got the briefing books you requested for this meeting. Louis Edwards is on his way to meet the team leader we discussed this morning.”

“Excuse me, but I take it you saw these photos a long time before the rest of us,” interrupted Brian.

“Who’s Louis Edwards?” demanded Lisa.

The spook looked across the table to the NSA. There was a brief nod before the spook replied, “Louis Edwards is a member of the intelligence community. He has worked on black ops for the past twenty years. These include operations against friendly and hostile governments. From time to time, Mister Edwards has had an opportunity to work with members of the elite services.”

“He means Army Rangers, DELTA Force, and that sort of thing,” injected Brian.

“Yes, well, the man the computers came up with for Team Leader is no longer employed by the United States Government; however, Mister Edwards has worked with him on several occasions, and it was felt that he should be positioned to talk with our candidate pending the approval of this committee and the strictures of time.”

“He means we’re really scared this time, and we don’t have much time to create the usual bureaucratic disaster you folks at State are so capable of creating,” continued Brian. His eyes never left Lisa Borden’s perplexed features. He shifted his gaze back to the spook. Suffering fools was not something at which Brian excelled. “Now that we’ve explained absolutely nothing about Louis Edwards beyond the obvious, could you answer my question? I take it you saw these photos a long time before the rest of us.”

“Yes, sir,” explained the spook. He wore no nametag. He had no visible security badge like the rest of them. His posture was something other than the usual bureaucrat encountered at Langley. Perhaps this was something other than an ordinary spook. “We saw these photos nearly seven hours ago. I came to the same conclusions as you did, Mister Stillwell. I think we have a very bad situation on our hands.”

“That’s why you’re still here,” explained the NSA. “You passed my test, as much as I don’t like you. You made sense this morning. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not about to authorize military action against a Chinese submarine. I do think, however, that covert action against Iraq is in order. At this moment, a Presidential Finding is being signed to that effect.” He turned to Lisa. ”Your role here is a courtesy. The President made it quite clear that State be kept in the loop. I think that also means CNN stays out of the loop for the moment. All media control will be run from the White House.” He smiled one more time. “Any questions anyone has will be routed through Arthur.” The smile faded slightly. “He’s our Ollie North. If something goes wrong, or someone needs a Judas goat, Arthur has volunteered to fill the role.”

Chapter 3 / Page 1

2005-08-14T16:29:00.000-05:00

3

Washington, D.C.
Saturday, November 15, 1997
10:45 A.M. EST

They had been briefed. Obviously, Iraq and Red China were up to mischief. Certainly, those two players were replacing the Soviet Union as the world’s chief troublemakers. The briefing was breaking up. A small, select group would meet to make some decision—probably the wrong one—and check in with CNN to see if anything else were amiss. Brian Stillwell had little time for such antics.

He was surprised when the National Security Advisor told him to stay. The meeting after the briefing came down to the two star general, a CIA spook, someone from the White House, and Lisa Borden, the Deputy Secretary of State.

“Why have you included Mister Stillwell?” asked Lisa.

“Because, we need someone who will tell us the politically incorrect things we need to hear.” The NSA smiled. “He has no love for our president. He thinks you folks at State have made disastrous decisions in the Middle East and China. He’s against the bailout of Russia, and he supports greater defense spending—kind of a nuke ‘em ‘til they glow attitude. He doesn’t really like me. Right now, all we have in this room are people you and I can intimidate. Stillwell doesn’t care.” He paused.

“In addition to all those flaws, Mister Stillwell is one of the top experts on unconventional weapons systems in the country. We know that something was passed from China to Iraq, or perhaps vice versa,” he teased with a knowing look in Brian’s direction. “We think it might be a weapon of mass destruction. Something went wrong during the transfer and a Chinese submarine might be experiencing some sort of poisoning. We saw what appeared to be casualties, and we have a big problem if that madman really does get his hands on weapons of mass destruction.”

Stillwell coughed and said sarcastically, “In case you folks haven’t been following the news, that madman already has weapons of mass destruction.”

Lisa glared at the NSA, but kept her own council for the moment.

Chapetr 2 / Page 3

2005-08-12T08:53:00.000-05:00

The willingness to use necessary force is a barrier everyone must face. These two had read Harper’s dossier. The passenger knew that if Harper got to four seconds without results, his knee would be shattered. Harper was hardly a normal suburban businessman. Besides, they were simply here to observe and not to take a tour of the local trauma wards.

A Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum dropped neatly between the driver’s legs. “That was right neighborly of you.” He frowned at the passenger. “I’m sure you have a good reason to be carrying a fine cannon like that.” He dropped the Sig into his other pocket and scooped up the .44. “So let me make sure we understand each other. If I see you again, you’ll be spending months in the hospital.” The frown vanished and twinkling eyes turned colder than the sky above. “You do something really stupid, they’ll be hauling you away in pieces.”

The Glock and the Smith vanished into his coat. A smile returned and Harper said gleefully, “Have a nice day.” He stepped back and kicked the door shut. To emphasize his point, he thrust-kicked the driver’s door, leaving the heal print of his cowboy boot. The engine turned over and the pickup backed out of the slot. His shadows drove away without looking back. Harper should have been happy with his success, instead, a grim foreboding settled in a cold spot between his shoulder blades. It had been a long time since he had to chase off shadows such as these. Now they were back. Someone was testing the waters again.

Chapter 2 / Page 2

2005-08-09T21:52:00.000-05:00

As far as anyone knew, Jim Harper was a successful businessman. A man happily married with two children, a nice house, and a big dog. Harper had achieved the American dream. Granted, he could obliterate the ten-ring on any target from fifty yards. Yes, he knew how to make a bomb out of household items. Indeed, he could teach the Marine close quarter combat instructors a couple of things. However, those were secrets from a past Harper rarely thought of. He had been a warrior; now he was content to be husband and father, and a karate instructor on Saturdays.

Old habits born out of survival never die. He did notice the pickup truck pulling into the parking lot five slots down from his parking spot. The same truck had picked him up as he left his house—two Caucasian males in a late model Ford F-150. They simply parked and sat in their truck. After so many years, who would be interested in him again?

He opened the rear hatch of his Nissan Pathfinder and grabbed the gym bag containing his uniform, belt, and pads. Leaning into the rear of his truck, he pulled the cased Glock 19 from its compartment. Pretending to examine something in the gym bag, he loaded a fifteen round magazine into the Glock, racked the slide, and slipped the pistol into his coat pocket.

A Glock 19 is certainly close to the perfect weapon for a defensive pistol. Unlike other weapons, a Glock can digest just about any bullet configuration it is fed. Glocks rarely jam. They work in sand, water, heat, and cold. Jim carried 115 grain Gold Dot Hollow Points. A 9mm may not produce a one shot stop, but it does deliver a punch accompanied by an ear-ringing bang.

Harper dropped the gym bag on the ground behind his truck, closed the hatch, and turned towards the two in the pickup. He did not like people following him. He liked people even less who lurked outside of his home. So, with a wave and a smile, he walked over to the pickup.

The goons inside the pickup were caught off guard. Harper closed the distance before the two had a chance to react. He grabbed the driver’s side door and opened it, bringing the Glock into view for the first time. Still smiling he said, “You boys have been following me.” Stepping in, he jammed the muzzle into the ribs of the driver and pulled a Sig 229 from the driver’s shoulder holster. “I don’t like being followed.” He continued flipping the safety off the Sig while pointing it at the passenger. “So if I see you around my house, or outside this school or anywhere else—someone could get hurt.” He chuckled nodding to the passenger. “I presume you have something similar to your friend here. I’ll give you three seconds to drop it in his lap.” The Sig turned towards the passenger’s kneecap.

Chapter 2 / Page 1

2005-08-08T21:22:00.000-05:00

Roselle, Illinois
Saturday, November 15, 1997
10:00 A.M. CST

Jim Harper turned right into the strip mall at Plum Grove and Nerge. It had a Walgreen’s on one end of the mall and a video rental store on the other. It was like a hundred other strip malls popping up in the cornfields of the northern and western Chicago suburbs. In the few years he had lived here, the sprawling growth of Dupage and Kane counties continued outwards. What had once been small farming communities now hosted over 250,000 people in a five-mile radius from where he was standing.

It was starting to get cold. Winter’s icy fingers were beginning to gather their grip. Already the sky had changed to battleship gray and a cold breeze rode over the prairie. The occasional snowflake flitted through the air. He could feel the hardness of the coming winter. The places on his body pockmarked with scars, the joints once twisted out of shape, and the broken bones, long since healed, reminded him of his mortality.

Only today, as most Saturdays, was not a day for combat, remembrance, or duty. The roar and smoke of battle were from days gone by. The blood and sweat endured during peace and war dim memories. Saturdays were those moments when Harper reaped a small reward. A time away from his day job when he could pass on a sense of honor to those who would listen. Saturdays were spent teaching kids and adults Tae Kwon Do.

On Saturdays, James Harper instructed lower belts in sparring, kicking, and punching basics. A fourth degree black belt, he was considered a master instructor. After so many years, he still felt the magic of training someone in the martial arts—to take an average person and transform them into a trained fighter. Training someone to fight was only half of the journey. The other half involved developing a sense of duty and honor. Honor not based on eastern mysticism, rather, he sought to instill a sense of personal integrity. His honor was rooted in the belief that life is precious and God-given. Life is not a trivial commodity to be traded lightly. He certainly knew the cost of life. Warriors generally crave peace and shun war.

Chapter 1 / Page 7

2005-08-07T17:18:00.000-05:00

A smirk emerged. No one really wanted to hear the answer, but Brian had always worked on the principle that no one hired him to be nice. He glanced at the Two Star before replying. Their eyes locked again for the briefest of moments. “I would suggest that we hunt down the 404 and sink her if necessary. Whatever went wrong; it is obvious that the transfer was not completed. That means whatever it is could still be on the 404. In addition, I recommend we find the stuff that was on the Iraqi boat.”

“Two acts of war,” chided Madam Secretary. “Generally, we get the recommendation for only one act of war at a time. May I remind you, the Chinese government is a nuclear power on the Pacific Rim? It is not in our interest to start a shooting war with the Chinese. Furthermore, may I remind you, that no one knows this is an Iraqi boat? Or that anything like the weapons you describe were even present.”

“With all due respect, Madam Secretary,” replied Brian. He had no respect for the woman. She was an idiot manning an important foreign policy position because her politics aligned properly on abortion. “No one is suggesting we start a shooting war, but if nothing is amiss, then why are we all here? To see a picture of the tooth fairy?” He was warmed up and ready for a fight. “Are we to believe nothing happened last night? You have evidence of a Chinese nuclear submarine penetrating the Persian Gulf to meet with a boat most likely based out of Basra. We are here, Madam Secretary, because someone believes Saddam Hussein just got his hands on something nasty enough to make good all the threats he’s been issuing since the Gulf War.”

“Your suggestions will certainly be considered, Mister Stillwell.” With that, the NSA dismissed Brian from the discussion. There were other ideas—ideas less plausible and more palatable to the current administration. Brian did not pay much attention to the discussion. His gut told him he was right. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he prayed he was wrong.

Chapter 1 / Page 6

2005-08-06T22:46:00.000-05:00

“Those look like biohazard suits.” He changed gears suddenly on them. “Does anyone remember The Hunt for Red October? The Russian captain needs to get his crew off the Red October—so they fake a nuclear accident. They frighten everyone. There is no question but to abandon ship.” He tapped his finger at the photo display. “I’ll bet the Chinese inside the sub panicked, because whatever they were working with must have been the real thing. Something went wrong or maybe it started to leak. Perhaps someone panicked on the surface ship. Everyone wanted to run away. Maybe someone thought this was a double cross or they were just plain scared and the shooting started. The easiest thing for the sub to do was to drop out of sight.”

The Deputy Secretary of State interrupted, “So what are you saying?”

Brian switched his focus. “Madam Secretary, I am suggesting that something nasty was transferred between the Chinese and Iraqi boats last night. You don’t need biohazard suits to hand out lollypops. I am further suggesting that something went wrong and there are some dead bodies floating out there. What I don’t know is whether the transfer was from the Chinese to the Iraqis or vice versa. Maybe it’s nuclear, or maybe its chemicals—I really don’t know. I don’t think its something benign like bullets, because there are many ways to procure those items short of using a nuclear submarine as a delivery truck. So something scared them and they started shooting.”

“You can’t be sure those were NBC suits,” countered the Secretary, referring to what looked like nuclear, biological, and chemical biohazard suits everyone was wearing in the photos.

“No I can’t. However, I know we paint ours DayGlow orange, and this wasn’t a casual visit. It was clandestine—timed to happen when our satellites were looking elsewhere. If they went to all that trouble, why wear something that would catch our eye as being out of place? Saddam plays the odds. He knows we can’t watch everything all the time. They know our satellite schedules. That’s why we’re still flying U-2 surveillance, and every so often we find something interesting.”

The blood slowly drained from the Secretary’s face. However the NSA saved her before she could utter some inane challenge to Stillwell. “And, Mister Stillwell, faced with a scenario as you describe, what would you recommend to the President?”

Chapter 1 / Page 5

2005-08-05T22:53:00.000-05:00

“Where is the Chinese sub now?”

“Still in the Gulf.”

“And the surface vessel?”

“Unknown—most likely port of origin was Basra.”

“What happened to the red guys?”

“Unknown—presumed dead.”

“Why’d the Chinese leave their own guys?”

“Unknown—maybe they detected the U-2.”

“What do you know?”

“Nothing for sure.”

“What do you think you know?”

Stillwell cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Captain.” The idea of civility and politeness from someone as antisocial as Stillwell caused some of the hubbub to subside, and most everyone turned in his direction.

He sat up. “Does anyone have any idea why the Iraqis shot those Chinese sailors?”

“What shots?” demanded the Navy Secretary.

The NSA held up his hand commanding silence and turned back to Stillwell. This was something no one had mentioned up to this point. “Go on, Mister Stillwell.”

“The last picture after the submarine disappears. There are flashes from the surface vessel.” The photo reappeared on the screen. “Now, something certainly scared the Chinese captain. He dropped back into the Gulf without waiting for his men to get back inside. You know what—the same thing scared the Iraqi sailors. Those flashes look like muzzle blasts from automatic or semiautomatic weapons. My money would be on automatic weapons. The Iraqis are shooting the Chinese guys in the water. So something scared them real bad.”

He had their attention now. Center stage, all he needed was a white board to draw pictures on. Instead, he asked the briefing officer to back up several photos to the point where the red blobs disappear.

“Up to this point everything looks fine. We’ve got the Iraqis in DayGlow yellow suits, and the Chinese in DayGlow red suits. Kind of strange don’t you think? Here they are under cover of darkness, in the middle of the Gulf during a US satellite blackout. The sub is obviously black. The surface ship is probably some sort of gray or mottled brownish green thing. So why do we have a bunch of people bouncing around in reflective clothing?” His eyes locked with the Two Star sitting closer to the front of the room. The General knew the answer, but being a General in this administration brought him under suspicion. That’s why Brian had been invited. A civilian expert was needed to tell the political appointees the truth.

Chapter 1 / Page 4

2005-08-03T21:19:00.000-05:00

Stillwell sat forward in his chair. A Chinese SSN on the surface in the Persian Gulf, as close as possible to Iraq in the middle of the night, was not supposed to happen. A decided rumble emerged across the room. Everyone, except some of the State Department and White House aides, recognized the gravity of the reconnaissance photo on display. Chinese boats did not play outside the South China Sea. Certainly, they were not supposed to be bobbing next to two Carrier Battle Groups. Since the Gulf War, the Persian Gulf was tacitly acknowledged as an American asset.

“The next series of photos are a composite of over one hundred taken by the U-2.” He let the imagery speak for itself.

A surface boat appeared. It looked like some sort of light freighter or tugboat. There were four yellowish blobs on deck. Yellow seemed an odd color to use for a clandestine rendezvous. The color screamed like a beacon. Not exactly the effect Saddam or the Chinese were attempting to create.

A greater number of reddish blobs appeared on the deck of the submarine aft of the conning tower and forward of the fin. A black hole materialized on the submarine’s deck. Brian remembered the Han as having missile tubes forward of the conning tower. This hole appeared to be square—more like a platform. Could the Chinese have converted one of their boats to be some sort of submerged delivery truck? They were certainly working on a new class that would retire the Han boats, but that was scheduled for sometime in the next century. The surface ship pulled along side the submarine. What appeared to be a crane began moving across the deck. It was unclear, however, whether the submarine was delivering or receiving.

The next series of photographs depicted a macabre pantomime. Abruptly, three red blobs from the submarine disappeared into the Gulf. The other red blobs scrambled away towards the conning tower. The black hole in the deck disappeared and the submarine sank beneath the waves. The remaining blobs on deck never reentered the boat. Brian concluded the blobs had to be men. Why were they dressed in yellow and red?

The final series of photos showed flashes from the boat. Had they abandoned their men to the sea? What kind of captain makes a decision like that? Submarine crews are small families trapped inside a steel tube beneath the waves for months at a time. Leaving men behind to fend for themselves was certainly out of character, regardless of the navy.

Stillwell stared at the last image. Already, questions were being fired at the briefing officer.

Chapter 1 / Page 3

2005-08-02T07:12:00.000-05:00

“Approximately twelve hours ago, this series of photos was taken by an unscheduled U-2 flight. This particular flight followed the course of the Tigris River from Baghdad to the Shat al Arab.” A red dotted border drew a southeastern line from the center of Iraq to the narrow access Saddam had to the Persian Gulf and ultimately to Western ports. It made sense to run unscheduled U-2 reconnaissance flights, because Saddam had certainly bought the overflight schedules for American satellites from our steadfast allies in the Russian Federation—or maybe it was the French. Brian mused how long it would be before Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister, would tire of this expensive game. The screen switched to the hazy graininess associated with infrared and high altitude night vision photography.

“The U-2 continued into the Gulf for approximately one hundred klicks before turning west and landing inside Kuwait.” Brian wondered how many of the civilians did not know that klick was slang for kilometer. Regardless of Arab solidarity, Kuwait made sure the United States had whatever facilities it required to keep the nightmare to the north at bay. The Iraqi invasion during the 1990 summer had created an anomaly—pragmatic Arab leadership.

The next photo was a reconnaissance from some other time. It revealed the conning tower of a submarine with the number 404 clearly painted in white on the side. “This is a file photo of a Chinese Han Class PLAN naval submarine. It is a nuclear powered boat placed in service in 1988. It is comparable to a Russian Victor Class boat, and this particular boat is capable of launching surface-to-surface missiles.

“We know the Chinese do not take kindly to American battle groups paying close attention to their activities. In October 1994, J-7III fighters challenged an S-3B anti-submarine warfare plane from the Kitty Hawk. There are five known boats in this class, although the first boat—the 401—is not believed to be in service due to radiation leaks.” He paused as the screen dissolved into another photo from the U-2.

“Last night a Han Class boat—the 404—was spotted on the surface fifty klicks from the mouth of the Tigris River.” The screen dissolved to the overhead silhouette identified as a Han Class boat.

Chapter 1 / Page 2

2005-07-31T17:54:00.000-05:00

Outside, the sun was shining a warm brilliance still possible for mid-November in Washington. The grass remained green with birds chirping in varicolored trees. Lawn tractors were busily scooping leaves into pull-behind carts, kids were chasing basketballs across hardtop, and others chased the elusive oblong football. The NFL and NBA were in full swing, and Saturday mornings were a great time for kids to play at being the next Michael Jordan or Joe Montana.

Brian lived in a world populated by grainy satellite photos, dossiers of crazed world leaders, and deadly weapons most people had never heard of. He was an expert, for sale to the highest bidder, as long as the bidder was a government or business friendly to Uncle Sam. These days friendship was defined by the largest illegal campaign contribution made in the most recent election. Brian sometimes mused whether the crooks in the current administration or the bad guys on the other side of the world represented a greater threat. He suspected it was still the bad guys on the other side of the world.

The normal introductions were made. Surprisingly, the National Security Advisor took control of the meeting. Usually, something in the Tank was the purview of the Joint Chiefs. A map of the Persian Gulf snapped up on the digital display screen at the end of the Tank. Brian sighed; another oil mess. Considering the map was centered on Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out Saddam was up to something.

Brian believed the Bush Administration should have let the 24th Mechanized Infantry and the 101st Airborne roll into Baghdad when they had the chance. It would have simplified life. Instead, Uncle had parleyed away a battlefield victory for an expensive stalemate. It kept precious resources monitoring Saddam, when the real enemy was across the Persian Gulf working on their own missile platforms, biological weapons, and nuclear bombs. Nightmarish artifacts recently procured from the disintegrating Soviet Empire—All for the glory of Allah.

A briefing officer stepped to the podium that controlled the screen. He was arrayed in full dress blues, obviously young, and intense. A prominent Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped air waiting for the NSA to finish his introduction. Stillwell had been that briefing officer once, albeit, not here and not before this many heavies. He had brought the bad news about many nasty problems before generals, admirals, and the odd senator. Thankfully, many of those problems never made it to CNN or the Washington Post.

Chapter 1 / Page 1

2005-07-29T11:25:00.000-05:00

1

Washington, D.C.
Saturday, November 15, 1997
10:00 A.M. EST

Brian Stillwell walked through the metal detectors and retrieved his briefcase from the Marine guard after passing through the security checkpoint to the Pentagon’s E ring. While the checkpoint looked like most airport security checkpoints, the difference was that the Marine guards actually watched the monitors and checked for weapons. They had 9mm Beretta pistols strapped to their sides and M16 A2 rifles nearby on ready-racks.

He followed the signs to the Tank. The Tank was a secure, windowless room buried beneath ground level that was impervious to all known forms of surveillance technology. Of course, in the current era of peace and goodwill, one only worried about Chinese nukes, the burgeoning Indian Navy, a collection of Arabs, starving Korean madmen, and the occasional Russian weapon of mass destruction gone missing. Oh for the Cold War days, when an enemy could be clearly drawn on the map. You counted their tanks; they counted your fighters. Now you had to worry about Ebola showing up in somebody’s shaving kit at JFK.

The National Security Advisor, the Deputy Secretary of State for Middle Eastern Affairs, the Secretary of the Navy, a handful of generals, and other spooks preceded Brian into the Tank. All were checked against a retinal scan and a Marine guard checked off each name on a clipboard before entering. Something heavy indeed must be going down to pull this many self-appointed VIPs away from their Saturday morning play times. Not that it mattered to Stillwell; he was dressed in black jeans, an Annapolis sweatshirt, and new Nikes. He had no reverence for most of those present, except the military men who had put it on the line and the Marine guards who might end up in some forsaken no-name place fighting for God and country.

Stillwell found a spot reserved for him. He moved his name card out of the way to set his notepad before him and his briefcase next to the chair. He found himself seated at a table next to a collection of spooks and someone from the FBI (probably the counter-terrorism unit). These days everything seemed to boil down to countering some sort of threat. Since flight 800 had turned into a fireworks display over Long Island Sound and Oklahoma City had erupted into a morning killing spree, no one seemed to rule out terrorism—domestic or otherwise. It was the otherwise that brought Brian to this airless, windowless room on a lovely fall day.

Part 1 A Gathering of Warriors

2005-07-29T11:23:00.000-05:00

PART 1
A Gathering of Warriors

"Should foreign nations… deceived by [an] appearance of division and weakness, render it necessary to vindicate by arms the injuries to our country, I believe… that the spirit of the revolution is unextinguished, and that the cultivators of peace will again, as on that occasion, be transformed at once into a nation of warriors who will leave us nothing to fear for the natural and national rights of our country."
Thomas Jefferson 1809

Prologue - Page 4

2005-07-27T17:51:00.000-05:00

Saddam rubbed his hands together. “And will they suffer as they die? Will the Jews who bombed my reactor finally be punished?”

Rihab Rashida al-Awazi replied clinically, “First they will have severe convulsions. The spasms will be so violent that even those with biological warfare suits will succumb. Some will lapse into comas; others will simply feel their ability to breathe cease. Death will come eventually. The attacks will come without warning.”

“As they deserve,” concluded Saddam. He fixed his gaze on Duri and said, “Do it.”

Colonel Duri saluted, realizing he had been dismissed.

AP November 12, 1997—Hundreds of Iraqi citizens were ushered into presidential compounds to act as human shields against possible American strikes on suspected weapons depot facilities. UNSCOM inspectors were refused entry to suspected Iraqi weapon facilities.

AP November 14, 1997—Ambassador Richard Butler, the head of the UNSCOM weapons inspection teams, decided to pull all inspection teams out of Iraq. The turmoil surrounding suspect weapons sites amid rumors of increased activity around the USS George Washington and USS Nimitz battle groups makes it impossible to continue their mission.

Prologue - Page 3

2005-07-26T14:02:00.000-05:00

Saddam shifted his focus back to Colonel Duri. “When is the delivery scheduled?”

“Friday night.”

Saddam nodded carefully. “We will then stage the incident on Wednesday.”

Duri smiled slightly. “Yes, sir. It doesn’t matter where UNSCOM goes, we will deny the weapon inspection teams access to the hotels if need be. It should focus the American satellites and spy planes on those facilities.”

“And away from the sea,” finished Saddam.

United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) served as an umbrella organization for America’s weapon inspection program. This too changed. At the end of the Gulf War, Iraq held its breath under the threat of the massive Allied Armies. Saddam signed agreements permitting the West to search for banned weapons throughout his country. The alternative had been annihilation, but who would be so stupid as to believe he would live up to the agreements? The Americans—that’s who.

“Yes, away from the sea,” agreed Duri.

“And the missiles?”

“By early next year, twenty Al-Hussein and thirty-five Al-Abbas will be fitted with VX-Beta specific warheads. We probably will be ready to launch sometime in mid-February.”

Saddam bristled somewhat at the mention of the Al-Abbas missile. It had a range one hundred fifty kilometers greater than the Al-Hussein named after himself.

“Valentine’s Day. We will do it when the Americans show their sentimental weakness. You will be able to hit the carriers?” he asked eagerly.

Duri had no idea whether the modified SCUD missiles could even find the USS George Washington or USS Nimitz carriers. The SCUD was basically an unguided missile that more or less landed within twenty kilometers of where it was sent—if all went well. Of course, to admit something that might not be as the Great Leader believed could be fatal—especially when they were planning the deaths of thousands of Jews and Arabs. “Yes,” he lied.

Saddam held his gaze and looked back to the target list. “You’ll be aiming more than one at these targets?”

“The Jews get three each, as do the Iranians and Saudis. The rest are distributed among the other targets,” he explained.

Prologue - Page 2

2005-07-25T17:55:00.000-05:00

“Add Amman and Damascus to this list. They were cowards who buckled to Bush.” It came out BUUUUSH. Every time he considered the former American President, his eyes bulged a little wider and his blood pressure rose a bit higher. “They are not Arab brothers; they are American lackeys,” he spat.

Colonel Duri nodded and mentally added the names to the target list. He had no paper or anything to write with. He was painfully aware that at least two rifles were pointed at the center of his back—one of the prices for serving the Great Leader.

The other person standing next to Duri was nicknamed Doctor Germ by Western weapons experts. Doctor Rihab Rashida al-Awazi was a rather plain woman at age forty-two. It was hard to reconcile this new mother of a baby girl with being Saddam’s chief chemical and biological weapons architect. Her black hair pulled back in a loose bun, she stood with hands folded before her. The printed dress hung loosely over her shoulders. She simply did not look like someone who had designed a weapon system capable of killing cities.

“The warheads, Doctor. They will work with this wonder weapon from our Chinese friends?”

She nodded quietly. It was her wonder weapon; the Chinese simply provided the manufacturing facilities. She kept her peace. It was best not to anger the Great Leader.

“We are expecting to receive five casks. They each hold maybe twenty liters of VX-Beta.”

“And how much per warhead?” Saddam asked, looking back to the target list.

“One liter per warhead. That should have a dispersal radius of five kilometers.”

Saddam pulled at his mustache. “The effects?”

She lifted her head proudly, for VX-Beta was primarily her invention. Western analysts called VX-Beta the City Killer. Iraq had to mass-produce the chemical in China. Iraq simply did not have the capacity to produce the required amounts without the Americans discovering something. “There is no antidote. There is no degradation in effects. Wherever you aim the missile, they will die. VX-Beta will continue to kill indefinitely. The tests in China indicate they continue to have lethal effects in areas exposed to weather for the past several years. It is no longer simply a persistent chemical agent, it is a permanent chemical agent,” Rashida al-Awazi concluded triumphantly.

“You are certain?” Saddam asked, his eyes dead cold.

Without blinking, Rashida al-Awazi replied boldly, “Yes.”

Prologue - Page 1

2005-07-24T10:32:00.000-05:00

PROLOGUE

Presidential Palace Near Baghdad
Saddam Hussein perused the two pages in his hands. He sat in a high-backed chair at a priceless, antique French desk. The desk and chair were on an elevated platform with gold-laced tapestries hanging behind the Great Leader. The carpeting was a royal red; pillared golden candle stands marked the borders of the room. The trademark black .45 ACP pistols lay casually on the top of the French desk. The muzzles pointed carelessly towards the entry door.

A dour man with thick black hair and hands scarred from his former street fighting days, Hussein now had others to kill for him. It was rumored he still used his guns to murder those who displeased him. His flat black eyes showed no joy or compassion, and the trademark mustache hung heavily over his upper lip. Today he was dressed in khaki fatigues that he found more comfortable than a Western Style suit coat and tie.

Members of his personal bodyguard stood inside and outside the doorway. Each held a machine pistol, and submitted anyone entering the room to a full body search after they had passed through an airport style metal detector. A trained, bomb-sniffing dog waited outside the doorway under the watchful gaze of its handler. Saddam Hussein protected himself not only from the masses—most of whom were too poor and frightened to attempt anything so bold as assassination—but also from the colonels in his own armed forces.

Generals could be watched easily. They had achieved their rank, and as long as the graft was not terribly expensive, generals understood their place. It was the anxious colonels who always seemed to be plotting grander schemes and greater glory. Saddam went through a lot of colonels.

He looked up to the two people standing twenty paces from his desk. He nodded as he went down the target list: Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Kuwait City, Tehran, Tabriz, Qom, Al-Jawf, Riyadh, and Ankara.

Introduction - Point of Honor

2005-07-23T08:32:00.000-05:00

POINT OF HONOR takes place in November 1997. Saddam was still killing people. Clinton was president, and no one had yet flown jet liners into our tallest buildings. The outbreak of Clinton's Oval Office hijinx was just around the corner.

In my mind, the War on Terror has been waging for almost two decades, starting on November 4, 1979 when Iranian students overran our embassy. Whacking the bad guys then, might have saved us a lot of grief down the line--but that's another story.

I wrote POH in secret, telling no one until I had most of the manuscript finished. I found an agent who liked my work, but never managed to get it published. POH went through a couple of ups and downs and settled in the small press.

There is a great deal more to be said. It remains in print and available. So should you tire of 1 page per day, you can buy it or give it as a gift.

My job is to entertain you. Let me know if I succeed.