Текст книги "Gideon's War / Hard Target"

Автор книги: Howard Gordon

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Gideon's War and Hard Target

“Fine.” Gideon slid the remote across the floor then backed...

Chadeev smiled broadly and changed the channel to Dallas. Chadeev set the gun down on the floor, then squatted in the middle of the room full of bodies, a placid grin on his face, and began to drink another beer.

Gideon walked out into the ruined camp, reeling from what he’d just seen and heard, yet still unable to completely shake the hope that there had to be some other explanation, some missing piece of information. Whatever that might be, he knew there was only one place he would find it. On the Obelisk.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

GIDEON SCOURED THE SMOLDERING village until he found a military-grade shortwave radio in what had until recently been a communications room. The casing was scorched and cracked, but when he turned the switch, it crackled to life. He thought briefly about General Prang, who was supposed to have given him a radio but had only managed to give him a map before he’d been killed. Written in grease pencil on the reverse of the map was the emergency frequency Gideon was supposed to hail if he needed to order an emergency evacuation.

Gideon dialed the frequency on the radio, then spoke into the microphone.

“This is Gideon Davis. Can you read me?” he said.

“Clear this frequency,” a man’s voice said, followed by a long silence. Finally the voice came back. “Please give us the confirmation code.”

Gideon squinted at the code Prang had scrawled on the back of the map. “Circuit Alpha Nine Zero One Zero Seven. I repeat. Circuit Alpha Nine Zero One Zero Seven.”

Another pause. “Confirmed,” the voice said.

A second voice came on. “Mr. Davis. We thought you might be dead.”

“Who am I speaking to?”

“I’m with the home team.”

“Tell me what’s happening on the rig.”

“We’ll brief you in person. Please give us your location.”

“Dammit, just give me the sitrep—”

“Your location, sir,” the voice insisted.

“I’m in Kampung Naga.”

“Are you injured? Do you require medical attention?”

Gideon realized he’d have to wait for any answers about the status of the rig. “I’m fine.”

“Are you under fire?”

“No.”

“Are you aware of any hostiles in the vicinity?”

Gideon’s mind went to Chadeev. “Negative.”

“Please stand by, sir. We’ll have a chopper to you in one hour, sir.”

The voice was replaced by white noise. Gideon listened to the static as he released a deep breath he’d been holding in his chest. The moment he sat down, he felt himself being swallowed by fatigue. Adrenaline had been masking the physical toll the last twenty hours had taken on his body, but even more draining for Gideon was his increasing disorientation. Rather than finding answers, he’d only gathered more questions.

The chopper hit the ground fifty-six minutes later. It didn’t bear military markings, but Gideon recognized it as a military model. A tall black man wearing a tropical suit stood in the doorway, an MP5 submachine gun in his hand. He beckoned furiously with his hand for Gideon to come toward him, but Gideon needed no prompting.

“We were afraid we’d lost you, sir,” the man with the MP5 shouted over the whine of the twin turbojet engines. “I’m Gary Simpson, cultural attaché from the embassy.” Cultural attaché being an obvious CIA cover.

They shook hands, but before they exchanged any more pleasantries, Gideon wanted some answers. “Who hit this place?”

Gary Simpson frowned, but didn’t answer.

Gideon pointed his finger at the CIA man. “And don’t give me any shit about how you don’t know.”

Simpson relaxed his defiant posture. “It was the Mohanese air force.”

“Did this happen after my brother made his deal with the Sultan?”

“No, sir. Before. Your brother contacted us after the air strike. We thought it was the thing that finally turned him around. Apparently we were wrong.”

Gideon studied the man, measuring his sincerity. Satisfied that the man was telling the truth, he said, “Tell me what’s happening on the rig.”

Simpson hesitated. “How much do you know?”

“Just what I saw on CNN. That my brother seized the rig and now he’s threatening to kill hostages. What’s the time frame?”

“Eighteen hours, twenty-five minutes.”

“What’s the President doing about it?”

“He’s deployed Deltas from Hawaii to take back the rig, but they may not be able to get in under the weather.”

“What weather?”

Simpson told Gideon about the typhoon, which had changed course and was limiting the possibility of an aerial assault.

“The president must be doing something.”

Gideon's War and Hard Target

Simpson nodded. “He’s ordered a SEAL team to take back the...

Gideon climbed into the chopper, which rose into the air over the ruined village of Kampung Naga. Through one of the roofless buildings, Gideon could see Chadeev sitting cross-legged on the ground, still watching Dallas, surrounded by a litter of beer bottles.

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE TROUBLE STARTED BEFORE the boat had even launched.

On paper the boat that the Sultan had loaned to Captain Taylor’s SEAL platoon was an ideal fit for the mission. At 41 feet it was large enough to accommodate the platoon and powerful enough to fight through the massive seas—driven by a pair of intercooled, supercharged MerCruiser V-8s that put out over 750 horsepower apiece.

The problem was that it was a poser—a rich guy’s pleasure craft masquerading as a high performance boat. The decks and superstructure were heavy teak. Every cleat and hitch and light fixture was fashioned from brass. To make matters worse, the innards were protectively shielded by 3/8-inch hardened steel plate. It was made for going fast in a straight line, but its weight made the craft ponderous to handle and more than a little top heavy.

As long as they were blasting straight into a wave, they were fine. They powered up the face of one wave, throttled back at the top, surfed down the face of the next wave, and submarined into the next wave. Each trough brought a momentary heart-stopping thud as the wave broke over the bow and engulfed the craft, which shuddered before bursting up from the water like a breaching submarine.

The Obelisk was due northeast from their launching point, but the waves were rolling in from the east. For a while Taylor was able to head directly into the waves. Once he adjusted to a true north course, though, the waves began hitting the hull broadside. And that’s where the weakness of the Sultan’s boat began to show.

Every time the craft crested a wave, it heeled over to port, then rolled rapidly starboard as the wave passed underneath. The momentum of the wave and the weight of the armored hull made the boat just want to keep rolling.

Taylor stood in the wheelhouse at the shoulder of Petty Officer Derrick Winters, who concentrated as he silently piloted the craft. He faced a computerized helm rivaling the cockpit of a jet aircraft. Manifold pressure, oil pressure, boost, coolant temperature, bearing, depth, wind speed and direction, radar, sonar. But the one digital readout that kept drawing the captain’s attention was the pitch indicator, which showed how much the craft was rolling.

They crested a wave and the boat rolled to starboard. Eleven degrees. Twelve degrees. Fifteen. Sixteen. Finally the boat settled and began to roll back.

“Can she handle it?” Taylor asked.

“Yes, sir.”

But Taylor heard the uncertainty in Winters’s voice. “As much as I appreciate your optimism, I’d rather have your honesty.”

Winters didn’t answer right away. “We’ll find out soon enough, sir.”

A tle D‡voice suddenly interrupted. “She’s taking on water, sir.”

An inch or two of water had been sloshing from one side of the wheel-house to the other for at least ten minutes.

The boat’s wheelhouse was enclosed, but water was getting in from somewhere. “Mr. Kennedy, find a pump,” Taylor called back.

“Gaylord’s on it already, sir,” Kennedy shouted. “There’s only one, and he’s got it going full blast.”

“Very well,” Taylor said.

The water was washing over his boots now. He didn’t have to tell the men what they knew already: the more water they took on, the worse they’d roll. Enough water, or a big enough wave, and they would capsize.

“What’s our ETA to the rig?” Taylor said.

“Five minutes,” Winters said. “Seven tops.”

Taylor nodded.

They crested the next wave. The boat rolled again. Nine degrees. Twelve. Fifteen. Eighteen. Something fell over and crashed behind Taylor. The boat was still rolling. Nineteen degrees.

“Come on, baby. Come on.” Winters was riding the throttle and carving to starboard, making micro adjustments to keep the boat from rolling any farther.

Finally the boat began to settle. Taylor exhaled, but his relief was short-lived.

“Oh, Jesus!” someone said.

Taylor didn’t see it at first. In the dim light it was hard to make out exactly what was going on outside the craft. But then he saw what his men were pointing at. A gathering blackness was swelling, rising up before them. Suddenly, Taylor felt himself falling, as if he were on an elevator that had its cables cut. The boat let out a horrible, rending groan.

And then it was upon them.

The news that Gideon Davis was alive had boosted the president’s mood, but it didn’t diminish the helplessness or the anxiety he felt as he sat in the Situation Room, monitoring the SEAL operation. Because the cloud cover was so thick, the satellite could only send thermal images onto the wall-mounted monitor. The Sultan’s boat appeared as an orange triangle as it sliced through the blue-black space of the sea toward the Obelisk. Periodically a wave would crash over the boat and much of the orange triangle would disappear for a while. But it always came back.

“How close are they?” President Diggs said softly.

“Four kilometers.” The man from the National Reconnaissance Office didn’t glance up from his screen. His fingers flew as he kept the satellite tracking the fast-moving boat.

The president realized he’d been sitting there with his fist clenched in front of his mouth for five or ten minutes. It wasn’t a very presidential posture, he thought. His hand was getting sore, he’d been squeezing so hard. He looked at his hand, flexing his fingers a couple of times. When he looked back up at the monitor, there was nothing on the screen but a field of blue. The NRO man kept stabbing at his keyboard.

“BrinackÑ€†g them back,” the president said. “Where are they?”

The NRO man shook his head like a boxer shaking off a hard right hook.

“Find them!” General Ferry echoed the president. “Find my boat!”

The NRO man shook his head a second time.

“Don’t shake your head at me, young man!” General Ferry shouted. “Find my boat.”

The NRO man didn’t look up from the screen. “I can’t, sir.”

“Why not?” President Diggs said.

“Because it’s gone, sir,” a voice said from the back of the room. It was an admiral Diggs didn’t recognize, although he was clearly the oldest man in the room. His was the creased and rugged face of a man who’d spent most of his life at sea, and now it wore a somber expression.

President Diggs stared at the admiral for a moment. “I’m sorry, Admiral, what did you say?”

“They’re gone, Mr. President,” the admiral said. “Captain Taylor knew the specs on that boat were far from ideal in this weather, but he and his men believed it was worth the risk. Waves were just too high for that boat.”

Diggs looked over at Elliot Hammershaw. The chief of staff’s face had gone white. Neither of them needed to say anything because they both understood the math. The terrorists’ deadline was in fewer than twelve hours, and the storm wouldn’t pass for seventy-two hours. Their last chance to take back the rig depended on the Delta team threading the eye of needle.

Gideon glanced at Simpson every time he heard the sound. They were flying so low that the limbs of the tallest trees occasionally whacked against the undercarriage of the helicopter. Suddenly, the chopper pitched forward and went into a dive. Gideon’s stomach went up into his throat.

“Don’t worry, sir,” Simpson called. “We just hit the fall line.”

And out the window Gideon could see it. They were thundering down the face of the cliff, the entire airframe pitched over at what felt like an aerodynamically impossible angle. Just when Gideon was sure they would slam into the ground, the chopper steadied, pulled its nose up, and began barreling cross-country again.

Below them was an entirely new terrain, the thick rolling jungle uplands replaced by flat rice paddies and small villages.

Gideon waited for his equilibrium to return before he spoke again. “Simpson, you need to get me onto that rig.”

“Sir, there’s a jet waiting to fly you home.”

“I’m not going back to Washington.”

“And I’m under orders from Langley. The uplands are a no-fly zone now. We have to get out—”

Before he could finish his sentence the pilot called from the cockpit with a calm but urgent voice. “We’ve got a bird in the air.”

“Flares away!” the copilot said, as the chopper banked into a harp hÑ€†d turn. Through the window, Gideon could see the airport several miles in the distance, the blue sea glinting just beyond it.

The chopper continued its turn, tipping over sideways. The airport disappeared until all Gideon could see was a rice paddy below them. Snaking up through the air with frightening speed was a flaming object trailing white smoke.

Then it was out of view again.

A sudden thud came from the back of the chopper. Gideon felt the impact in his chest.

“We’re hit,” the pilot yelled.

The helicopter began to make a terrible rattling sound, like a pair of bowling balls in an oil drum.

“Brace for impact,” the copilot yelled. “We’re going down!”

The chopper may have been going down, but it wasn’t quite the crash that Gideon had anticipated. Instead the chopper bounced up and down and continued to fly. It was losing airspeed and slowly rotating. But the pilot was obviously extraordinarily skilled: he managed to keep the aircraft limping onward.

“Just get us to the airport!” Simpson shouted. “The Sultan’s got two regiments stationed there.”

The pilot nodded curtly.

The ground below them rotated, like the view from a slow merry-go-round. They were away from the rice paddy now, moving over a commercial district of warehouses and industrial buildings. Each time they rotated so that Gideon could see in the direction they’d come, he could see a jeep full of jihadis driving after them. It had a large Soviet-era machine gun mounted on the back.

When the chopper’s rotation showed the view of their intended destination, Gideon could tell they weren’t going to make it to the airport. The corkscrewing of the copter was forcing them relentlessly northeast. The airport was due north, still a good five miles away.

Now they were facing the jihadis again, who were driving at a breakneck pace through the deserted streets below. They were getting closer.

The airport appeared again, then the sea, then the jihadis again. Now the insurgents were firing the machine gun.

Bullets thudded into the helicopter.

The jihadis disappeared. Airport, ocean, commercial buildings, jihadis. Closer still.

“You gotta go faster!” the CIA man shouted.

“I can’t,” the pilot shouted. “The hydraulics are leaking. We won’t make it much farther!”

And indeed the chopper was spinning faster and faster, causing its forward progress to slow.

The jihadis were still firing.

Gideon saw the gunner reloading a new belt of ammo from a full can. One more rotation of the aircraft and the gunner would tear them to ribbons. He couldn’t have been more than a hundred yards away. All the jihadis on the jeep were blasting away now. The machine gunner worked the feed handle, chambering a round from the new belt.

As the jihadis disappeared from view, Gideon braced himself,v hÑ€† then he felt a huge thud. Gideon’s first thought was that the machine gunner had hit the chopper—the fuel tanks or the fusilage. But the chopper seemed unaffected and was still spinning . . . ocean, airport, industrial buildings.

This time, though, the view of the jihadis had changed. Smoke spewed from the hood of their jeep, which swerved sideways and slammed into a wall.

“The Sultan’s troops!” Simpson shouted, pointing out the window as their view scrolled past an eight-wheeled armored personnel carrier, trailed by SMDF soldiers. Mounted on the top was a heavy gun which continued firing toward the jihadis.

Simpson allowed himself a tight smile reflecting his relief and satisfaction. We’re going to make it, he thought.

And with that, the chopper hit something—a palm tree? A billboard? Gideon was never quite sure, as the chopper nosed over and dropped like a giant brick, fifty feet to the ground.

For a moment there was no sound at all. Gideon sat, stunned. The entire helicopter had smashed nose first into the ground. The cockpit was a twisted mass of metal. Gideon and Simpson were now hanging facedown about ten feet above the wreckage.

Finally he regained enough presence of mind to unstrap himself. Next to him, Simpson was unstrapping, too.

“You all right, Mr. Davis?”

“Fine, fine.”

“We need to get out of here.”

Gideon thought that was a somewhat unnecessary comment. But he kept his thoughts to himself. He grabbed the back of his seat, his feet dangling just above the ruined cockpit. He dropped, landing on the twisted bulkhead. “You guys, okay?” he called toward the cockpit.

There was no answer. He leaned in through what had been the cockpit door and saw that neither the pilot nor the copilot had survived.

Gideon looked at Simpson and shook his head.

“Shit,” Simpson said. Then, apparently thinking he might have offended Gideon, he quickly added, “Sorry, sir.”

“Hey, the same word crossed my mind,” Gideon said drily.

Simpson freed himself from the seat, dropped down next to Gideon. He grimaced as he landed.

“Let’s go,” Gideon said.

“I think I caught one in the leg,” the CIA man said. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“No more apologizing,” Gideon said. “Lean on me and let’s get out of here.”

They struggled out of the cabin and surveyed the wreckage. No longer recognizable as an aircraft, the helicopter was teetering on the edge of a road running alongside a small canal about two hundred feet wide. If it had fallen even a few feet closer to the airport, they would have drowned.

Gideon looked at Simpson, clearly sharing the same thought.

“We need to get to the airport,” Simpson said.

“Yeah. Except it’outÑ€†;s over there,” Gideon said, pointing across the unbroken strip of brown water, which fed out into the bay, and beyond it, the ocean.

“The good news is we didn’t fall into the canal, but the bad news is, we landed on the wrong side.” The armored SMDF vehicle was grinding toward them, from about half a mile away.

“How’s your swimming, sir?”

“Probably better than yours right now,” Gideon said.

“Then you need to get across. If the jihadis send reinforcements, I’ll hold them off till you make it over to the SMDF.” Simpson pulled forward the MP5, which was still strapped around him in a tactical sling.

“We’re both getting over there.”

“No, Mr. Davis, you need to go. Please.”

Gideon pointed toward the bay, which was only a few hundred yards away. “There’s a dock down there. We’ll take a boat across.”

“Our plan was to exfil you and your brother by boat and take you to a naval vessel. The boat’s still on standby.” Simpson pulled out a satellite phone and punched in a number. “I’m calling him so he can meet you there. I’ll follow in a bit.”

“I’m sure you’re familiar with the wall in Langley that has a star for every agent who’s sacrificed his life serving this country—”

“Of course, Mr. Davis, but—”

“News flash, Simpson. Your star is not going up on that wall.”

Simpson looked nervously back to the south.

“Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, before speaking into the phone. “Sandpiper Seven this is Uncle Bob. Our air asset is down, but our primary is uninjured. Hostiles are in pursuit. There’s a quay about three klicks west of KM International. I need our water asset there for immediate exfil. Prepare to exit hard. Out.” He folded the phone and shoved it into his pocket.

Gideon draped Simpson’s arm around his shoulder, supporting him as he hobbled down the deserted highway. Blood had soaked through Simpson’s pants and was leaking onto the road, leaving a trail. Gideon didn’t want to say anything, but if Simpson didn’t get to a hospital within the hour, he was going to bleed out.

They had about fifty yards to go when the jihadis appeared on the highway behind them. Turbaned men armed with AKs were jammed in the back of a white pickup. Some hung over the side.

“Make a break for it, Mr. Davis,” Simpson said.

“Shut up, Simpson,” Gideon said. “I told you, your star’s not going up on that wall. At least not today.”

Simpson was in no shape to argue. The jihadi vehicle was accelerating toward them.

From the far side of the canal, the gun boomed from the turret of the SMDF vehicle. But the pickup truck was going too fast to make an easy target, and the armored vehicle’s shells were landing short of it.heiÑ€†

“Hustle up, Simpson,” Gideon urged. “We’re almost there.”

Simpson was trying, but the bullet that hit his leg had hit bone. With every footfall, he grimaced in agony until Gideon was forced to support nearly all of his weight.

Behind them, the jihadis in the pickup truck began shooting.

“Hang on,” Gideon shouted. He crouched and planted his shoulder in the pit of the CIA man’s stomach, lifting him off the ground.

“My God, Simpson, how much do you weigh?” Gideon said as he staggered toward the boat. He was trying to keep Simpson distracted, afraid if he didn’t then Simpson would get all heroic and try to get off Gideon’s shoulder—making it impossible for either of them to make it to the docks.

Out in the bay Gideon saw a boat tearing toward them.

“That’s our boat!” Simpson grunted.

It was a large, powerful boat—something like a cigarette boat—and it spewed a rooster tail a good twenty feet in the air behind it. The seas looked unusually heavy, and it went airborne occasionally, clearing one wave before slamming into the next.

“Put me down,” Simpson said feebly. “You won’t make it if you—”

“Two forty? Two forty-five?”

“Two fifty-five,” Simpson said.

The speedboat was getting closer now, decelerating as it drew toward the quay. Gideon could make out three figures in the boat, all of them armed. He waved at the boat and it steered toward him, still carrying enough speed that it looked as if it would slam into the dock. At the last moment it nosed around sharply, digging into the water and throwing up a wave that sloshed up onto the deck.

Gideon crossed the final strip of concrete, pounded across the last few feet of wooden decking, and eased Simpson over the gunwale.

The captain of the boat had a cigarette in his mouth and a Sig Sauer on his hip. The other two men stood in the bow, MP5s at the ready.

Behind him, Gideon could hear the thump-thump-thump of the heavy machine gun mounted in the back of the jihadi pickup truck. Gideon vaulted himself over the the gunwale and landed on his feet next to Simpson.

“Get Mr. Davis to the airport,” Simpson shouted to the boat captain.

The captain slammed the dual throttles forward, and the boat tore away from the quay as the CIA men kept up a continuous barrage with the MP5s. Before they had made it more than fifty feet, the white pickup truck accelerated straight toward them. They were close enough that Gideon could see the driver, slumped over the wheel, half his head blown off. The truck blasted off the end of the dock and plummeted into the ocean.

As they crossed the canal, Gideon spoke to the captain of the boat: “Drop Simpson off over there so he can get medical treatment.” He pointed to the armored SMDF vehicle.

“Yes, sir.”

As the powerful boat accelerated forward, GideoncloÑ€† verbalized the plan he had been forming since the chopper went down. “Could this boat make it to the Obelisk in this kind of weather?”

“She’ll take you to the gates of hell, sir,” he said laconically. “But without authorization . . .” The captain trailed off, looking questioningly at Simpson.

“Absolutely not,” Simpson said. “Mr. Davis is going straight to the airport and flying directly back to Washington, D.C.”

“Give me your SAT phone,” Gideon said to Simpson.

“Excuse me?”

“Dial the embassy, then give me your phone.”

Simpson grudgingly complied. Gideon identified himself to the operator at the embassy and asked to be patched through to the president.

Within a minute, he was speaking to Alton Diggs.

“Gideon,” the president said, “I am glad to be talking to you.”

“Thank you, sir. Can you give me an update on the Obelisk?” Gideon said.

“Then you already know about your brother. And about Earl.”

“Yes, sir.” Both men shared their personal concern for Earl Parker’s life, then Gideon repeated what he’d seen on CNN, and what he’d been told by Simpson.

“I’m afraid it’s gotten worse.” The president continued after a tentative silence. “I ordered a SEAL team to take back the rig, but the mission failed. And now we’ve got twelve hours left to meet demands that we can never accommodate. To make matters even more difficult, there’s a typhoon about to hit the rig. Our meteorologists are saying the Obelisk will be socked in for the next fifteen hours.”

Gideon did the math. By the time the typhoon passed, the hostages would be dead.

The president quickly added, “But there may be a brief window for us to act.”

“How?”

“Assuming the eye of the storm passes directly over the rig, we are going to drop a Delta Force team directly onto the deck of the rig. They’re getting ready to take off from Hawaii.”

Gideon took a moment to process the president’s report. If Tillman was on that rig, the Delta Force guys wouldn’t be there to take him prisoner. They’d be there to take him out.

“Mr. President, there may be another option,” Gideon said.

“Another option?” the president said dubiously.

“Let me go out there myself.”

“Go out where? To the rig?”

“Yes, sir. Let me talk to him.”

“Your brother has made it very clear he’s not negotiating.”

“Not to me he hasn’t. Once I’m face-to-face with him, maybe I can talk some sense into him.”

heiÑ€†

“For God’s sake, Gideon, your brother tried to kill you.”

Gideon said nothing, silenced by the stark truth of this. “Besides,” the president continued, “even if I authorize this, you’ll never make it out there. I told you, the rig’s about to get swallowed by a category five typhoon.”

“At least let me try to make it out there. With respect, sir, I think I’ve earned that chance.”

This time it was the president who remained silent. “Whatever’s going on with my brother, there’s something we’re missing, some reason behind what’s happening that we can’t see yet. I haven’t figured out what it is, but I will.”

Still, the president offered no response. So Gideon laid the rest of his argument on the line. “As I understand it, Mr. President, unless we take back that rig, you’re going to be put in an impossible situation by McClatchy and his congressional cronies, and frankly by most of the people who put you in office. You’ll be forced into a war you don’t want to fight. There is zero downside to you letting me try this.”

When the president finally spoke, his voice sounded weary and frayed. “Fine. If your brother is willing to talk to you, you have my blessing.”

Gideon stared out at the sea, above which hung a low and leaden sky. Huge waves were pounding the jetty at the edge of the bay. But there was no rain, and the wind was not too bad. “Thank you, sir.”

“Good luck,” the president said, and disconnected.