Omega Sanction

Chapter Twenty-six

Dublowski didn't wince as the medic sewed up his scalp. He looked up as the door to the infirmary opened and Colonel Giles walked in, accompanied by the Delta Force commander, Colonel Patten.

"What the hell is going on?" was Giles's way of greeting Dublowski. The sergeant major had returned to the Ranch after talking his way out of being held by the Special Forces patrol at Camp Rowe. Upon arriving at the Ranch, he'd gone to the infirmary to get his head looked at.

"Sir." Dublowski started to nod at the retired colonel and only succeeded in ripping the last stitch out. The medic cursed at him and slapped him on the back of the head in the best tradition of Special Forces medicine, and replaced the stitch.

"Colonel Giles has filled me in on what he knows," Colonel Patten said. "Which isn't too damn much. Who the hell shot at you out at Mackall?"

Dublowski almost shook his head and caught himself at the last moment. "Don't know, sir. Whoever it was, was good. Patient. I think that it was the same person who killed Warrant Officer Takamura."

Colonel Patten sat down. He was a tall, thin man, similar in build to Giles. He'd earned his combat infantry badge as a young lieutenant in Vietnam in 1973 and had served in Special Operations units for over twenty-five years. He'd been a seasoned captain in Delta at the Desert One fiasco and a Special Forces group commander during Desert Storm.

Patten was well respected by the men who served under him not only because of his background but also because he had made it very clear when taking over Delta that this was his last assignment in the army. He had no desire to go anywhere else or be promoted, and because of that, his focus was men and mission and not career, a rather unusual find in the modern army.

"I don't understand what's going on," Patten said.

"I don't either, sir," Dublowski said. "But I expect to hear from both Major Thorpe and Colonel Parker soon, and hopefully they'll have more information."

Giles turned to Patten. "I'm going to go to D.C. and give Parker a hand. If she's trying to deal with Langley, she may be in over her head."

Patten nodded. "Keep in touch."

Thorpe looked around the emergency rally point and the faces he saw reflected the failure he felt.

"They knew we were there," Aaron said. He was the leader of the first two vans and the assault team that had been brought in from Israeli for this mission. With the death of Mikael, Aaron was in charge of the survivors. Four of the eight men had been killed, their bodies stacked in the only surviving van.

"We destroyed two of the Land Rovers," one of the commandos noted.

"And one got away," Aaron shot back. "With two briefcases of VZ and our primary human targets, Akil and Jawhar." He looked at Thorpe. "They got away past you."

Thorpe said nothing, knowing there was nothing he could say. It was true. Akil and Jawhar had driven past him, and Mikael had died right next to Thorpe. He knew, in the Israeli’s eyes, he should have died before allowing the last Land Rover to escape. And in his own eyes, with time to reflect, he realized he would feel the same way.

"What now?" one of the men asked.

Aaron spit. "The scum are in Romania, probably already on board their aircraft. They are beyond our reach." He glanced at Thorpe, then away. "Akil and Jawhar and the VZ are someone else's problem now. Our exfiltration helicopter will be here in twenty minutes. Get the bodies ready and rig the van for destruction. We're going home."

It was only seven in the morning, but Parker had already made a half dozen phone calls from a secure line in a friend's office in the Pentagon. She'd also received a call from Thorpe on his secure SATPhone that had made her mission all the more imperative.

She'd left the Pentagon via the freight entrance, walked several blocks away along the Potomac and then hailed a cab to get to her present location.

Right now she was close to CIA headquarters at a strip mall, outside a local coffee shop. A blue, late-model BMW with tinted windows pulled up to the coffee shop. A tall woman got out and quickly walked inside.

Parker crossed the lot. She stood next to the driver's door of the BMW. The door to the shop opened and Kim Gereg walked out, a cup of coffee in her hand. It had taken four of those calls for Parker to find out about this habit of the chief of Operations.

Gereg saw Parker but didn't break her stride. "Excuse me," the C/O said as she unlocked her doors with a remote entry.

"Ma'am." Parker held out her military ID.

Gereg halted. She looked at the ID and then at Parker. "What can I do for you, Colonel Parker?"

"We need to talk."

"Reference?"

"Two suitcases of VZ that just left the Ukraine in the hands of two terrorists."

Gereg stared at Parker for a few seconds, then peeled back the lid of her coffee. She nodded toward the car. "Get in. You've got my attention."

Hancock walked in the door and headed directly for a black leather chair in the rear of the operations center for his CDA section. The center was shaped like a smaller version of NASA's launch center, with rows of people with computer consoles arrayed below Hancock, all facing a large screen that took up most of the front wall.

"Are we tracking?" Hancock asked as he settled into the chair.

His operations officer, Dilken, sat directly below Hancock. He wore a headset through which all reports were sent and had four computer screens arrayed around his seat.

"Yes, sir. An hour ago we had a flight take off out of Radanti whose configuration matches Jawhar's plane. Heading is southwest toward Budapest. Touchdown is estimated in five minutes. We think they'll switch over to Jawhar's helicopter, which is currently hangared there, to continue on to Bosnia to make the delivery of the VZ to the Serb patrol. Satellite imagery confirms the Serb patrol is closing on the meet point."

"Our team?" Hancock asked.

"Ready to go wheels up at Sarajevo. They need authorization to go soon if they're going to be able to interdict the meet."

"Tell them to go," Hancock said. He leaned back in the leather, enjoying the unique pleasure of watching a complex plan pull together.

Dilken relayed the order, then left his desk and approached Hancock.

"What?" Hancock's good feeling was gone. He knew the look on his assistant's face and he also knew that Dilken was the only one clued in to the entire situation.

"Dublowski is still alive. He's holed up in the Ranch."

Hancock considered that. "A problem, but not a fatal one. That loose end can be cleared up later." He leaned forward. "And Thorpe?" They had taken satellite surveillance of the ambush site in the Ukraine. Given that Hancock had had Akil tipped off about the probability of a Mossad ambush through a cut-out, they had been surprised that the two Saudis had barely made it out alive.

"The Mossad team was pulled just after dawn local time. Thorpe made a call on his secure SATPhone prior to that to Colonel Parker."

"Shit!" Hancock exclaimed, a sign of extreme agitation. "Where is he now?"

"He's heading back to Israel with the Israeli team."

"And Parker?"

"She went into the Pentagon this morning as usual. Surveillance hasn't seen her leave. No calls on her phone."

"She's not just sitting there doing nothing," Hancock said.

"Maybe she's waiting for Thorpe," Dilken said. "We…" he paused and put a hand on the side of his headset. "Satellite has picked up Jawhar's chopper heading southeast."

"Get our team wheels up," Hancock ordered. "We take care of this, the rest will fall into place."

"VZ?" Colonel Patten looked older than his years.

"Yes, sir." Dublowski had just gotten off the SATPhone with Parker.

"Destination?" Patten asked.

"Romania, as an intermediate stage, then God knows where," Dublowski said.

"And the CIA is on top of this?" Patten asked, his voice indicating what he thought of that.

"Colonel Parker is with the chief of Operations as we speak," Dublowski said. "But, sir—" Dublowski began, but Patten raised a hand.

"I know what you're going to say." Patten gave a weary smile. "Fucking Clowns In Action are more likely to screw things up than solve anything, but this is their province, not ours. However," he continued, forestalling another outburst from Dublowski, "it doesn't hurt to be prepared. I've got a forward-deployed reaction team in Israel. I'm putting them on alert. I'll also get some air support — Combat Talon, Blackhawk, Apaches — our usual air package — lined up just in case."

Dublowski's scalp was sewn. He stood up. "Sir, request permission to—"

"No!" Patten cut the sergeant major off. "You've gotten in enough hot water as is. Besides, by the time you got over there, anything that's going to have happened will have happened. You stay here and stay out of trouble. If you're capable of that."

Thorpe placed his pistol on the worn wooden tabletop. "They knew they were going to get ambushed."

"Put that away," Major Rotzinger growled.

They were seated in a windowless room somewhere on the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Thorpe had no idea exactly where he was, as they'd been hustled off the helicopter the moment they landed into the back of a truck that had no windows, and driven to this spot.

He'd been surprised to see Rotzinger waiting inside the room; not so surprised to see Esdras seated in the corner. A man who had introduced himself as Yaron was seated at the end of the table, Aaron, the senior surviving member of the ambush team, to his right. Yaron was an old man, with a wrinkled, bald head covered with spots, and the tiredest-looking eyes Thorpe had ever seen. He'd pursed his lips at Thorpe's statement and appeared to be deep in thought.

Esdras was the only one who hadn't reacted to the weapon or Thorpe's announcement. He was seated across from Thorpe, regarding him quietly with his dark eyes.

"I've got no more time for people bullshitting me," Thorpe said. "We—we," Thorpe emphasized, staring first at Rotzinger, then Esdras, "have a common problem. In the form of two briefcases full of VZ nerve agent in the hands of a couple of guys who I think you know more about than you've told me."

"You were looking for a young girl last time I saw you," Rotzinger said. "Now you come to us with this crazy story?"

"Karl." Esdras turned to look at the German. "We lost four men last night trying to stop the shipment. We got two-thirds of it, but we needed to do a one-hundred-percent interdiction."

"The two brothers are being tracked," Rotzinger said. "They — and the VZ — will be contained and sterilized."

"How the hell do you know that?" Thorpe demanded.

Rotzinger's bushy eyebrows contracted. "You came to my country asking questions. You sit here with a gun on the table threatening me? And you want information? You want help? You are a fool."

Thorpe met his gaze squarely. "You never took down the arms brokers that Jawhar and Akil met, did you?"

Rotzinger's eyes shifted to Esdras for the briefest of moments, then back to Thorpe.

"They were intermediaries," Rotzinger said. "Representing some Russian military officers. Taking them out would only have slowed things down, not stopped them. This way everything is wrapped up tight — people, weapons, both ends. A great coup."

"Which way are you talking about?" Thorpe demanded. "Who's going to stop Jawhar and Akil now?"

Rotzinger turned to Yaron, who finally spoke. "Your own people are taking care of things now."

"What people?" Thorpe demanded.

"The CIA is on top of this," Yaron said quietly.

"The CIA?" Thorpe repeated.

A quick smile flittered across Yaron's face and was quickly gone. "You do not trust your own government?"

"No, I don't," Thorpe said.

"Interesting," Yaron said. He pointed a finger at Aaron. "Were you set up?"

Aaron nodded. "Yes, sir. I think the brothers knew someone would be attacking them."

Yaron steepled his fingers and tapped his thumbs together for a few seconds. "Then there must be either a leak or a traitor working somewhere. Sounds like a double-cross. Perhaps even a triple. Who knows these days?" He stood. "I would ask you gentlemen to remain here for a short period of time while we see what develops."

Rotzinger stood also. "I came here as a courtesy from my government to yours. I don't have—"

"Sit down." Yaron's voice was like a whip, causing Rotzinger to step back. "You have not been honest with us. I am wondering what other lies and deceptions play a role in this. I assure you I will find out, and when I do, there will be a reckoning."

Parker and Gereg were in the latter's office. It had taken Parker only ten minutes to get the Chief of Operations up to speed before they were heading to Langley and directly to Gereg's office. Along the way, Parker had called Dublowski, updated him on what Thorpe had told her, and then continued talking to Gereg, telling her all she had learned from Thorpe, along with the information about the missing girls.

"I don't understand how the girls are connected to this," Gereg said as she sat down at her desk. She pushed a button and a panel slid back, revealing photos on a large screen recessed into the wall.

"Through these two Saudis — Jawhar and Akil."

Gereg shook her head. "I know that, but Dublowski's daughter getting grabbed? Seems to be too much of a coincidence." She reached into a drawer and pulled out a file folder and threw it on the desk. "That's what I've been able to gather on the two brothers. They've been kidnapping girls for a while. Some they kill, some they take back home."

"You've known—"

Gereg held up her hand, cutting Parker off. "No, I haven't known diddly about this. I just got this report from the Israelis. A comrade of mine in Tel Aviv is very concerned about Saudi terrorists having two briefcases of VZ nerve gas."

Parker opened the folder. Her eyes widened. "Who's this?" She held up a photo.

"Their mother."

Parker pulled a printout from her briefcase. "Look at these girls. They're the ones we know are missing in Germany."

Gereg glanced over. "They look like a younger version of the mother. Petite and blond." She tapped the rest of the file. "According to this, the boys hated their mother and their father. Maybe they're taking out their hatred against Mom on these girls."

"Maybe," Parker agreed, but something about that didn't sit quite right with her. She looked at the photo once more. "Except for Terri Dublowski," Parker noted. "She doesn't look like the others."

Gereg nodded. "That's interesting, isn't it? Almost like someone wanted Dublowski involved — and through him, you and Thorpe. And through you," she added with a twist of her mouth, "me." She typed into her computer. "Let me check on something." A couple of seconds later, she had her answer. "The request to put Thorpe back on active duty went through the office of the reserves in the Pentagon, but it originated here. Someone here wanted Thorpe on active duty."

"Hill is no longer national security adviser," Parker said. "He would—"

"There's someone who was Lane's protégé." Gereg was still typing on her keyboard.

"Who?"

"That's who." Gereg pointed at the screen. "That's an intercept from the Direct Action operations center. We spend more time, resources and energy spying on each other here than on foreign countries. The CDA, Chief of Direct Action, is a man named Hancock. His brother was one of the CIA men killed in Lebanon by Thorpe and McKenzie. I have no doubt that Hancock blames me for the SO/NEST team being on that beach, even though he never informed me of the operation. And he definitely blames Thorpe for his brother's death."

"Hancock was in line to be the director until Operation Delilah, which he was running for Hill, blew up in his face. He's a very dangerous man."

There was action on the screen that diverted Parker's attention as she tried to assimilate everything Gereg had just told her. "What are they doing?"

"Hancock has a Direct Action Team — DAT — on call in Sarajevo. He made a point of asking the director a couple of days ago to do just that."

"Then he knew something was going to happen?" Parker asked.

Gereg laughed without any humor, a low rumble from deep in her throat. "Knew something? He doesn't just know things, he sets things up. Cut through everything that's going on, and somewhere back there, you'll find the long reach of Mr. Hancock and behind that, Mr. Hill. Our old friend is still out there pulling strings."

"Can the Direct Action Team stop the VZ?"

"I hope that's what Hancock has planned. Even Hancock wouldn't go so far as to let nerve gas get loose." She paused. "At least I don't think he would."

"What can we do?"

"For now? Just watch. This hand has already been dealt."