OUTCAST Ops: African Firestorm

CHAPTER ONE

The Gulfstream G650 had once been the personal toy of a Mexican drug cartel leader, who had used it to jet around the world for both business and pleasure. That man was now in a Federal prison, the result of a DEA sting, and a friend inside the DEA had tipped off Tanner Wilson that the plane was being sold at auction. Wilson, with the help of a few friends, managed to buy the Gulfstream, giving his team a way to get places without having to rely on the airlines and the security problems that went along with them.

The plane was six hundred miles southwest of Puerto Rico, thirty-seven thousand feet over the Atlantic Ocean. Wilson took one last look at the controls before turning to look at Andy DeCasta in the co-pilot seat. An old friend of Tanner's, DeCasta was a retired FBI agent, twenty years older than Wilson and an excellent pilot. He'd been the one who had helped Wilson inspect the Gulfstream when it'd come up for auction, and had been teaching him the ins and outs of flying the business jet. He was short and lean, with a windswept face and merry blue eyes. He grinned back at Wilson.

"I have to go brief my team," Tanner said.

"Fine by me. When you come back up, bring me a coffee, black, two sugars."

Wilson got up and slapped DeCasta in the shoulder. "You got it."

He left the cockpit, walking back through the forward gallery, and into main cabin. His team was scattered around the cabin. He stood there and watched them for a few seconds.

Stephen Shah and Dante Alvarez played cards at a table in the back of the cabin. Stephen, who sat facing Tanner, was of medium height and wouldn't look out of place in any Middle Eastern county. He'd been a CIA agent until he'd bought a discrimination lawsuit against the agency. Fluent in several Middle Eastern languages, including various Arabic dialects, he was also quite knowledgeable about local customs. He saw Tanner and motioned to Alvarez to turn around.

Dante did so, revealing a long, thin face with a slight Simian cast to it. With deep brown eyes and dark hair, the former Secret Service agent gave a nod to Wilson, then dropped his card hand on the table and turned the chair around to face Tanner, revealing a tall, lean frame.

In front of Alvarez and Shah, Naomi "Nay" Washington was laid out on the cabin's only couch, a hardcover book resting on her stomach as she read. She was a beautiful African-American with long legs and an hourglass figure. She lowered her book and gave Tanner an expectant stare. Behind those luminous eyes was thirteen years’ experience in arson and explosive investigations for the ATF, before a whistle-blower's scandal led to her being forced from the agency.

To Tanner's right, a frumpy-looking woman with a short, conservative haircut and Lennon-like glasses sat at a table, tapping away on a laptop. She looked more like a college professor than a former NSA analyst. Danielle Sunderland's expertise in computers and hacking had proved valuable to the team in the past. Her eyes flicked up to meet Wilson’s, then went back to the laptop. She tapped a few keys before looking up at Wilson again. "Ready.”

"About time," the last member of the OUTCAST team said. Sprawled in a chair to Wilson's right, Liam Reilly stretched and looked up at the team leader. "Now can you tell us where we're going and what we're going to do where we get there?" He wasn't quite as tall as Alvarez, but was more muscular.

Tanner smiled. He was tall, fit, with rugged good looks and an easy demeanor when not on a mission. The most striking thing about him was his eyes. A condition called heterochromia, Tanner had one eye so pale blue it nearly matched the white of its surrounding cornea, while his other eye had an iris so black that it appeared not to have a pupil. Despite their mismatched look, they functioned as well as anyone else's eyes. A high-ranking martial artist had once called Tanner's eyes a reflection of Ying and Yang, opposite halves making a whole.

The team known as OUTCAST — Operational Undertaking To Counteract Active Stateside Threats — was made up of good people who had been rejected by the agencies they'd served well. Each one had been fired for one reason or another. In Alvarez's case it had been a prostitution scandal. Danielle had used NSA resources to try and find her son, taken by her ex-husband, while Liam had written an operator eye-view of the Bin Laden raid, which he had been a part of. In Tanner's case, it had been trumped-up sexual harassment charges that had forced him out of the FBI's counter-terrorism section. Now, they were taking the fight to America's enemies on their own terms.

"Casey's dropped a hot one on us."

That got everyone's attention. John Casey, former FBI director, now a "Special Projects" director, answerable to only the President and handling covert operations and operatives, was Tanner's primary contact within the U.S. government.

Tanner looked at Danielle. "Put the first image up on the screen."

Danielle entered a command on the laptop and across the cabin from Nay, the 26" widescreen HD LCD monitor came to life. A large ship with a green hull and white superstructure was displayed in three quarters profile. Cargo containers were stacked on her decks.

"This," Tanner said, motioning to the monitor, "is the Northstar Venture, a container ship belonging to the SeaStar Ventures Shipping Company, based in Capetown, South Africa. Eighteen hours ago, it disappeared five hundred miles off the Somali Coast."

Naomi sat up, swinging her long legs so her feet were on the floor. "Pirates?"

"I thought the Somali pirate situation was under control," Dante said.

"For the most part, it is," Liam said, folding his arms. "But there are a few bands who still try their luck."

"Any ransom demands?" Stephen asked.

"Not as of yet," Tanner replied. "SeaStar hasn't told anyone about the hijacking and they’re trying to quietly get the ship back as quickly as they can. But pirates isn't the reason Casey wants us on this. It’s what's on the Northstar Venture."

"Which is?" Liam prompted.

"Intelligence has been tracking a cargo container from North Korea, through China to Singapore, all the way down to Capetown, where the intel indicates the contents were repacked into another container they haven't been able to ID yet. What they are certain of is the cargo was placed on the Northstar Venture. The Northstar's next stop was supposed to be the port of Doha, Qatar, where the intelligence suggests it would be transported across the gulf to Iran."

"The spooks think the North Koreans are shipping missile technology to Iran." This from Shah.

Tanner nodded. "The North Koreans have tried smuggling missiles through the Panama Canal before, but they got caught. They need the cash, and the Iranians have that in spades. Those two have been trading partners with each other for years, even with the UN embargoes against each of them."

"But something has both the North Koreans and the Iranians in a panic," Danielle interjected. "NSA intercepts between the two countries have been intense in the last twelve hours."

"More than missiles then," Dante said.

"That's the best thinking at the moment," Tanner agreed. "It's possible that the cargo is nuclear material."

"Shit," Stephen breathed.

"Yeah," Tanner said. "That's why we're going in low, and under the radar. Our objective is to locate the ship, board it, and determine the cargo container's contents. If it is in fact weaponized nuclear material, we call in the Navy."

"So where are we going?" Naomi asked.

"Capetown first, where SeaStar Ventures has their headquarters and main warehouses. Myself, Nay and Dante will be going to the shipping offices to talk to the President and CEO, Horst Aswegen. Danielle, please post Aswegen's picture on the screen."

The picture of the ship was replaced the in image of a blond-hair Afrikaner with a craggy face and pale gray eyes.

"Intel has Aswegen pegged as a major conduit of illegal cargo to Iran, so he has to know what's onboard the Northstar. But he's slick and has avoided all attempts to pin anything on him."

"Won’t this be splashed all over the news?" Dante wanted to know.

Tanner shook his head. "SeaStar is playing this close — only a dozen people inside the company know about the hijacking, and maybe another dozen or so outside of the company, all in the Iranian, North Korean, and U.S. intel communities."

"So what are Danielle, Stephen and I going to do?" Liam asked.

"You three are going to go down to SeaStar's main warehouse, access their computer systems and download the company's shipping records. There are over a thousand containers on the Northstar, and we need to narrow down that list before we board the ship."

"Why not do it remotely?" Naomi asked.

"Internal network only," Danielle replied. "Basically a local network not connected to the web. It can only be accessed it from the SeaStar offices or warehouse."

"Aswegen hasn't stayed out of prison by being complacent," Tanner said. "I doubt there's more than a half-dozen people inside the company involved with the smuggling."

He glanced at his watch. "Time to go to work. Danielle, see if you can scrounge up some floor plans for both the SeaStar offices and warehouse. We'll be in Capetown in ten hours.”