Target America

25

A US government hangar at the Las Vegas airport had been turned over to SEAL Team VI/Black for the duration, and all civilian personnel were ordered to stay away. Air Force MPs ringed the perimeter at one hundred meters. The rest of the eleven-man SEAL team was there waiting for the C-5 upon landing and set about at once unloading the kit, which included all weapons and equipment Gil thought it might conceivably need during the search for the RA-115. He had left virtually nothing to chance, as was made evident when a SEAL everyone called Alpha pried the lid from a crate containing two deflated CRRCs. These were Combat Rubber Raiding Craft manufactured by Zodiac Marine & Pool.

Alpha stood looking at them. “Know something we don’t, Master Chief?”

“I’d better,” Gil remarked offhandedly. “Make sure the men know we’ve got stand-to immediately after the cargo is unloaded. I want everything assembled, loaded, and ready to go to war immediately that it’s needed. Understood?”

“Aye, Chief.”

“Once that’s done, I want everything practical loaded back aboard the aircraft and stowed for immediate access.”

“Aye-aye.”

Gil went forward and up the ladder into the cockpit to speak with the pilots.

“You’ll taxi for refuel yon side of the tarmac between a pair of yellow strobes,” he told them. “You’ll be able to see them when you put the nose assembly back down. When that’s completed, you’ll taxi directly back here to remain on standby for the duration of my mission.” He took a sheaf of folded papers from his back pocket and handed them to the pilot, an air force major who was patiently waiting for Gil to finish so he could remind the navy man exactly who was in command of the aircraft. “These are your orders, Major, signed by the president and giving me tactical command of your aircraft. This supersedes your rank and puts you at my indefinite disposal. Simply stated, Major, this aircraft and its entire crew will go where I say, when I say, and do exactly as I say.”

The major glanced at his copilot and unfolded the orders, flipping to the last page to verify they had been signed by the president. He looked up at Gil and nodded. “I guess this pretty well designates where the bear shits in the woods.”

Gil smiled. “Now that the formalities are out of the way, Major, let’s hope those orders are worth the paper they’re printed on and that this isn’t just a big waste of avgas.”

The pilot decided he liked Gil and returned the smile. “Any idea what our chances are?”

Gil shook his head. “None, but we go until the president says quit.”

“Roger that,” the pilot said. “We’ll be ready when you need us.”

Gil gave him a salute and disappeared back down the ladder.

Two hours later, the equipment was ready and much of it stowed back aboard the Galaxy. The men were assembled in the ready room for mission brief when Gil entered and stood before them dressed in blue jeans, cowboy boots, and a black Under Armour compression shirt.

“Gentlemen,” he said grimly. “It’s good to see you again. I’m sorry the circumstances are what they are.”

“We’re just glad to be back aboard,” Alpha said. He was twenty-nine years old and built like an outside linebacker.

Gil nodded. “About that… I don’t know how this is going to play out. Right now we’re obviously very important, but none of us in this room is exactly popular with the present administration, so I want it understood there are no guarantees about the future.”

“Fuck the present administration,” growled a SEAL named Trigg. “We’re here to do what we were trained to do.”

“Hooyah,” said Gil. “Now let’s establish the pecking order. Anybody got a problem with having a green beanie as second in command?”

Crosswhite cleared his throat. “Uh, Gil, I’d just as soon be a member of the rank and file on this one, if that’s—”

“I didn’t put that question to you, Captain.”

Crosswhite shut up, and Gil stood waiting to see whether any of his SEALs were set to complain. As expected, they were all fine with Crosswhite filling the role of second in command. They had all served under him during Operation Bank Heist, and he had fallen on his sword for them when the mission failed to liberate Warrant Officer Brux, taking the blame along with Master Chief Halligan Steelyard, who was killed weeks later during Brux’s eventual rescue.

“Excellent.” Gil snatched a cigarette from Crosswhite as he was about to light it and stuck it between his own lips, bumming Crosswhite’s lighter at the same time. “Alpha, you’re the ranking petty officer after me, so you’ll play third fiddle.” He drew from the cigarette and exhaled through his nose. “I don’t anticipate a leprosy pandemic, so you should do just fine.”

The room broke up with laughter, and Alpha lowered his head, his face flushing. The joke was left over from Operation Bank Heist, during which the team had encountered an old woman infected with leprosy. She had lost most of her fingers to the disease, and her eyes had turned completely white due to an untreated trachoma infection. Upon seeing her up close and realizing with horror that he was in the company of a leper, Alpha had wigged out completely, forcing Trigg, his best friend on the team, to subdue him with a rear naked choke.

“Take heart, Alphabet,” Gil said with a smile. “We all have our weak spot — you just happen to be the only man among us to have found his.”

There was more laughter, and Alpha shook his head, crossing his arms and looking off across the room to see a tall, white-haired man he had never seen before standing in the doorway dressed in civilian clothes. He pointed at the man. “Gil.”

The laughter dropped off as Gil turned his head to see Bob Pope standing in the doorway with a red backpack over one shoulder.

“I hope I’m not interrupting,” Pope said, pushing his glasses up onto his nose.

“Not at all, Bob. This is your show. I’m just warming up the crowd.” Gil turned to the team. “Gentlemen, this is your boss, SAD director Robert Pope, whom you already know by reputation.”

All the team members had worked under Pope throughout their time as SOG operators, but this was the first time any of them had seen him.

“Hey, guys,” Pope said with a boyish smile, giving them a short wave. “How are you?”

None of the SEALs knew quite what to think. The man they saw standing before them in baggy khakis and a flannel shirt did not at all resemble the mysterious CIA spook they had previously imagined.

“Well, I suppose we’ll get to it,” he said, unzipping his pack and removing a stack of files, which he handed off to Gil. “If you’ll pass those around for me.”

Gil gave the stack to Crosswhite, who took one and passed the rest on.

“Okay,” Pope said, taking a seat on the edge of the table. “Open your files, and you will see a photo of a man named Muhammad Faisal. He’s the man you’re going to bring me. He is not only an American citizen but also a member of the House of Saud.” He went on to tell them the rest of what he knew about Faisal, ending with the disclosure of what little evidence there was linking him to the Chechen terrorist group RSMB.

The briefing took less than three minutes, and as Pope stood up and zipped his backpack closed, the SEALs sat looking at one another in open disappointment, scarcely able to believe the president had moved heaven and earth to bring them all together on such a paltry amount of actionable intel.

“Any questions?” Pope asked.

Trigg put up his hand. “Sir, if we know where to find this guy, why doesn’t the FBI just bring him in?”

“Because where’s the fun in that for us, Petty Officer Trigg?”

Pope smiled. “Kidding aside, the FBI has a list of rules they have to follow, and we can’t afford the risk of Mr. Faisal refusing to cooperate. If he’s detained and demands a lawyer — which he would be stupid not to do — the FBI will have to comply, and the time lost could cost us everything. We’re looking for a live nuclear weapon; that means all rules go out the window.”

Another SEAL named Speed, the team’s only black member, put up his hand. “What about NDAA?” This was the National Defense Authorization Act. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a citizen anymore. Anybody suspected of terrorism can be held without due process, right?”

Pope crossed his arms. “That’s a common argument these days, Petty Officer Hall, yes. One that many constitutional lawyers are still debating. But let us suppose for the sake of argument that it’s true; do you think the Saudi royal family would stand for us denying one of their own access to a family lawyer? And even if they did, suppose Faisal still chose not to talk. What then?”

“So you all see the dilemma,” Gil said. “Faisal is the one and only lead we have on the nuke, and that means we can’t afford to take any chances. This guy has to be taken and interrogated — by whatever means necessary — and nobody can know the US government had anything to do with it. We are going to make him vanish into thin air.

“And anyone who gets in our way is going wake up in the halls of Valhalla.”

“What kind of time do we have?” Crosswhite asked. “Couldn’t this nuke go off any minute?”

“It could,” Pope said. “However, September 11 is only two days away. I believe that’s our date. Now, flip to the last page.” He directed them to a photocopy of Iosif Hoxha’s cutaway sketch of the RA-115. “This is not an exact schematic, but it’s the closest approximation we have to a Soviet-made RA-115 two-kiloton suitcase nuke. As you can see, the weapon is of the gun-detonator design. Our most reliable intelligence indicates that it should weigh approximately one hundred pounds and fit snugly into a navy seabag.”

“That’s pretty small,” Tuckerman said.

“You begin to see what we’re up against,” Gil remarked.

“And no leads at all as to where it is?” asked Crosswhite.

“None,” Pope answered. “For all I know, it could be right here in this hangar — perhaps in one of your own seabags.”

Everyone glanced around, collectively focusing on Tuckerman seated at the back. They all knew him as the shadiest character on the team, and he hadn’t been given the nickname Conman without good reason.

“Don’t look at me,” he said with a smirk. “I don’t have the fuckin’ thing.”

Everyone laughed.

“Ah, yes,” Pope said. “Mr. Tuckerman, petty officer first class. It’s curious your teammates would choose to single you out at this moment. How are your poker skills these days, Mr. Tuckerman?”

Tuckerman sat up straight in the chair. “Just fine, sir. Why do you ask?”

Pope smiled. “Because why else would I liberate a pair of vigilantes from the brig if not to utilize the exceptional skills of one or the other? The renegade Captain Crosswhite here is talented, but he’s not exactly indispensable with that arthritic hip of his.”

Everyone faced the front again, looking wide eyed at Crosswhite; none of them knew anything about his and Tuckerman’s brief incarceration by the 82nd Airborne.

Crosswhite shrank a bit in his chair.

“Take good care of the company you keep, Captain.” Pope shouldered the pack to leave. “It seems to keep saving your life.”