SEAL Team 666

54

The lack of radio communications was driving Jen crazy. All they could figure was that the roughness of the team’s multiple-tree landing had caused some problems with the uplink. She’d hoped that Chief Petty Officer Jabouri would have been able to fix them, but the lack of contact told otherwise.

What was even more infuriating was watching the attack unfold. If they’d had coms, they could have warned the SEALs about the trap. Even though the satellite hadn’t been in place to see them set the trap, once it was overhead, the heat signatures from the bodies beneath the wood were obvious. All it would have taken was one word and the SEALs could have dealt with the threat.

But as it appeared now, three of the five SEALs were dead. Guiltily, Jen was happy to see Walker alive.

They’d followed the convoy of trucks south to the town of Kadwan. A little research determined that it was the old traditional capital of the Karen and seemed as likely as any place for a Karen insurrection to be headquartered.

But a strange thing happened when the satellite tried to view the city. It couldn’t. Not only was there an improbable and immobile cloud layer over the town, but there seemed to be thousands of fires that were keeping the thermal imaging system from correctly sensing.

Musso had been in contact with technicians at the NRO to determine what was spoofing the images, but so far they were at a loss.

Suddenly the door opened and Billings marched in. Jen had never seen her look so concerned.

“We’ve lost three,” Billings said, more of a statement than a question.

“So it appears … although they could just be wounded.”

“Do you have a copy of the firefight? I want to see it.”

Jen turned to a workstation. “Liz, prepare this system to replay the firefight. Check the log for the time stamp.” She gestured to the seat in front of the wide-screen monitor. “You can sit here, ma’am.”

“I’ll stand.”

Liz dialed the video up on the screen. The view seemed to be from several hundred feet, although it was really a thousand times that. Still, the images were clear. They could see the layout and the surrounding jungle. The video began with the four SEALs leaving the wood line.

Liz pointed to a spot in the trees. “Walker is positioned here.”

“Thank you,” Billings said tightly.

Everyone in the room stopped working as the video played on the smaller screen. The silence gave the events a sad undertone. Billings didn’t move a muscle as she stood with her arms crossed, watching the SEALs and their apparent demise. As the SEALs fell into the hole, her mouth tightened and her fingers began to twitch.

When it was all over, she said, “Again.”

Liz looked at Jen, who nodded.

Within five seconds, the entire video segment was being replayed.

Jen glanced at the other images. Kadwan was still virtually invisible. There was no action at the warehouse. The surviving SEALs had gone inside. Musso was charged with informing her when they moved outside.

When the video ended, Billings turned. “They were firing into the air,” she said.

“Muslim fighters do that frequently,” Musso pointed out.

“But usually after they accomplish something. They even fire in the air at weddings. It’s an expression of joy. Of accomplishment. These soldiers were in the middle of a firefight. Where was the accomplishment?”

Musso and Jen exchanged looks.

“Let’s run it again,” Jen said.

They ran the video again. Everyone gathered around the monitor and saw what Billings had seen. They also noticed that none of the soldiers appeared to be firing at the SEALs.

“What do you make of that?” Billings asked when it was all over.

“They weren’t aiming at them,” Jen stated as her mind began to work over that fact.

“Yet the SEALs were taken away.”

“The action in the hole was too jumbled and chaotic,” Musso said. “But I think there’s a chance that they might be alive.”

Billings nodded. “I think you’re right.” Once she’d said that, she seemed to relax a bit. She spied a free chair and lowered herself onto it. “Anyone have coffee?”

“You staying?” Jen asked.

“To the bitter end,” Billings said. “Do you have anything else?”

“Musso has some additional information,” Jen said.

Liz brought Billings coffee. She took a sip, grimaced, but didn’t say anything else. She put the coffee down. To Musso she said, “What do you have?”

Musso rose from his workstation with a stack of papers in his hands. “We had Cyber Command scrape servers with known Myanmar access nodes, searching for all instances of Saw Thuza Tun. There’s more than seven thousand hits. I know that’s a lot, but through the process of disambiguation I was able to learn that the owner of the land upon which the warehouse—that warehouse—sits”—he pointed to the screen—“is none other than Saw Thuza Tun.”

“So his name is connected to the cargo ship and the warehouse. Any other connections?”

“I checked the registries for the other ships in the harbor that we were concerned about, but none of them can be traced back to this individual.”

“What does that lead you to believe, Musso?” Billings asked.

“That attacking America was a complete ruse.”

Billings pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. “So we’re back to this individual and his people trying to draw us into action. What else do we know about this Thuza Tun?”

“He has multiple holdings centered around Kadwan. He’s also been active in the Karen separatist movement. I found several editorials he provided in the last ten years regarding the importance of international attention regarding Burma/Myanmar. He rants about the suspension of the constitution in 1974, about the confinement of the Nobel Prize–winning activist Aung San Suu Kyi, and America’s willingness to go to every other corner of the planet except for their country. He definitely calls us out.”

Billings nodded, deep in thought. “What else?”

“Then five years ago he dropped out of the limelight. He had a regular column and followers, but he disappeared.”

“Any reason why?” Jen asked. She’d asked Musso this question several hours ago and was hoping he’d been able to find an answer.

“I’ll let Liz answer that.”

The young woman stood and approached nervously, picking at the file in her hand.

“Don’t worry. I won’t bite,” Billings said with a flat smile.

Liz laughed, but it came out as a bark. She licked her lips. “At first we thought maybe that he’d been arrested for his politics, but we found no record of this. We did find, in a collateral search in the Drug Enforcement Agency database, that he’s a known facilitator of cross-border drug transit through southern Thailand. He has links with several Triad figures, all who have been under investigation by the DEA.”

“That might explain the connection,” Musso offered.

“I was also able to track his major purchases over the past fifteen years, since the advent of the use of the Internet in Burma/Myanmar. Any older records haven’t been added.” Liz cleared her throat. “I have a record of all of his land purchases, including his substantial holdings around Kadwan. But what I found interesting is this purchase.”

She pulled out a photo and placed it on the table next to Billings. It was a full-color glossy of an overhead of an ancient town that was still partially covered with jungle. The buildings looked like they were shaped like immense pointed bells. Billings leaned forward to study the photo, but made no move to pick it up.

“This is Wethali. It’s the birthplace of Pyinsa Kalayni, who was the mother of King Kyansittha of the Pagan dynasty circa 1040 CE. It was a tourist site until the mid-nineties. The government reallocated their resources to the military and shut this down. Thuza Tun bought the town from a Myanmar general.”

“They can do that? Just buy towns?” the admiral asked.

“They can in Myanmar,” Musso said. “Tell them about the archaeological site.”

Liz’s eyes brightened. “Yes, of course. Wethali dates back to the fourth century. It was said to have been founded by a great warrior who couldn’t be killed. Sound familiar?”

“Chi Long,” Jen said. “He was around two hundred years earlier, right?”

Liz nodded. “There’s not a lot of information about Wethali, other than the place was destroyed by an earthquake in the eighth century. Until then, it seemed to be the center of the region, possibly even the capital.”

“Do you think Chi Long retired to live the good life in Burma?” Jen asked.

Musso shrugged. “He could have. We just don’t know. The data we have is so sparse that we have to stitch it together with supposition.” He glanced at Billings. “But we’re pretty certain of our analysis.”

“Wrap this up for me,” Billing said. “What’s your hypothesis?”

Musso stepped forward. “We think that Thuza Tun got a line on an artifact, probably having to do with Chi Long, buried in the ruins of Wethali. We think he bought the land, searched for the artifact, found it, and is now a host for Chi Long.”

“That’s a lot of supposition,” Billings said. “What benefit would he have for hosting Chi Long?”

“A couple,” Liz answered. “Such a figure could become the center for a more active separatist movement. Chi Long was a general and was used to leading people. Also, if he can’t be killed, he can spin that anyway he wants, including that he’s divine.”

“You mean a god?”

“Or the son of one,” Musso said with a shrug. “Sure.”

“Okay. I buy it. It sounds right.” Billings stood wearily. “Get me to a secure phone. I need to contact the Sissy and let them know what’s going on.”

“Certainly,” Jen said, hurrying to a side door.