Asset Seven Page 3

  Zana unrolled one of the maps and placed paperweights at each corner then studied the depicted terrain. Turan disappeared into the small kitchen before returning with the coffees, one of which he placed beside the General. Zana was quiet as he traced routes and traces on the map, visualising in his mind’s eye the trainees running through this exercise. Although he knew the exercise inside and out, having designed it himself, he wanted to ensure that it was nothing less than the best it could be. On the last course, they had lost two trainees who had slipped off a mountain ledge during the infiltration exercise. While the deaths themselves didn’t concern Zana, the waste of training investment in these potential operators grated somewhat. The exercise was designed to replicate real-life, operational conditions. A two-week evolution, it tested the trainees on everything from infiltrating a denied area to running agents and sabotage activities. Trusted role players selected from the Quds and Special Forces acted as contacts, agents and enemy forces. Live ammunition and explosives were used to add realism. Dog units and hunter forces provided pressure and a chase element. And all conducted in the hostile environment of the high-mountain passes of north-west Iran.

  Zana asked some questions about the logistics and transport elements but, as usual, Captain Abed had everything covered. Zana liked Abed. He was one of those junior officers that took immense pride in carrying out his job and not in throwing the weight of his rank around. Zana had been selective in who he chose to work at the Facility. He’d made it clear from the start that Tehran could have no say in this if they expected it to work. They’d kicked back of course, but in the end, Zana had gotten his way: No sycophantic status-chasers who would report his every decision back to Tehran. Only proven officers with real operational experience and the respect of their men and colleagues. He was training men to be self-reliant, confident and effective and you couldn’t achieve that by having a paper-shuffler from Tehran screaming and threatening trainees as they did in the conventional army. Neither did Zana want to work with such men who were always looking for something they could report back to Tehran as anti-regime in order to further their own position. No, he had the men he’d wanted and his work was going well.

  One of the aspects that had had drawn Zana to the role of running Palang had been that of Mission Specific Training; bringing Quds operators to the camp to train for their individual missions abroad. Training and preparing the small teams in their exact roles before deployment. It was a bold venture but also an effective one as each team that deployed from Palang had been exposed to every eventuality they could expect to encounter, along with potential pitfalls, on their specific tasks. And it was working, with some very strong feedback already coming in from the field. As he sipped at his coffee, Zana reflected that, all in all, he was proud of his Facility and what that they had achieved. He turned to Captain Abed.

  ‘Good. All under control. What’s on the agenda today?’

  ‘Usual physical training before breakfast then they’ve got a couple of lectures from Major Ardavan on his operations in Lebanon. After that they get the Final Exercise brief and draw equipment.’

  Zana looked at his watch. ‘What time does Major Ardavan come in?’

  ‘Varies Sir. If he does the night exercises, he’ll come in a bit later in the morning but I think he was just instructing yesterday so he should be in within the hour.’

  ‘Perfect, I’ll have a word with him when he arrives. Want him to take more of a lead on the infiltration phase of the exercise. He’s another mountain man after all so we should make full use of that.’

  Turan was about to reply when an agitated Sergeant burst through the door.

  ‘Good morning General. Captain. There’re some officers from VAJA at the gate demanding to be let in. I told them that only the General can give that permission. They told me that they are going to have me and my guards shot for our insubordination.’

  Zana raised a hand to calm the wild-eyed Sergeant. ‘No-one will be shooting anybody unless I give the order Sergeant. Go back and escort these…officers to my office.’

  The Sergeant nodded and ran back out. Zana sighed and looked at his Captain.

  ‘Any idea what this is about?’

  ‘None Sir. Like I say, everything’s been quiet. Something in the background of one of the trainees perhaps?’

  Zana shook his head. ‘No, they wouldn’t have sent a car full of shiny-arses all this way just to tell us that.’ He sighed as he grabbed his coat and hat. ‘But I suppose we’ll soon find out.’ He didn’t bother putting them on as his own office was a short walk away and he took deep breaths of the mountain air as he walked. Entering his office, he put his coat and hat in the cupboard and nodded at the aroma of fresh coffee brewing in the pot. The heater had also been turned on and was taking the overnight chill from the room. If he’d known the stamp-lickers from Tehran were coming he wouldn’t have bothered with either the coffee or the heater, happy to have the visitors endure as uncomfortable a stay as he could without making it too obvious of course. A staccato rap on his door told him they had arrived. ‘Enter.’

  Two men walked into the room and Zana dismissed the Sergeant behind them with a wave of his hand. The first man walked over and extended his hand.

  ‘General Shir-Del, I am Colonel Hashemi, Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and my colleague is Captain Dabiri. I’m sorry to have intruded upon your facility without forewarning but we have an emergency that needs to be acted upon immediately.’

  As Zana studied the man before him he could see that he was scared. There was none of the arrogance and patronising language that usually accompanied such a visit and Zana sensed that he wasn’t going to like what came next. He indicated that the men should take a seat as he sat behind his desk and addressed them.

  ‘So, what’s the big emergency and what does it have to do with me?’

  The Colonel cleared his throat and leaned forward, fingers drumming on the fabric of the hat he held between his hands. ‘It’s about one of your staff, General.’

  ‘My staff? Which one?’

  ‘Major Ardavan.’

  Zana frowned. ‘Yes, he’s one of my staff here and a good one at that. What’s the problem?’

  The two security men exchanged a glance and nodded to each other before the Colonel met Zana’s piercing stare.

  ‘I’m afraid General, that your star officer is an American spy.’

  3

  US EMBASSY COMPLEX, GREEN ZONE, BAGHDAD, IRAQ

  When the red light indicated the room was acoustically sealed, Bill Howard leaned forward in his chair and stared hard at his subordinate.

  ‘Okay. In small words so that I’m absolutely clear on what I’m hearing. Go.’

  Despite the severe nature of his boss’s tone, Vic Foley grinned, the beaming white smile breaking through the matted tangle of his unruly black beard. Bill was one of the best Station Chiefs that Vic had worked for but demanded straight answers from his people and had a famous intolerance for bullshit and jargon. Vic cleared his throat and nodded.

  ‘It’s Asset Seven. He’s running.’

  He watched as Bill blew out a breath and sat back in his chair with his hands behind his head.

  ‘Okay, he’s running. We talking organised exfil or beating feet to the border?’

  ‘Nope. His last comm was the exfil trigger code. After that he went dark. Been over eight hours now and still nothing. Last signal put him close to Dankash, presumably on his way out.’

  ‘He give anything up about the target?’

  ‘No. But if I was a betting man, I’d say they were on to him. How or why I don’t know, but we’d always arranged that if he thought they knew, he would only pass information via physical means. Their tech capability is too good to risk comms.’

  Bill Howard mulled over the information as he studied the man across from him. Vic had worked for Bill for over a year and produced some great results, earning him the Station Chief’s respect. He was also a straight talker; you asked
the man a question and he told you the truth. Or at least asked if you really wanted to hear it. While a lot of the Agency held them in lower esteem, Bill liked the SSOs; the Specialised Skills Officers from the Directorate of Operations, the Agency’s clandestine element. Prevalent but unspoken opinion in the genteel corridors of Washington and the ivory towers of Langley was that they were useful to have in the shitholes and sandpits where things might get a bit rough. But Bill had worked with enough SSOs to know that as well as their paramilitary skills, some of these guys were as intelligent as any arrogant analyst in the Agency. And from what Bill had witnessed himself, Vic was certainly a very bright guy.

  ‘So, what have we got and what do you want to do?’

  Vic sighed and ran his hand through his thick, matted hair. He really needed to clean up and get a shave and haircut. Five months of operating in the wilds of eastern Iraq and he was starting to feel like he was going native. He looked his boss in the eye.

  ‘Last comms I had with him, Seven was pulling together a mother lode of operational intel from a secret Quds Force program. External targets, sleeper cells, facilitators. He was on to something he recognised as being really big but hadn’t pushed anything out before he triggered the exfil. I’m guessing that it was this info he’d been digging into when they rumbled him.’

  ‘He liable to panic? Maybe shit himself and triggered the exfil ‘cos he got scared?’

  ‘No way. This guy is good boss. I mean, he impresses me with how he handles himself and I’ve seen some very capable guys in my time.’

  ‘Okay. Part two of my question: What do you want to do?’

  ‘Extraction. Pure and simple. He’s got some very important shit for us and the only way we’ll get it is by pulling him out.’

  ‘This likely to be a goat-fuck?’

  Vic laughed and shook his head. ‘It has the potential to the be the mother of all goat-fucks, but the plan is a good one and he’s trained and prepared.’

  ‘Be that as it may, this is Quds and VAJA we’re talking about here. They are not just going to let this guy stroll across the border without so much as a by-your-leave.’

  Vic nodded in agreement. ‘No, they won’t. However, this is a very tough extraction for anyone chasing my guy. It’s high mountain passes, sub-zero temperatures, altitude complications. It was designed to accommodate Seven’s strengths and experience. Anyone else trying to catch him will need the same skill sets.’

  ‘Time-frame?’

  ‘We’ve set five rendezvous points over about a hundred and fifty clicks. With comms, he checks in at each one and we monitor until he gets to the border. Without comms, we’ll send up the bird and look for the Infra-Red strobes he’ll leave in place.’

  ‘And you really think this guy will make it through those passes? Memory serves me correct, that’s some pretty fucking tough country my friend.’

  ‘We designed this together, me and Seven. There’s a lot more to it than what I’ve described obviously, but he was confident. He knows it’s a tough one, but he wanted that to give himself a fighting chance if they were on his tail.’

  The room was quiet for several moments as each man considered the implications of the situation. As Station Chief of the Baghdad CIA Station, Bill had to consider political as well as tactical fallout. The Agency was still recovering from its reputational battering over the non-existence of WMDs nineteen years before. The Bin Laden success had won them some ground but there was still a way to go. For Vic, the value of the information that Seven was bringing out justified the risk. As well as that was his commitment to his Asset to do whatever he could to get his man out safely. Vic looked up as Bill moved in his chair and took out a small notebook.

  ‘Okay Foley, give me your wish list.’

  Vic nodded. ‘I’ll need a team. If you’re happy to authorise I’ll approach GREEN direct. I’ve done work with this squadron before and they know how we do business.’

  Bill nodded. It made sense for Vic to talk to the Delta Force Operators, Task Force GREEN, directly rather than extending the communication chain. ‘Done. Next?’

  ‘Usual: Comms, transport, eye in the sky, tech, clean weapons. I’ll need a cover story for local units so we can forward-mount from their bases. Will also need something to keep them the hell away from our Ops’ Box until it’s over.’

  ‘I’ll get Trent on to that. He’s with the Ministers this afternoon so tell him what you need and that I’ll fire the official approval to him in the meantime.’

  ‘Thank you. And I’ll need Executive Mission Command.’

  Bill looked up, frowning at the request. ‘Well, you’ll have Mission Command, as always Vic.’

  Vic shook his head. ‘Nope. I’m going to need authority to act with complete autonomy. If this thing gets close to the wire, there’ll be no time to get on the comms to ask for authority or permission to carry out certain activities. If Quds and VAJA are on his tail, I need to act with speed and decisiveness otherwise we could all end up in a stinking basement in Tehran.’

  There was a moment’s silence before Bill pointed his pen at Vic. ‘Remember you said potential goat-fuck, Foley.’

  Vic laughed. ‘Yeah, and I meant it Bill. But I’ve been here before; once in Georgia and another time in Lebanon. On both occasions I couldn’t move as fast as I needed to because Station wanted to push the decision Stateside. Some bad stuff happened because of that and I learned my lessons the hard way.’

  ‘Hey, you know me by now. You’re a big boy and as far as I’m concerned, you’re the boss on your own ops, so Mission Command goes without saying. I can feed the head shed back home the line that it’s a soldier’s Op and therefore you have Exec Command. This close to the weekend, it probably won’t even be questioned. Just be careful what you wish for Vic: An Asset with VAJA on his heels coming through the mountain passes into Iraq? All kinds of wrong just waiting to happen.’

  ‘I know Bill. Believe me, I know. But what Seven’s bringing out justifies the risk.’

  ‘I’ll have to take you on your word at that but from what I know about him, Seven seems like the real deal.’

  There was a moment’s silence as each man considered his own thoughts then Bill cleared his throat and closed his notebook.

  ‘Okay Foley, you go tell Trent what you need and I’ll get the Executive Request fired back to Langley. Good luck and, as always, keep me in the loop unless you fuck it up then I don’t want to hear a damn word from you.’

  Vic grinned as he stood, well aware that Bill’s gruff indifference was nothing more than an attempt to lighten the seriousness of the situation. Bill was one of the few who still cared. Still gave a shit. That’s why Vic liked him.

  ‘No probs, Boss. Anything else?’

  Bill looked up and shook his head. ‘Nope. Just go. You’re boring the hell out of me now.’

  Vic nodded and let himself out of the room, making his way to the communications room. He swiped his card to enter and made his way towards one of the soundproofed booths. Once inside, he closed the door and took a seat, reaching for the receiver of a large telephone. He punched in a series of digits and after several seconds spoke into the handset.

  ‘I need to speak with Master Sergeant Kelly.’

  4

  LAFARGE CEMENT FACTORY, KOBANI, SYRIA

  The returning vehicles threw up a giant plume of dust that was almost crimson in the dying rays of the setting sun. He could see there were at least three vehicles less than when they’d left yesterday morning. Another tough fight. Spooning the last of the canned peaches into his mouth, Master Sergeant ‘Ned’ Kelly wiped the spilled juices from his beard and turned from his vantage point on the roof of the building. Heading back inside, he pushed his sunglasses up on his head as he entered the darker interior. Walking along the metal gantry, he glanced below and saw that some of the returning Syrian Defence Force soldiers had already made their way inside. They looked tired and dirty, their quiet demeanour telling him that they’d had a rough couple
of days. Ned grinned as he saw a shock of red hair moving among the darker heads of the Syrian and Iraqi Kurds, its owner clapping shoulders and ruffling hair, spreading morale among the downbeat soldiers. Tossing his empty can onto a rubbish pile, Ned took the stairs down to the ground floor and yelled across the vast concrete arena.

  ‘Hey Red. What the hell you doin’ back here? I was told you’d get your ass shot off out there!’

  Across the room, the red-haired man turned and gave a wide grin.

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you man. Came close a couple of times but you should know by now these shitheads can’t kill me!’

  As Ned reached him, they embraced and slapped each other’s back with genuine affection. Keeping his arm around the shoulder of the other man, Ned indicated with his head towards the back of the building.

  ‘Come on, Randy, let’s get you some coffee.’

  As they sipped their coffee, Ned tapped his mug against his fellow operator’s.

  ‘So. What went down?’

  Randy sighed and leaned back before meeting his Team Leader’s gaze.

  ‘Was a lot more of the fuckers than we thought. Air was slow to respond to support request. Because of that they got us with a couple of suicide trucks, and big bastards at that. Took out our whole left flank. Eventually I got some Brit ordnance dropped and we closed for the finish.’ He rubbed at his eyes and Ned could see how exhausted his fellow soldier was. ‘Tell you what though Ned; those guys all fought to the last man. They really went for it.’

  Ned nodded. ‘They know the end’s coming brother. The glorious caliphate is nothing but a dream anymore so if they can’t live in it, they might as well die and receive their reward in Jenna.’

  ‘Well, from what I’ve seen these last couple of days man, they’re really looking forward to it.’

  ‘Good. Hopefully we can make the process as fast and as painful as we can for these good folks!’