Ньют Гингрич - Collusion

Garrett eyeballed his crew, silently checking their gear, searching each man’s face for tells. Was Senator different from the rest of them? Yes and no. Every SEAL had a personal reason for becoming one. Including Garrett. But this was Senator’s first mission. Being an overachiever in training was impressive. It might not carry over in combat, though.

Garrett pushed his worries from his head. Only four things mattered. His men needed to follow his orders. Each needed to complete his assigned task. Each needed to be willing to die for the man next to him. And all of them needed to trust Garrett. He was their chief. His job title didn’t include being their father, confessor, or shrink, even though he’d played all those roles at different times. It did require him to be one of them, yet not one of them. The “goat locker.” That’s what the Navy called it. He ate when they ate, drank when they drank, fought when they fought, died when they died. That’s what petty chiefs did. But Garrett was ultimately responsible for their lives.

“We’ve entered Cameroon airspace,” the pilot said. “Prepare for drop.”

Boko Haram had underestimated U.S. technology. The kidnappers had used Elsa Eriksson’s cell phone to call her boss in Sweden: $25 million ransom or body parts in the mail. The terrorist had switched off Eriksson’s cell phone, but not discarded it. A critical error. Boko Haram hadn’t been aware of “the Find,” a sophisticated NSA-enhanced satellite locator device capable of tracking a cell phone even after it has been switched off.

A surveillance drone had been dispatched. Photos of a permanent camp. Eight primitive mud huts. At least twenty male terrorists. Easy to count because of their morning prayers, all on their knees facing Mecca, Kalashnikovs next to prayer mats. Eriksson was in a hut designated by the CIA as Alpha-1. Jumping in three klicks away. That’s 3.1 miles of hiking at night. Garrett’s orders: snatch the Swedish-American humanitarian worker in the morning darkness. Limit full engagement. Cameroon’s northern leaders had elected to allow the terrorists to operate without much interference. Why rattle that cage? In and out.

Rescue operations were the only type of military assignment dependent on complete surprise. That’s what Garrett had read in a SEAL School training manual—Gazit, 1980, pages 118–22. Garrett wasn’t certain why that reference had stuck permanently in his head, but it had. If alerted, a terrorist could kill a hostage. It took only seconds to pull a trigger, detonate a bomb. Dealing with Boko Haram was dicier than most kidnappers. Jihadists had nothing to lose. That gave them an edge. Set off a suicide vest. Kill yourself and hostages. Virgins and eternal glory were assured.

The most difficult task Garrett faced was assuring his team they were invincible. It mattered. No one was going to die today. The slightest doubt jeopardized the mission and their fellow SEALs.

Focus. It was time. Out the door. Falling. Everyone landing, everyone assembling, everyone hurrying toward the Boko Haram camp where Elsa Eriksson was being held hostage.

Current Day

A casual look backward at the chase car on Sikorsky Street caused U.S. ambassador Stanford Thorpe to pause before he slid into the leather seat of the embassy’s armored Cadillac.

Thorpe prided himself on remembering faces and names. A key to his successful diplomatic career.

“What the hell is that former Navy SEAL doing in my protection detail?” he demanded.

“Brett Garrett is a private contractor now,” John Harper, the U.S. chief of mission in Kiev, replied. “Where better to bury someone than in Ukraine?” He chuckled.

Thorpe wasn’t amused. “After that screwup in Cameroon, he’s toxic. Private contractor or not. Get rid of him.”

“He’s on a short leash.”

“It should be a noose.”

“Sending him home won’t be easy. An ex-Navy pal owns the company with the security contract.”

“You don’t get paid to do easy. Call Washington. Throw your weight around. I want Garrett on a plane out of here tomorrow.”

The three-car caravan entered Mykhaliv Square in central Kiev, arriving outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. By the time they stepped onto the sidewalk, Harper was on his cell phone ordering the regional security officer to keep Garrett and the other five private security guards outside with their vehicles. Only the two-person State Department protection detail assigned to Ambassador Thorpe would enter the building.

From the chase car passenger seat, Brett Garrett watched as invited dignitaries and news reporters quick-stepped into the six-story Ukraine Foreign Ministry with its five-Roman-column façade—a communist-era building commemorating the defeat of the Nazis in World War II. Now it was the communists who had fled.

Patience. He looked at the security guard in the driver’s seat next to him. Donald J. Marks. He was a habitual smoker. Give him a few more moments. He’ll leave the chase car.

“Screw this sitting here,” Marks said as if on cue. “I’m grabbing a smoke.”

Mental telepathy? No, Garrett understood addictions. As soon as Marks lit up outside, Garrett removed two thin rectangles from a prescription packet in his jacket. Both went under his tongue. Instant relief.

Inside the grand ballroom, Ambassador Thorpe greeted other diplomats as he walked to the portable stage raised some two feet above a white marble floor. John Harper settled into a reserved front-row seat to watch his boss. U.S. and Ukrainian flags were positioned at each corner of the raised platform. Thorpe’s two State Department bodyguards stood like bookends near the podium. Sunglasses worn indoors. Military haircuts. Flesh-colored earpieces. Jackets unbuttoned.

“I’m proud to announce that our two great nations have reached a new level of cooperation under the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences Program, which allows Ukrainian exporters and U.S. importers to take advantage of duty-free treatment for nearly four thousand products from Ukraine,” Ukraine’s foreign minister announced, officially starting the news conference.

From the stage, Thorpe half listened, scanning the crowd for a pleasing face, possibly a redhead this time, someone half his fifty-nine years, someone in awe of his position or perhaps seeking a special favor. Impeccably dressed and coiffed, he was ending his sixth year in Kiev, twice the average posting for a career diplomat and, in his mind, an obvious sign of his importance. No president or secretary of state would dare to dole out such a strategic ambassadorship as a political plum—not with the ongoing fighting in eastern Ukraine against Russia-backed insurgents. No, Ambassador Stanford Thorpe was special. Educated at Groton, the private Episcopal preparatory boarding school that had graduated Franklin D. Roosevelt. On to Harvard College, the guaranteed entryway into the State Department. Ambassador Thorpe fit the decades-old stereotype of an anglophile statesman, and he was proud of it.

His comments today would be brief, delivered with measured enthusiasm, but with little actual meat that could bind him or the United States to any legal commitments beyond handshake promises. Then off to a leisurely lunch, hopefully with the twenty-something whom he’d just spotted seated in the second row, wearing a bit too much red lipstick and too short of a cheap wool skirt. Definitely Eastern European. Yes, he would mention her to John Harper. Have him extend a personal invitation to a private lunch with the ambassador. But only after Ukraine’s foreign minister finished publicly kissing up to the United States. Finally, Thorpe’s turn. He rose slowly. Dignified. Buttoned his jacket. Shook the Ukrainian minister’s hand while posing for obligatory photographs and finally stepped behind the oak podium.