Dick Couch - Out of the Ashes

I’ll understand completely if this is something you can’t do, but I sure hope you can.

Warmly,

— Laurie

She had reread the e-mail multiple times, and especially the last line, but she knew she needed to move forward — and quickly. She pushed SEND.

His advisors had to persist, and then persist some more, before Hafez Shaaban had relented and agreed to fly to Teheran and meet with Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei. What they needed to talk about had to be done in person.

Shaaban knew the grand ayatollah was a religious man who had renounced wealth, but the limo that had picked him up at Teheran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport was something fit for a Saudi prince. Now he stood outside of the grand ayatollah’s office in the Niavaran Palace, which was opulent by any standard. Shaaban began to understand why Iran had been able to bankroll Syria for so many years.

“Hafez Shaaban, my brother, may Allah’s blessings be with you,” Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei said as he walked up to Shaaban and embraced him in the traditional manner.

“And with you, Grand Ayatollah, thank you for agreeing to meet with me, and on such short notice.”

“How may I help you?”

“First, Grand Ayatollah, you know I have been in office for but a short time, but I am aware of the long history of your country helping ours. We are in your debt and we remain your most loyal ally here in the region.”

“And we yours. Go on, please.”

“You know well our long-standing quarrel with the Saudis, but now their patrons, the Americans, are threatening us. I am afraid I must come to you for help.”

“Whatever we can do, with Allah’s help.”

With that, Hafez Shaaban poured out what his intelligence services had told him about America’s threatening moves against Syria. Of course, Ali Hosseini Khamenei’s intelligence sources were vastly superior to his, but he let the younger man pour out his story. The more Ali Hosseini Khamenei listened, the more he saw opportunity in the issues raised by Shaaban. Yes, some of what he was prepared to do would help take American pressure off Iran’s proxy, but more importantly, it would put Iran in a position to be the most powerful nation in the Gulf. It was something the Americans and their Saudi lackeys had denied them for far too long.

Laurie had been cheered when Charlie had gotten back to her, but she was pleasantly stunned by what he said in his reply.

Laurie, it was great to hear from you. I’ve had my spies out, too, and I know you’re a rising star at CNA. I’ve heard from people I trust they don’t usually send analysts out on assignments like yours until they’ve been with the company for at least a decade or so.

Your suspicions sound valid. I’m happy to help in any way I can. Send me what you have on the high-side as soon as you can and I’ll make it my number one priority.

Miss you,

— Charlie

Laurie headed for CDC and for a SIPRNET terminal, a node the Department of Defense and Department of State Secure Internet Protocol Router Network of interconnected computer systems used to transmit information up to the secret level. She wanted to get this suspect video to Charlie — and fast.

Miss you . Wow.

Chase Williams made it a practice not to ask his Op-Center staff to work overtime or into the night. He didn’t have to; if they knew something vital to national security needed to be done they rallied and did whatever it took. However, a quick reading of time stamps on the e-mails that populated his queue that morning told him what none of his professionals would say. They’d been at it late the day before.

Brian Dawson and Williams’s logistics director, the N4, Duncan Sutherland, entered his office.

“Brian, Duncan, come on in and make me a lot smarter than I am now on what you’ve got cooking.”

“Duncan’s done all the heavy lifting, boss. I’ll let him start,” Dawson said.

Chase Williams considered the diminutive man standing next to Brian Dawson. A study in contrasts, he thought. Dawson towered over the five-foot six-inch Sutherland, but God, was he lucky to have the man with the thick British accent on Op-Center’s team.

A street urchin from Liverpool, Sutherland had lied about his age and joined the British army at fifteen. He gravitated to the British Special Air Service, the SAS, and served as liaison with the Gurkha regiment in Brunei. Williams knew perhaps more of Sutherland’s history because he had to admit to himself, the man was so different from anyone he had ever worked with before. Sutherland was married to a wealthy New York socialite and had managed, through her connections, to be transferred to the American Army. A seemingly vanilla kind of man, still several years shy of forty, Sutherland was both shrewd and intelligent, just the qualities Williams wanted, and needed, in a logistics director. Sutherland knew the British army, the American Army, and by extension, all armies. Williams knew Sutherland could finesse any system, get anything, and never failed to have the right material at the right place at the right time. That’s why he recruited him the day he qualified for his Army pension.

“Mornin’, boss,” Sutherland began, his thick Liverpool accent still part of his persona. “The boys said you want to surge JSOC into the Mideast, somewhere where they can range into Syria and maybe some of the surrounding countries. Got that about right?”

“You do, Duncan, and we need to get them there quickly.”

“Well, that’s good, then. Knowing you might not want to wait, I scrambled them last night aboard a sanitized JSOC Gulfstream — an extended range G-5. They packed out with a light-infantry load for a long-range desert patrol and an urban battle kit.” He looked at his watch. “They’ll be on the ground in Incirlik Air Force Base, Turkey, in about an hour. We have a hanger reserved for them and two de Havilland Otters standing by to take them south as needed. Brian here’s been talking with some of the tribal leaders he’s still friendly with. Here are one or two spots we can jump into for a forward operating base,” Sutherland said as he rolled out an area map to explain his plan to Williams. “We can move as soon as the gear is transferred or lay up in Incirlik until needed.”

“Hector was able to get down there and get aboard with the team,” Dawson said as the three of them poured over the map. “Major Volner has a full suite of comm gear, but Hector took along some iridium encrypted phones, so we can talk to him whenever we like, in real time.”

Williams looked from Dawson to Sutherland and back. Then he smiled broadly. “How’d you know?”

“That’s why you pay us the big bucks, boss,” Sutherland deadpanned.

“If there’s no need for them,” Dawson said with just a trace of a smile, “we can recall them anytime. And it’s good flyaway training.”

In Chantilly, Virginia, at the National Reconnaissance Office’s headquarters, Charlie Bacon was glad Laurie Phillips had reached out to him. He was, above all else, a patriot, and he knew since NRO was the U.S. intelligence agency that designed, built, and operated U.S. spy satellites and coordinated the analysis of aerial surveillance and satellite imagery from several intelligence and military agencies, NRO was the right agency to look at the suspect video Laurie had sent him. While he tried to be humble about it, he had to admit he was just the right analyst to review this video. He’d been with NRO for just short of a decade, he knew he was the best, and his bosses did, too.