Brad Taylor - Enemy of Mine

She knew what he said about the consulate was correct. The damn State Department weenies would pee their pants when she came running in with her story. Pike’s location was growing colder by the second, and it would take forever to get them to react. By then, his cell phone could be in the hands of a fourteen-year-old who’d purchased it on the black market.

“How good are you and your men?”

“Very, very good. Pike trained me, and I trained them. We don’t look like much, but we can get the job done.”

“Weapons?”

Samir turned to a man in the back. He unzipped a duffel, showing the worn bluing of a beat-up folding stock AK-47.

“They aren’t fancy, but they’ll shoot.”

“We do this, and I’m in charge, understand? You follow my orders. You don’t, and I’m going to start shooting in both directions assuming you’re a threat.”

He looked like he’d swallowed curdled milk. “You? You think you’re going on the assault? Have you lost your mind? You’re an anthropologist. Leave this to us. We know how to fight. I understand your lack of trust, but this is something for professionals. You need certain skills to win.”

She pulled out the AK and began a functions check. Satisfied it would work as advertised, she seated a magazine and racked a round.

Seeing the surprise on Samir’s pummeled face, she bared her teeth in a predator’s smile.

“You looked in a mirror lately? I’ve got the skills, and I’m in charge.”

Kurt Hale slammed his handset into the cradle. “Mike! Get your ass in here.”

The duty officer, hearing the tone, stuck his head in the door in seconds.

“Yes, sir?”

“Geolocate Pike’s cell phone ASAP. Text the grid to this number.” He looked at the last-called display on his desk phone and scribbled the number on a sticky note.

“Got it. Commo section has Pike’s handset selectors already?”

“Yeah. They’ve got something. IMEI, IMSI, or some other tech shit. I don’t care what they’re executing right now, they drop it. This is a Prairie Fire. Send the grid as soon as you get it, and include in the text for them to call secure immediately.”

George Wolffe, the Taskforce deputy commander, was entering the office just as Mike raced away.

“Whoa, must be free beer somewhere.”

Mike said nothing, disappearing down the hall with a purpose.

George said, “What’s that all about? What’s up?”

“I don’t know. Pike’s in trouble. Jennifer called on an open line asking for the location of Pike’s cell phone. She triggered a Prairie Fire.”

George said, “You’re shitting me.”

Prairie Fire was the code word for a catastrophic event. It meant the overt compromise of a Taskforce team or the impending death of a Taskforce operator. When used, everything in the Taskforce came to a stop, with all assets that could react dedicated to that team. In all the years of Taskforce existence, the words had never been uttered.

“Not shitting at all. I don’t know what it’s about, but it looks like you finally get to see your plan in motion.”

Before accepting the position of DCO of the Taskforce, George had spent decades inside the CIA’s National Clandestine Services, most of that time in the Special Activities Division conducting covert operations on every continent but the Antarctic. Some of the missions had been just short of suicidal; with no way to call for help should the worst occur. Unlike the military, when SAD hung it out there, it was absolutely for keeps. No reserves, no cavalry, no rescue.

George understood when that attitude was truly necessary, but on several occasions, when he’d come close to dying on a mission that was a little ill-conceived, he was convinced it was simply because of a lack of forethought. The CIA leadership was so used to the mission profile that they just took it on faith that nothing could-or should-be done if things went bad. After working with select Department of Defense Special Mission Units, and seeing the care they put into contingency planning for operations, his mind-set changed. When he helped form the mission profile for the Taskforce, he had implemented a panic button should a Taskforce operator find himself in dire straits. Kurt had picked the code words-the same code words used by his father on top-secret cross-border missions in Vietnam.

Kurt said, “What can we leverage for Lebanon?”

“Mostly tech stuff, which you’re doing now. Nothing in the AO, team-wise.”

“What about Knuckles in Tunisia?”

George paused, thinking. “Yeah. Crusty’s done, and they’re just doing cover development now, but you pull them officially and it’s a risk.”

George was reminding him that one of the key ways to blow an operation was to flee too soon after it was over. The police would naturally look at who immediately left following a mission, searching for leads. Because of this, Taskforce teams would stay in the area of operations for as long as necessary, ostensibly doing whatever their cover said they should be doing. Knuckles’ team was now servicing the oil fields in Tunisia, finishing out their “contract.”

“The black hole’s still off the coast of Tunisia, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Knuckles is a SEAL. So’s Decoy. Anyone else dive qualified on that team?”

“Yeah. Brett, the new guy I brought over from Special Activities Division. He was a Force Recon Marine in an earlier life. Probably hasn’t done any scuba action in years, but he could figure it out. What are you thinking?”

“Swim ’em into Beirut. Unofficial. Get ’em on Pike, then get ’em back to Tunisia, before anyone knows they’re gone.”

“I don’t know…. Who’ll pick ’em up? Who’s doing the advanced force work? They can’t just walk out of the ocean.”

“One step at a time. Find out who’s dive qualified on that team and give ’em a warning order. It may go nowhere, but I want ’em ready. I’ll be out of the net for a few hours. I have to alert the Oversight Council. They’ll need to approve any movement of Knuckles’ team.”

An hour later, walking down the hall to the Taskforce conference room of the Old Executive Office Building, Kurt caught a glimpse of the West Wing of the White House out a window. As he neared the room, he could hear muted chatter spilling into the hallway, the members who were available for this quick meeting guessing as to what it was about.

He stepped through the door and the buzz of conversation dropped away, as one by one they realized he had entered. A quick survey showed that only eight of the thirteen members were present, something that could be expected given the duties of the people appointed to the Council. He was surprised to see President Warren in the room, figuring if anyone had been unable to attend, it would have been the president.

He went to the small podium at the front of the room and cleared his throat, unsure how to proceed.

“You’re probably wondering why I’ve called you here” flashed through his mind. Instead, when he had everyone’s full attention, he just laid it out.

“Today, at thirteen-forty-eight DC time, we had a Prairie Fire alert from Lebanon. One of our Taskforce operators is in jeopardy, quite possibly lethal. I’m looking to move a team into the country as soon as I can, and I need your approval to do so, because it’s not without risk.”

All eyes were riveted on him. He continued with the specifics of what he knew, and his best guess as to the nature of the trouble. When he finished, President Warren spoke first.

“So you don’t know he’s captured. You’re just worst-casing it?”

“That’s correct, sir, although I can’t see what else it could be. Jennifer wouldn’t call over an open line for a lock-on, invoking Prairie Fire, if she’d simply lost him at a souk somewhere. She said he was in trouble. That, coupled with the phone grid, tells me he’s in bad-guy hands and she needed his location.”