Don Pendleton: Ripple Effect

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Nathaniel Hathcock III,

USMC

Special thanks and acknowledgment to Mike Newton for his contribution to this work.

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

EPILOGUE

Camp X-ray—Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

Lieutenant Jordan Lewis hated meeting with the CIA. He knew the standard rap, of course—brothers in arms, collaborating in the war on terror, all that happy stuff—but there was still something about the Company that set his nerves on edge.

For one thing, it was flat-out wrong for spooks to give the orders—any orders—on a military base run for the better part of a century by the United States Marine Corps. Worse than wrong, it pissed him off.

The job at Camp X-ray was hard enough without demanding that the military personnel on-site kiss Langley’s ass.

And what a job it was, containing several hundred “enemy combatants” snatched from various locales over the past six years, beginning in Afghanistan, proceeding to Iraq, and then some places the civilian public didn’t even know about. Most of the hostiles caged at Camp X-ray would never face a formal charge. Hell, most of them still hadn’t been identified to any court, congressional committee or defense attorneys. They were locked down tight and going nowhere unless Uncle Sam decided, in his own sweet time, that they were clean.

And that was where Lewis found himself compelled to share his space with cloak-and-dagger types who thought the information superhighway ran only one way. The spooks reminded him of leeches. They crept in, latched on to files and prisoners, sucked out whatever they could use, then crept away without a simple thank-you to the men and women who maintained their feeding station. It was damned elitist arrogance, no other way to read it, and it sometimes made Lewis wish that he could punch them out, beginning at the top and working down.

He could’ve borne their snotty attitude a little better if they got results in the real world, but after six years of interrogation, eavesdropping and fudging data, what was the result?

Nada.

Lewis heard the vague pronouncements coming out of Washington, whenever some fat cat believed his job was riding on the line. He’d blather on about the terrorist attacks that had been averted, suspects captured, lives that had been saved—and naturally, all of it was classified.

But Jordan Lewis knew the truth.

He knew that in the years of his assignment to Camp X-ray, there had been no major breaks of any kind. Osama was still out there, and funds kept flowing to al Qaeda from the usual suspects. Most of them, in turn, were cozily in bed with “patriotic” politicians in the States, none of their countries facing any sanctions, threats of military intervention or preemptive strikes.

It was a crazy world, and Jordan Lewis was accustomed to it. He knew that there would always be another war, as long as men could scheme against one another in the halls of power, and he understood his role in that reality. He understood that there were rules, and also times when they were set aside to serve the greater good.

No problem.

He could twist arms with the best of them when it was called for, but he didn’t like some smarmy frat boy from the Ivy League intruding, telling him that he had done it wrong, suggesting that he try another angle of attack or step aside and let them do it, acting all superior while they were showing him the door.

This day, the new arrival was Bob Armstrong, or so he called himself. Lewis suspected that the name was every bit as phony as his smile. Armstrong was roughly the same age as Lewis, spoke with just a trace of a New England accent and was always groomed as if he half expected paparazzi to be waiting for him at the gates.

Some days Lewis thought about trying a change of scene, maybe a tour in Sandland, but he didn’t want to press his luck.

They also serve who only sit with spooks.

To hell with it, he thought. It’s what they pay you for.

And with that thought in mind, Lewis buzzed his orderly. “Corporal,” he said, “show Mr. Armstrong in.”

A moment later, there he was, all styling gel, bleached teeth and Harvard attitude. Wearing a smile as phony as the spook’s, Lewis walked around his desk to shake the agent’s hand.

HASAM KHALED WAS WORRIED, for himself and for the great jihad. A new round of interrogations had begun, and while it had been several months since he was questioned, granting ample time for him to rest, Khaled feared that he might be weakening in custody. He had been too long out of contact with his brothers, and despite his faith in Allah to sustain him, lately there had been no answer to his prayers.

Each time the smug Americans passed by his cage, selecting someone else to grill for information, he was certain they had come for him. Someday they would, and who knew what techniques they would employ this time?

Before, they had progressed from stilted courtesy to bullying and threats, suspension of his so-called privileges. Diet could be adjusted in proportion to collaboration with the enemy, so Khaled lost weight. He didn’t mind the sacrifice of flesh, content to know that Paradise awaited him.

But if he broke, what then?

The whispered rumors frightened him. In place of simple tactics—insults, threats, sleep deprivation—it was said that more effective methods soon might be employed. Torture, perhaps, or forced “repatriation” to some allied country where interrogators weren’t as squeamish as Americans. Or drugs, the kind that robbed even a dedicated warrior of his wits and his determination to resist.

Hasam Khaled was frightened of the drugs. Torture was fearful, but he thought—hoped, prayed—that he could weather beatings, possibly electric shocks, without soiling his honor. Drugs, however, stole a victim’s will and left him helpless, babbling everything he knew to agents of the Great Satan.

And once Khaled began to talk, how could he stop?

There had to be something he could do.

Khaled recalled his training, exhortations that prepared him to give up his life for God’s holy cause. He had been lucky so far, stunned in an explosion that inflicted only minor injuries but killed his two companions and a number of civilians. The Americans weren’t entirely sure whether Khaled was a combatant or a bystander, but they had shipped him to Cuba anyway. Uncertainty had given him a way to dodge their questions, up to now, but if they came at him with drugs…

There was one obvious alternative. He could become a martyr to the cause, not unlike those who strapped explosives to their bodies and then detonated them where it would do the most harm to their enemies. His self-inflicted death, while not as grandiose as an explosion in a market filled with Zionists or U.S. soldiers, still could serve the cause and bring great honor to his name, his family.

Khaled’s imam had been explicit on that subject. Any death in God’s service was commendable. He didn’t have to kill a hundred enemies, or even one. It was enough that he intended to destroy the infidels, and by his death prevented God’s enemies from gaining an advantage in the struggle. If by dying he could snatch salvation from the fingertips of targets marked for death by his comrades, Khaled would be a hero.