Seal team six extra size.., p.5
SEAL Team Six Extra-Sized Holiday Bundle, page 5
"The upside is that, while we can't pinpoint Young-El yet, we can work backwards from the information we have to track and observe anyone accessing his sites," Dana said. "Multiple hits mean interested parties and potential one-man cells. Clusters of hits from IP addresses in close proximity tells us that groups could be forming. We're also alerted to any sudden changes in patterns to let us know that a situation is reaching critical. We can sic the feebs on them. That's damage control, at least."
"Anything more on the mystery girlfriend in the Tate case?"
"The FBI is working that, hard. She's a ghost. Vanished the day of the Target shootings. The parents provided what they could for a profile. The girlfriend had an accent the mom and dad thought was Mexican."
"Do we have a decent composite sketch?" Griggs asked.
"Not unless you want to pick up J-Lo for questioning," Dana said, and pulled up the image of a girl in her early twenties who looked vaguely like the world's most famous Latina.
"That's the best suggestion I've had all day, Dana."
"Can we expect any more from your Egyptian source?"
"Our friends there tell us that source is exhausted," Griggs said.
"Oh," her lips a moue. She knew what that meant.
"Get me a twenty on one of Young-El's server farms," he said and walked for the door. "I'm gonna shake the tree and see what falls out."
"Kirk out," Dana said to herself when he was out of earshot.
CHAPTER 8
VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA NAVAL AMPHIBIOUS BASE, LITTLE CREEK
It looked like a classroom. It was a classroom--in a building that went back to 1945, when the base was commissioned by the Navy. Neat rows of desk/chair combinations were set on a hardwood floor, polished to a mirror sheen. White boards on casters. Even ancient blackboards down one wall. A big screen monitor was the only evidence that anyone had been in the room since 1962. All along one wall were windows overlooking a broad yard populated with swabbies mowing the lawn and trimming the hedges. The sound of motors and the smell of fresh grass came in through the open panes.
"We got a new target?" Flame asked eagerly, to the two SEALs already seated. He shut the windows and the sounds from outside were muffled.
"I'm hoping it's Muqtada al-Sadr," Chili said.
"Chili's got a hard-on for Mukti," Pig said. "I think it's the hat. Anyone who wears a hat like that is begging for a round to the skull."
"It's a lot of things," Chili said. He got the name 'Chili' in training, when his stomach lining ruptured during a close combat exercise. He was puking up a bloody red mess on the grass at Coronado and was reported to have said "I don't remember having chili last night" just before passing out. That's how legends are born, and men are named. Chili's real name was Willard James Repp (E-6); there wasn't a Hispanic bone in his body.
"I still say it's the hat," said Pig, whose given name was Angel Luis Bravos (E-6). Pig was named by his training instructors in BUD/s because of his affinity for the massively heavy M-60 light machine gun nicknamed 'the pig' by the grunts who hated carrying it, back in Vietnam. Its replacement, the SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon), weighed even more, at 22 pounds, fully loaded. But the Pig carried one like it was his baby and treasured the sheer pants-shitting terror it inspired in anyone unlucky enough to be downrange when this pig let fly.
"It's because the fucker is a loudmouthed prick who called all kinds of shit down on us in Iraq," Chili said. "They should have leveled Sadr City just to get him. But they let him slip away to Iran and now he's back again spouting his hateful shit. Dude's killed more men with his talk then we have with our walk."
"And the hat," Pig said.
"Yeah," Chili grinned, "that hat does piss me off."
Flame sat down behind them and put his sneakered feet up on a seat across the aisle from him. Flame was a deceptively lean six-four, with orange-red hair and covered head-to-toe in a skein of light freckles. He was born Randall Kevin O'Donnell, and had reached seaman apprentice (E-3) status in record time. He was the most kinetic of the squad. Always on the move. Never sitting still. Most SEALs were sedate, easy in their manner but sheer lightning when called upon. Flame was like a shark--moving, weaving, and constantly on the prowl. He wanted a fight. He wanted a hunt. It was a month since their last trip out and he was aching for another run.
"I don't care who it is as long as it's a straight kill," Flame said. His left foot twitched rhythmically, always on the move. "I don't want to be sent out on a sneak and peep or taking down skinnies in some backwater or securing high-value targets. I want a target like the last one--big, nasty, challenging."
"Well, looking back is the only way I like to think about these trips," Chili said. "You start thinking ahead and pretty soon you lose your balls for this."
Manny and Heath entered the room together, and finally Re-Pete. They took their places.
"Anyone have any scuttlebutt on this?" Manny asked.
"The MC just told us to be here for a talk. A talk," Re-Pete said, each word distinct, and no inflection in his deliberate manner of speech.
"We knew this was coming, right?" Heath said. "Abruzzi ordered us to stop shaving. That means Indian Country in two weeks minimum." He touched the coarse black hair already coming in thick on his chin and jowls. Manny already had a thick, curly beard going. Flame was making up the rear with a sad-ass sprinkling of ginger fuzz around his mouth.
"Gentlemen!" a voice announced from the doorway, and all stood.
Commander Branch Tolliver, the squad's most immediate commissioned superior, stepped briskly into the room. He had a steel-cased laptop under his arm. He seated himself and popped it open. Tolliver was forty-something, with close-cropped blonde hair going to gray. He looked more like a country preacher than a warrior; long face and liquid eyes. That illusion was shattered by the tattoos visible on his arms below the sharply creased sleeves of his suntans. On his right arm was a faded purple skull, wearing a boonie hat and scuba re-breather, with crossed cutlasses behind it and BAMF in block letters running below. Bad Ass Mother Fucker. On his left was a three-color cartoon American eagle, smoking a Havana cigar. Rumor on that one was that the OC got roaring drunk in New Orleans after Urgent Fury--the taking of Grenada in '83.
"Be seated," he said and connected a USB cable to his laptop.
They took their seats.
"I'll give you an overview and then hand you over to some visitors," Tolliver said. "We have a high-priority target. His name is Najib Abn Young-El. You may have seen the name in updates. He's not a household name yet, but he's working on it. We're assigned to stop his play by means to be determined later."
"Do we have a twenty, sir?" Flame asked. "Or are we ghostbusting?"
"We've been asked," Tolliver said, "to help provide some human intel, should interrogations of known associates hit a dead end."
"Who ya gonna call?" Flame said with some disgust. The others laughed.
"Look, we zero in on this guy's location and we'll likely be the ones to take him out," Tolliver said. "This is time-intense and they've given us the ball. The sooner we get boots on the ground and pick up a trail, the more of a lock it is that your team will be in at the kill."
Tolliver tapped some keys and the flatscreen behind him came to life with a grid of photographs of Young-El. Each featured a smiling, bearded young guy in wraparound shades. In some he was in western dress, in others in a more traditional Arab get-up. Some were outdoors and some interior. In one he was wearing an Iranian flag draped over him like a cape. In another he held an AK-47 in a fist, but still smiling. In some he wore an Arab kufiya headdress in the shemagh agal pattern favored by Hamas. In another he wore a skull cap. In most, he was bare headed with an impressive, styled 'fro of dense black hair.
"I hate him already," Chili said. More laughs.
Tolliver fixed them with a glare that settled their asses down into their seats.
Class was in session.
* * * * *
They spent the morning learning everything the NSA, CIA, FBI, and various overseas intelligence agencies had on Young-El; his websites, his methods of communication and the growing influence he was having on a particular breed of shithead here at home. It was an introduction, a review. They'd be living with this material for the next few weeks and would memorize every detail.
Like the late, unlamented UBL, this new guy used couriers who carried flash drives containing plans and methods of mass destruction. The focus of this cell was on smaller, more widespread terror actions. Young-El was all about quantity over quality, and it looked like he might be turning his eyes toward hits on servicemen and their families here at home. The recent mass murder at the discount store in California was no coincidence and probably direct revenge for the killing of Bin Laden.
Tolliver was finishing the overview of their new quarry when the visitors showed up.
Waylon Griggs was the first in the room and the team was cool with that. Griggs had honchoed CIA ops with the team before in Afghanistan, Iraq, and once in the Tri-Border area down in South America. He gave good intel and support, and it all went slick as snot each time, with an acceptable level of unforeseen circumstances. Every op had its glitches. Murphy's Law was the only law.
Breezing in behind Griggs was JA Barbara Bengallon. She was greeted with far less enthusiasm. The men in the room had dealt with her before, too. She was a Navy lawyer and a hunter in her own right. But she hunted her own kind. Safe in her office at the Pentagon, she could decide the ultimate fate of sailors and Marines on ops thousands of miles away. With GPS tracking and live-feed video, she could Monday morning quarterback the actions of Special Forces teams in the field, and bring a world of shit down on them if she suspected anything that violated the rules of engagement or codes of conduct. But seeing ain't believing, and no one can fully understand what happens down range except for the men up to their necks in blood and shit. But when there were asses to be covered at the top levels of their military and civilian masters, Judge Advocate Bengallon was there to cover them. And she seemed to be making this team her special project.
"I was told there'd be coffee," Griggs started. He had taken the temperature in the room and wanted to lighten the mood.
"I was just going to call for that, Waylon," Tolliver said, and picked up a wall phone by the door. Tolly was grateful to escape Bengallon's basilisk gaze, even if it was only for a moment.
"You guys feel like you're up to speed on the target?" Griggs asked. He kept it informal. He parked his ass on a corner of the table at the front of the room. Bengallon seated herself behind the table and opened a workbook. She wore a tailored blue service uniform: a jacket and skirt, with creases that looked like they could slice bread. Her black hair was pulled back under her dark blue cover. She did not remove the cover, which the team took as a slight.
"We're still at the start of the day, right?" Manny asked.
"Yeah. There's a lot of work to be done and I want you guys in from the jump." Griggs stood. "We know the Young-El network, and that's how we need to think about it. It's a broad network and widespread, with lots of firewalls and cut-outs and dead ends to protect the bad guys running the show. Our best guess is that he communicates the same way UBL did, using couriers and flash drives. We're not going to be able to snake back to him through a direct internet connection. But there're always ways in through a keyhole if we know where to look. And some of that has to be hands-on. The cyber-warriors at Langley can only do so much."
"So, we're on deck," Flame said.
"Yes, but," Bengallon said, from her perch at the front of the room. She paused for effect and gazed over her eyeglasses. "You'll be going into a country friendly to the United States, so certain niceties need to be observed."
The men of the team sat rigid. They'd been in "friendly" countries before. Like Pakistan. Tell the Paks you're coming and anyone you're after vanishes, like smoke in a high wind. Don't tell them you're inbound and you could find yourself in a three-way firefight with the bad guys and your "friends."
"Likely areas of interest are server locations in Malaysia, Indonesia, or the Philippines," she said evenly. "We need to step lightly in all three."
"Thanks to some recent out-of-country interrogations we have the names of some of the couriers," Griggs said. "We'll use human assets to learn more about each of them. But those can be shaky and tip off your target subjects before you get there."
"Or sell us out to a higher bidder," Chili said. The team nodded. Everyone remembered one bad afternoon in Tikrit. They were looking for prominent Bath Party members and dropped into an ambush instead because the informer hired by their CIA shotcaller found himself a better deal. It wasn't Griggs on that one. It was a prize a-hole named Blair Freeman. They lost a brother there.
"That's why we think it makes better sense to send you guys in with half a loaf," Griggs said. His voice was re-assuring with a note of concern. If he was bullshitting them, he was damned good at it. "I'd rather you went in and found nothing, than step into a set-up. That means we provide as much re-con as we can give you. But the final determination is yours. If the site we choose smells sweet, we go ahead with the op. If it's a dry hole or winds up a shitstorm, you call Uncle and we take you on out; no harm, no foul."
"Which only extends your window of exposure in a sovereign nation and increases the risk of embarrassment for the department," Bengallon added curtly.
Griggs wondered to himself if she meant Defense or State. He understood her function here, but not her fervor. These guys could just as easily die in the country of an ally as in the belly of the beast.
"Like I said, we have a list of couriers that we strongly believe are righteous," Griggs said. "We'll determine in the next week or so which of these works best for us. We need to pick one up and shake him. And it has to be one that could conceivably have been grabbed as part of a sweep unrelated to the Young-El network."
"Because if we show our hand, the target goes to ground," Manny said.
"Right," Griggs nodded. "And we don't want him to know you're coming until you have his balls firmly in your grip."
Bengallon sniffed loudly at that, and the team snickered at her discomfort.
CHAPTER 9
CLIFTON HEIGHTS, PENNSYLVANIA
First, Kevin's girlfriend dumped him. She said he was a child in a man's body. He told her she was a stone-cold bitch. They fell out when Kevin used the money that was supposed to go to their food budget on the most awesome tattoo. Right there on his cheek just below his left eye; a silhouetted salamander wearing a tiny crown. The lizard king, man.
His girlfriend didn't get it, didn't like it. She wasn't into Morrison like he was, and thought it was the little gecko from the insurance commercials. That was enough for him, and he threw one of the dumbass lamps she made at ceramics class. Instead of breaking, it made a hole in the living room wall. She shrieked at him in a shrill rant that went into ranges that only dogs could hear, and he was out of there.
He walked out of their one-bedroom, and spent a weekend getting high and playing X-Box with his friends. The tattoo hurt like a mother, and he was glad when the zoom made him sleepy, and he crashed hard most of Sunday. He came back on Monday to find all his shit at the curb. His clothes, his bike, his PlayStation and a box of his action figures. It looked like the neighborhood kids has already gone through them. When he found that his key didn't work anymore, he started shouting up at their balcony. She wouldn't come out.
He drove away in his Jetta, with all his stuff thrown in the back seat, vowing to forget that bitch. He got drunk. He got high. He called her a jillion times and she wouldn't pick up. He moved back in with his mom but he had to live in the basement because his mom had turned his crib into a "hobby" room for her quilting. They didn't talk much. When he was home he stayed in the basement and killed zombies and cyborgs on his PlayStation and pretended they were all his ex-girlfriend. He spent time with his friends and started missing work at the mall, where he was on the overnight cleaning crew.
Kevin--or "K-Bone" as he insisted everyone call him, even though nobody did--finally lost his job, which really pissed off his mom. He promised to find something better, but mostly spent days out of the house so he didn't have to hear her bitching at him. His friends were all at jobs or at school and he damn sure couldn't hang at the mall after getting shit-canned. So, he started going to the public library where he could get on the 'net.
The library was nice because it was empty most of the day and nobody bothered you. But it also sucked, because he had no access to his iTunes and you couldn't bring food in. Not even soda. He could access porn. But what good was porn when the old farts were watching every move he made?
He cruised video sites, listening to the audio on his ear buds. The usual old concert footage and funny animal stuff and segments from old TV shows from when he was a kid. There were games too, but most were lame and repetitive like Zuma or Alien Hunter and, since this wasn't his computer, they had a one-hour play limit, so he had to either stop playing or supply a credit card, which he didn't have anyway.
Bored out of his skull, Kevin found a site with a bunch of games with no limit that were pretty cool. In one of them you played like you were Barack Obama playing one-on-one basketball with George Bush. The ball was a bomb and if you didn't pass or dunk it, the bomb went off. Sometimes it blew up Obama and sometimes Bush. And there were lots of variations. In one, Bush got blasted until he looked black and then he and Obama would high-five. In another, Obama's head fell off and Bush would dribble it around the court. It was kind of stupid, but funny, and Kevin played through all of its levels a few times.
There were other games (one where you drove a motorcycle through a mall and shot cops) and music and videos. He tried a few videos even though he expected to be bored. One was called Where Will You Fit In?, and was ninety minutes long. Kevin never sat through anything that long unless it featured tits or monsters or both. But this video seemed like it was made just for him.
