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.
“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.”
“What are the odds it’s the Lebanese authorities and not terrorists?”
“I’d hate to guess. LAF would be best case, but if that happened I don’t think she’d call Prairie Fire, and his phone grid wouldn’t be in a Palestinian refugee camp notorious for hiding terrorists.”
The national security advisor, Alexander Palmer, spoke up. “What’s this mean? Worst case? I get Pike getting killed, but that’s not worst case.”
He saw Kurt bristle and said, “Calm down. I’m not being callous, and we don’t have time for emotions. I want him back as much as you, but what’s it mean the longer he’s in custody?”
“Catastrophic. He’s been in the Taskforce since its inception. He knows just about every cover and front company we use, along with every tactic, technique, and procedure. We can’t do anything operational until we get him back and determine what he was forced to divulge. If we don’t get him back, we have to assume everything’s compromised. The Taskforce is finished.”
He saw a few eyes widen and realized they were thinking he meant the Taskforce would become public knowledge, along with their involvement.
“I’m not talking about an expose in the
Palmer said, “Didn’t we already have an indication that there’d been a penetration from the operation in Tunisia? Didn’t he know he was being hunted? Isn’t that why you guys took him down as a fleeting target?”
Kurt said, “Yes, sir, we thought that, but we were wrong. Turns out Crusty was convinced he was being followed by the new Tunisian government for some heinous things he’d done in support of the old regime. It had nothing to do with terrorism. Just a coincidence. This, on the other hand, is the real deal.”
“How long to get a team in there?”
“I’ve got a warning order to Knuckles in Tunisia. He’s the closest one, but because he’s covered under the oil company, he can’t just pick up his team and fly to Lebanon without risking the exposure of the Crusty operation. Best case, I can get him in-country in forty-eight hours.”
“How long do you think Pike can last?”
“What do you mean by
Palmer grimaced, then said, “I mean keep his mouth shut.”
“I honestly don’t know. Pike’s as tough a man as I’ve ever seen, but if they’re using extreme pressure, forty- eight hours is a long, long time.”
18
The old man shouted at the toughs to stop the ineffectual slapping and punching, seeing it was getting them nowhere. In fact, they were moving backward because I was now having trouble talking through my swollen face.
They sat back and studied me, waiting. Another man entered the room, middle-aged and carrying an old- fashioned leather doctor’s bag. With a chill, I realized that the punching had simply been for pleasure. They had no serious interest in my protests of innocence. They had been waiting on this man.
He talked to the old man for a moment, then opened the satchel, pulling out a scalpel. He sliced my shirt off of my body, exposing my chest.
