Streets of Cairo, Egypt 1810hrs
Mac could see the stripes of Old Glory curled around the flagpole as she approached from the West Side, Samir hurriedly urging her on. She was met by two Marine guards who interrogated her at the gate for a long moment before ushering her through and she thanked the boy for guiding her through and wished him safe passage back to his home. Western parents would have blanched at allowing their child to run around without supervision, but the parents in these parts knew that their children knew the safe passages and such was life – they couldn't be cocooned. Life was dangerous enough for the adults. If the children didn't learn what was safe and what wasn't they became casualties, such was life growing up in the Middle East.
When she was through, she was ushered into a meeting with the consul-general. Daniel Novak was a thirty-five year veteran of the Foreign Service and was appointed consul-general by the current administration. He looked impassive as Mac related her story and then coldly remarked. "Well, Webb knew the risks when he signed up for intelligence work, Colonel Mackenzie. I can't justifiably send thirty United States Marines fully armed and dressed in combat gear into the streets of Cairo. That will stir up a considerable amount of resentment from the native population. Now my question is what we do with you? You were on the streets of Cairo with a street urchin and no visible means of identification. You state that you're a colonel in United States Marines, the only reason why you're not thrown back on the street is because we checked into your story and we found out that you are serving in the United States Marine Corps and you serve with the Judge Advocate General. Your picture matches up with who you say you are. Colonel, you're a long way from home." He casually observed as he looked Mac up and down to assess the veracity of her claims. "Despite the tenuous diplomatic ties that we observe, Cairo is a dangerous place. Car bombings by the Muslim Brotherhood, kidnappings, and murder, you were extremely lucky, Colonel Mackenzie. Now you say that you need to talk to someone at Langley? Now my question is why? What would the CIA have to do with anything in Egypt? My men are diplomats. Colonel Mackenzie. They are not spooks."
Mac looked at the consul-general. He was blatantly denying that he had intelligence links within the consulate.
Somewhere in Egypt, 1845hrs
"Mr. Webb. How very nice to see you again." The memory of his voice burned into Clayton Webb's memory. "Funny how you have met us on home soil. Paraguay seems to be so far away now, does it not?" The eyes were still dead and soulless, Webb thought as he gazed into the eyes of a man that he had been tortured to the brink of death by and his own soul shriveled, because he knew that there was no one who knew where he was. The Agency would deny that he even existed. He was in the clutches of a man who would squash him like an irritating insect and there was nothing that he could do about it. If there was an illustration for a word like despair in the dictionary, Webb, now, would be the very image. "Oh no, Mr. Webb, why would I wish to kill you?" Sadik Fahd's face was menacingly close as he whispered, "You would only be one unsatisfying casualty in our jihad against the Great Satan." He leaned back and said mockingly. "Why kill one when I can kill over five hundred thousand?"
"You're insane."
"…and you, Mr. Webb, will go for the ride."
United States Consulate, Cairo, Egypt, 1935hrs
No cell phone, no way to call Langley; Mac paced her assigned room like a caged tiger. This operation was no longer viable with the way it had gone down. The main contact had been captured, she was on her own in a country that was foreign to her; she had no visible means of support and there was no way to do anything but get home and find out from the horse's mouth that their operation was a no-go. In the meantime there was a nuclear missile that could potentially be launched at Washington DC and they would all go up in a nuclear conflagration when it landed. If she was correct, the Topol M had the potential to drop four warheads on top of DC. But they wouldn't know what type Sadik had managed to get his hands on until it exploded over DC.
If she could only manage to find a way to get some money to buy a plane ticket back to the United States or a way to contact the Admiral, he'd be able to get something happening to help Webb. But then again, she thought, Chegwidden hated Webb. She wrestled with her thoughts but she knew that Chegwidden had a sense of honor that he wouldn't leave Webb out to hang, or would he: he certainly did Harm prior to the events of Paraguay. She really couldn't resolve what she could potentially do next. There were no boots on the ground to find out where and when Sadik was going to make his next move. But if they didn't have boots on the ground, how would they know what was going to happen? Right now the Vipers were stuck on the ground; they had no point of reference as to where they were going to attack. How would they be able to pinpoint where the target was. The shipment was to be made in three days and then Sadik would grab it and disappear, as well as he could with a Topol ICBM and a large multi-wheeled truck in the desert. Perhaps the intel satellites could capture the image of the ICBM before it disappeared into whatever wilds that the African continent would manage.
Somewhere in Egypt, 1945hrs Egypt Standard Time
"You will find that I am not barbaric in my methods." Sadik stated as he looked at Webb, "With those in Central America, you have to show them who is the boss or they will think that you are somewhat less than they are. Brutality is the only language that they understand. You are in my world now, Mr. Webb, let us say that we shall be a bit more civil." He nodded to his attendant who stood up. "Abdul will take you to your quarters. You shall not try to escape or we shall revert back to the methods that we used in Paraguay to teach you that you are our prisoner." The obsidian eyes of the predator; Webb knew that he was doomed. There was no way out of it.
Abdul grabbed him by the arm and half-dragged him out of the room.
CIA Headquarters, Langley, VA, 1300hrs EST
"What the hell happened?!" Kershaw burst into the room. "How the hell did Webb get compromised?!" he rounded the corner of the desk and glared at the two controllers. "Where the hell is he?"
"The only thing that we can suspect is that he was picked up at Cairo Airport by one of Sadik's men."
"Jesus Christ!" Kershaw swore as he shook his head. "Where the hell's Lantern?"
"We don't know. We tried calling the consul and they didn't say anything."
Kershaw swore again. "I want some boots on the ground there. You find out what the hell happened. If we don't do something about it, DC is going to get turned into radioactive slag!"
"Who do we send that's familiar with the area?"
"We've lost one agent out there. I'm not sending another agent out. I'm going to have to brief the President and find out what he wants to do. We can't keep this under the desk now." Kershaw growled. "I'm going to have to talk to Watts, but there isn't a damned thing I can do to keep this from getting out."
"What can't you do to keep what from getting out?" Kershaw whirled around to see Director Watts looking at him. "Just what the hell is going on? Harrison? Would you like to enlighten me about what we have to talk to the President about?"
"Snake Pen is missing, presumed captured or dead and the Vipers are stuck in Jeddah awaiting orders on a mission that we have nobody on the ground for and we have a Topol missile with warhead enroute to Port Said. We can't sink the vessel because the cargo is going under a Turkish flag and the Turks are our allies. We need to witness the handover of the weapon so that we know that the weapon is in confirmed hostile hands." Kershaw replied.
Watts lowered his head, raised his hand up to rub his forehead and sighed. "Call the President, tell him that we need a meeting, top security clearance only, and we need it ASAP. You know heads are going to roll on this."
"What do we do about the Vipers? Norman."
"You put someone on the ground with them telling them what they need to do, which for the time being is someone that they know and can trust."
"And who's that?"
"Put Squid and Angel on the ground at Jeddah." Watts replied.
Kershaw and the controllers looked at each other.
Somewhere in Egypt, 2000hrs Egypt Standard Time
"Abdul. You will guard him." Sadik looked at the guard. "I need to go talk to another." Webb from his cell listened to his captor's footsteps depart.
Sadik looked over at another man standing to the left as he entered the room. "Naeem, you will go to Jeddah and meet with one of our men. You will find out why Webb is nicknamed Snake Pen. We have been monitoring his operations." He laughed softly – the arrogance of the Americans knew no bounds. How many of his men had he inserted into America itself? How many had worked every day American lives with their neighbors none the wiser? How many of those had taken on personas of the every day American Arab who enjoyed baseball and football and other decadent American pastimes? He shook his head as he wondered about the simplicity yet complicated machinations that were necessary to put his pawns in place. Political correctness and Fair Hiring practices had enabled him to slot in his moles into the highest echelons of public office, law enforcement and intelligence agencies on the grounds that they were aware of the terrorist threat, had first-hand knowledge of the terrorists and how they thought. The Americans thinking that they were so smart, but not realizing that the teachers were themselves the learners and siphoning off useful information to feed their cells which in turn came back to Sadik himself, were fast being turned into the informational equivalent of swiss cheese. "We will monitor and see what it is that they are doing…then when they are least aware we will move in and strike…" Sadik informed him. "You Naeem will be my instrument of revenge. The Americans seek to harm us, we will remove that threat."
White House, 1600 Pennsylvania, Washington DC, 1600hrs EST
"Are you saying that there's a nucular weapon involved?!" the President of the United States growled, his Texas accent in full display. "Why the hell didn't I hear 'bout this before hand?!"
"We didn't know exactly how serious the situation would become." Dir. CIA Watts tried to explain.
"Well, this is absolute horseshit, as far as I'm concerned." The President growled. "You people are expected to monitor the situation and we now have a Topol M pointed at Washington DC?"
"Well, Mr. President. The weapon is still in transit to Port Said, sir."
"No ifs ands or buts, Gentlemen, we are going to put SOG to work. This has been cluster-fucked enough. Call General Howard in and get him on the line with JSOC at the Farm. I want this nuclear missile blown off the face of the earth."
"We have the Vipers in Jeddah that can put some JDAMs on the missile when we locate it."
"That's WHEN you locate it." The President snapped. "Considering just how badly your operations screwed up this one. What makes you think that we should entrust the missile's destruction to the Company?"
"Well, we have Navy assets in place."
"Well, better than nothing I guess." The President snorted.
"Lantern's cooling her heels in the US Consulate in Cairo. We're sending a pair of agents to retrieve her."
"Well get on it, time's a wastin'." The President snapped.
Prince Abdullah Airbase, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 1030hrs Saudi Arabia Standard Time (next morning)
Harm looked up to see two figures walking across the tarmac from a Challenger Global. When they got up close enough, the man grinned a wide smile. "Hey Harm…thought we'd drop in and say hi…"
"Keeter!" Harm exclaimed. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"Well…long story short. We were hauling some stuff across country, landed in Washington and got the call to wander over the pond and stop off in sunny Jeddah. I have absolutely no idea what for."
"Hey, Harm. What you doing now?"
"Back in the Navy." Harm grinned as he looked over at the other figure. "Beth?"
"Yep. In the flesh." Beth O'Neil grinned at him. "Like Keeter said, we're stuck out here until whatever the hell happens happens."
"Can we talk somewhere where there isn't anyone listening?" Jack asked. "And it might be better talking to the guy who's actually in charge here. Sorry, ol' buddy, I just know it ain't you…" he grinned at Harm who just shrugged his shoulders.
The operations tent was just that, a tent in the middle of the desert just off to the side of the tarmac and Harm pushed the tent flap aside. "Animal, we got some visitors."
Animal looked up from the table and grinned. "Fancy meetin' you here, Jack. You working for the Company now?"
"I can neither confirm nor deny that…" Keeter said. "Sorry…but what I can say is that we got a major clusterfuck happening."
"You can say that again." Animal growled. "We've been stuck out here for the past two days with no intel whatsoever."
"Well, the information gets worse, Animal." Keeter said. "Sadik…the guy you're chasing after managed to get himself an honest-to-goodness nuclear tipped Topol-M missile on top of his Stingers." Beth Hawkes and Scooter both inhaled sharply as they looked at each other. On top of that what was left unsaid by all of them (even Keeter and Beth knew this as they were both former military). It meant the site was going to be heavily defended to give the missile the best chance at achieving launch.
"Jesus Christ!" Animal felt like he was getting a major league headache.
"The Saudis say they can't help us but we've got some other guys who can. The UK is willing to send us four of their Tornado GR4 strike and four Tornado F3s. That'll give us ten aircraft in total and twenty crew. They should arrive tonight." Keeter continued. "They should be in about 2100hrs our local time."
"So you're saying that we'll have sufficient air coverage to take on these bastards and give us a fighting chance?" Animal grumbled. "The deal keeps getting worse and worse."
US Consulate, Cairo, 0945hrs
"Colonel?" Mac's eyes cracked open wide enough to notice the man in the room.
"What the hell…?" Mac snarled. "What are you doing in my room?"
"Colonel Mackenzie, I'm Martin Jackson. I'm supposed to get you out of here and on a plane…"
"Where?!" Mac said. "I have to rendezvous with Viper. I need to let them know that their mission was compromised."
"They know. We have assets on the ground with them. We've also achieved some ratification with allies that they will render some assistance." Jackson replied. "We are taking you over to Jeddah, but I will need to find out what you have learned so far."
"Snake Pen has been captured by Sadik." Mac said, desperately trying to see if there was any sort of compassion in the man's nature that they might be able to get Webb out of there.
There was none.
Prince Abdullah Airbase, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 2200hrs
"Hello, Wing Commander David Abbott…" The fresh-faced young looking British Royal Air Force officer in full flight gear grinned as he extended his hand to shake Animal's "I command the Tornado F3 contingent. And this is Wing Commander Milton Chamberlain, he's the CO for the GR4 contingent."
"Good evening, Gentlemen." Animal grinned as he dropped the bomb on them. "Rear Admiral Toshio Nakamura. Pleased to make your acquaintance. Wing Commanders." As the rank Admiral dropped from Animal's lips the two Royal Air Force Wing Commanders and their various subordinates who had assembled snapped to attention.
"Beg our pardon, sir. Without your rank on your flying suit, we were unaware of the fact that you held high rank. Our apologies, sir."
"Not a problem." Animal replied as he grinned at them. "On this operation, it might be a good point to sanitize your uniform, to prevent hostiles from perhaps using it as a bargaining chip. Gentlemen, we should retire to the briefing room. I do have current information from intelligence operatives who know more about this than we do." He nodded to Jack Keeter and Beth O'Neil.
When the entire group had filed into the operations tent, the tent had reached almost maximum capacity.
"How about you explain the situation, Jack." Animal nodded as he took a seat to the side.
"Well…Sadik Fahd has an off-shoot of Al Qaeda called the Islamic Brotherhood. The reason beyond this was because Sadik feels that Al Qaeda has done nothing since 9/11 and he wants to inflict a lot of damage to the United States. He doesn't feel Al Qaeda with their one strike terrorist attack is waging enough jihad against the West. Now that you know his motives, here are his intentions. Somehow with his connections into the former Soviet Union, he is now in possession of a Topol nuclear missile aimed at the heart of the United States government in Washington DC. We have no idea if it is a MIRV weapon or whether the Topol is tipped with only one nuclear warhead of an 800Kt. Yield. Accurate particulars are not easy to come by." Keeter stated as the pilots took down notes. "Our objective is to eliminate the threat by taking out the weapon with an airstrike with Joint Direct Attack Munitions – JDAMs. The threat comes from RIM92 Stinger surface to air missiles of which we are aware that he has managed to obtain about two hundred of them, from where we do not know, all we know is that he has them.
Softly uttered British accented curses filled the room. "Fucking hell… Bloody Christ! Jesus!"
"The Topol nuclear missile is in transit to Port Said. However he will be removing it from there, taking it through the desert and we estimate that it will be launched from a point west of Douar Oulad Chetwan in the Moroccan desert. It is estimated that he will choose the cover of the Moroccan forests to cover his launch site and thus make it much more difficult to pinpoint his location." Keeter paused for a long moment. "It's going to mean that we're going to have to hit him before he takes his travelling circus on the road."
"You are meaning that we have to hit him while he's on the move in the desert before he reaches his destination?" A young flight lieutenant asked.
"That's correct." Keeter replied. "Because once he gets it under cover, we have no way of finding him except by dropping massive tons of ordnance on top of him hoping that we get secondaries. Admiral Nakamura will be mission lead. Wg Cdrs Abbott and Chamberlain will be flight leads. Abbott, you will be fighter lead for British fighters, Chamberlain, you are strike lead."
"Yes, sir!" Abbott and Chamberlain barked smartly.
Harm's Apartment, North of Union Station, Washington DC, 1700hrs.
Catherine sat on the couch. Her stomach had been bothering her all day and she had asked Kershaw if she could leave early. Having been warned once about sticking her nose into operations, she felt a lot better if she was out of the office and not able to overhear the bits of worrying news that kept cropping up and had Kershaw on tender-hooks. From what she could make out, the mission had gone south as did most of Webb's assignments. She didn't know what was currently going on, but it certainly made it appear as though nobody knew what the hell was going on and that didn't do much for her stress levels. She'd tried to go every day to Pimmitt Hills to see her mother, but sometimes her job didn't allow for it as there were fires to be put out on the legal front and many of those cases involved late nights. So she brought her brief-case over to Harm's place and sat down on the couch to go over her files. At least the thought of his scent and its presence kept her emotional equilibrium on an even keel.
Catherine looked over at the fridge, her stomach had settled enough from this morning's gymnastics to allow her to get herself something to eat. She'd brought over the majority of her food from her fridge to place into Harm's refrigerator, that way she didn't have to constantly go and order some food. Her potato casserole was now nestled in the fridge and it was the only thing that seemed to soothe her stomach after vomiting up half of last night's food into Harm's toilet and the other half in the bathroom at work. She sighed as she took a bowl from Harm's shelf and spooned a small helping of it into a bowl, and poured herself a glass of water. She then retrieved bowl and glass and headed back for the living room.
Somewhere in Cairo, 2145hrs
"Mr. Webb…Come!" Abdul said as he roughly yanked Clayton Webb to his feet. "We are going somewhere. You will come with us…"
"Where are we going?" Webb asked warily, but was rewarded with another vicious yank on his arm.
"No questions." The burly guard said.
Sheraton Jeddah Hotel, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 2245hrs
"It's too late, Colonel Mackenzie. We're not going to be able to get to the base until tomorrow." Catching a flight out of Cairo International was not able to be done until late in the evening and by the time the airliner touched down at the international airport in Jeddah, they had to find rooms. "We'll have to meet with the Vipers in the morning."
"So who's monitoring the shipment?" Mac asked; her tone suspicious. "If the package gets lost, then we're in deep trouble."
A C-17 over the Mediterranean Sea, 1900hrs Morocco Standard Time
"Hey, Roach!" SEAL Team Ten leader grinned at his buddy. Roach was the heavy gunner on the team. He manned the Accuracy International AS50 50 caliber sniper rifle. He was the guy who kept them all protected while they did the sneaking. According to their radio calls, he was "God". "You got all your ammo?"
"All right here, buddy." He tapped his back pack where he kept two extra magazines of five 50 cal. rounds each.
"OK…let's go over the deal guys. We HALO in at these coords here, hump three miles to the dock, watch the transfer take place…then we trail them all the way to wherever the hell; we light 'em up with lasers so Viper and Adder flights will pound the living shit out of those tangos. We got two platoons going in. Eight guys each. We'll separate into four man fire-teams and Fire Team Alpha will scout the dock, while Bravo, Charlie and Delta will watch their exit. At the rendezvous, we will be shadowed by Marlin and Tuna twenty miles off shore, we will exfil by the beach and by swimming out to either Marlin or Tuna whichever is closer. Understand the drill?"
"HOO-AH!" was the response. "Viper and Adder flights?"
"Two F/A-18F Super Hornets and Eight British Tornadoes."
"Haha! Brits coverin' our asses again." Cheered one of the sixteen.
"Let's make it count or DC's going up in flames." Team 10 Leader commented soberly.