American Operator, page 25
part #4 of Tier One Series
A lump the size of a golf ball formed in her throat. “You want me to take this now?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “When the time is right, you’ll know.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The place where you are going, Amanda, there is no coming back from. The people who will finish your interrogation will desecrate you. They will mutilate your body and soul, and I can’t . . .” He closed his eyes and exhaled. “I give you this as a mercy.”
He held out the little metallic packet.
She accepted it.
“Why? Why are you doing this?”
“You chose to play the world’s most dangerous game, and you did it for what I know were noble reasons. Unfortunately, your handlers did not dissuade you of this egregious miscalculation. They sent you, naive and unprepared, into the sewer to battle monsters you were never equipped to challenge. I am not a moral man, Amanda Allen, but I do follow a code.”
“How does it work?” she asked, not believing she was contemplating what she was contemplating.
“There is a glass pearl inside the blister pack. The pearl contains a lethal dose of liquid potassium cyanide. All you have to do is put it in your mouth and bite down. The poison kills quickly, stopping your heart within seconds of exposure. But be careful. If you swallow the pill without cracking the shell first, it will pass through your digestive system without incident. The pearls are designed that way on purpose, to give the operator the ultimate choice in the moment. But choose wisely, because you won’t get a second chance.”
She nodded and tucked the little blister pack in her right pants pocket.
He returned the black zipper case to the duffel bag and walked to the door to leave.
“Wait,” she said as he rapped his fist against the door. “Tell me your name.”
He looked back at her, considering for a beat. “You can call me Prime.”
CHAPTER 30
Two Blocks South of the Target Compound
Manbij, Syria
May 8
0020 Local Time
Dempsey watched with approval as Amraz Demir checked over his weapons and kit in the dim light of the garage. Raz was kitted up like a professional soldier, not like some street thug or foreign militia fighter. Dempsey had seen the kid in action—he had a reasonable partner for this assault.
And a reasonable weapon in the up-armored BMW.
“This is going to be fun,” Raz said with a white-toothed grin.
“I don’t think ‘fun’ is the word I’d use to describe what we’re about to do,” Dempsey said, remembering what happened the last time he’d tried to rescue Allen.
“Yeah, well,” Raz said with a chuckle, “I’ve done eighteen assaults since coming to Manbij, and all of them alone. Just having another shooter in the car makes it fun.”
“My team will be on time on target as we arrive. There’ll be more firepower than you know what to do with. But listen, Raz, you make a point that I want to talk about. You’ve had a couple of years of riding solo, and being a cowboy has kept you alive. This operation is about precision. As part of this tactical team, I need you to follow commands. If we all work together, we can be in and out in minutes, but if you’re off doing your own Lone Ranger thing, then I guarantee someone will get hurt who shouldn’t. Okay?”
“Check,” Raz said. “I was a Marine medic, remember? If there is one thing we do well, it’s follow orders and rules of engagement.”
“We cover each other, fire and move together; I’ll relay comms to you as they come to me.”
“You’re the boss,” Raz said.
Dempsey nodded, satisfied. Their scouting mission earlier in the day and the Reaper surveillance had confirmed with a high degree of confidence that Amanda Allen was being held in the compound Raz had identified. After that, Adamo and Smith had moved into place all the chess pieces necessary to try again. The plan was simple: Dempsey and Raz would crash the front gate in the armored BMW, drawing fire and attention to the front of the compound. The rest of the Ember team, currently inbound on an Osprey from the USS Ronald Reagan, would arrive thirty seconds later. The pilots would drop Grimes on the roof of the outbuilding and then hover just long enough for the rest of the assault team, led by Munn, to fast-rope down inside the compound wall. Munn’s team would breach the rear of the compound while Dempsey and Raz entered from the front. If everything went according to plan, they’d have Allen out in less than three minutes, with everyone EXFILLING on the Osprey.
He looked at his watch, then patted the dirty, dimpled hood of the BMW. “Let’s get this beast into position.”
He let Raz slide into the driver’s seat, resisting the almost overpowering urge to take control of the vehicle, then slipped into the passenger’s seat, his assault rifle cradled in his lap. The engine roared to life. Dempsey looked at Raz. The smile on the kid’s face eclipsed mere pride. The BMW was more than just a car to him; it was his guardian angel—a partner in crime that had saved his ass countless times in countless impossible situations.
Dempsey laughed.
“What’s funny?” Raz said, a bit defensive.
He shook his head and held up a hand. “Nothing . . . or maybe the whole damn thing. I did some pretty insane stuff when I was a SEAL—even more insane stuff since I joined this team—but nothing like crashing through the gate of a heavily guarded enemy compound in a luxury sedan riding next to your crazy ass.”
Raz smiled and put the transmission into drive. “In the immortal words of John McClane—yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!”
“Let’s go save this girl,” Dempsey said, clapping Raz on the shoulder.
They pulled out of the garage and onto the dark and empty nighttime street.
“We have you on the move, Atlas,” Baldwin said.
“You’re five by, Olympus,” Dempsey said. He looked over at Raz and gave him a thumbs-up. “We have comms and they have eyes on us.”
Raz nodded.
“Banshee is inbound, on schedule,” Baldwin reported, referring to the inbound Osprey by its call sign.
“Atlas, Titan One,” said Munn’s voice on the line. “It’s good to finally hear your voice, man. You good?”
“All good. Moving into position,” he said. “Really happy to have you guys onboard this time around.”
“Roger that, brother,” Munn said, and Dempsey could practically hear the grin on his face. “I’ll call us at the IP and then call your hit. Once you take the gate, we’ll be on the slide in ten seconds.”
“Check.”
Dempsey tapped the side of the trigger guard. In a few more minutes, it would be over. Amanda Allen would be safe, he would be back with his team, and they would all be on a bird heading home.
CHAPTER 31
Amanda paced the tile floor, fingering the small glass pellet in her pocket and trying not to think about what was next. They were moving her, and if the Man not Malik was to be believed, the fate awaiting her was worse than death. But she would not let it come to that.
She looked at the heavy wooden door to her cell.
The sands in her hourglass had run out. The next time they opened that door would be her final opportunity to escape. Frantically, she scanned the room for the millionth time, looking for something, anything she could use as a weapon.
There’s nothing . . . fucking nothing!
Then her eye caught a glint of silver behind her piss bucket, and an idea came to her. She ran to the bucket, picked up the Coke can, and then, grabbing the top in her right hand and bottom in her left, she began to twist—twisting and twisting until finally the two halves pulled apart, leaving a short jagged spiral of aluminum.
It was something.
She noticed a thin red line appear across her middle knuckle where an edge had cut her and she hadn’t even felt it. She walked to the center of the room. Whoever came for her would have to enter the room to get her, and she prayed they’d be lazy and leave the door open. She stood waiting and staring at the door, her mind running over memories from a class at the Farm where they’d taught her how to use and apply lethal force. She remembered wondering at the time why someone like her, someone tasked with intelligence gathering from an office, would need to know how to kill a person. But now here she was, desperately needing to remember. The twisted aluminum would not penetrate the temple, for sure, nor could she jam the thin edge up into the hole at the base of the skull, the perfect place to instantly incapacitate an attacker as their brain becomes separated from their body. No, the aluminum wasn’t rigid enough to stab, but her bleeding knuckle was proof it could cut.
The throat, then.
She held her impromptu weapons, one in each hand, behind her back and talked to herself as if her Farm instructor were in the room with her: The carotid arteries are deeper than you think. You need to penetrate an inch or two, more in someone with a thick neck, to sever them. Once you’re in the neck, you need to twist your blade around to shred the artery. If you just slice it, the muscular wall of the artery contracts, and the bleeding is much slower. Open one artery and then the other, and blood flow to the brain all but stops.
She heard a click.
Her heart rate picked up. Next came the sound of wood scraping wood as the door was opened. She tightened her grips on the two halves of the shredded Coke can.
I’m leaving here free or in a fucking body bag.
Suddenly, the thought of dying didn’t frighten her nearly as much as the thought of having that fucking black hood thrown over her head.
Hinges creaked and the door opened.
The broken tooth man came in, his face dark and unhappy. He had the hood in one hand and a flex-tie in the other. He barked at her, his hands gesturing for her to come to him. She didn’t move, her head hung in submission and eyes down. The more she looked beaten, the less he would expect what was coming.
He barked again.
She stared at the floor, still frozen.
She could feel him moving toward her and then saw his feet.
He grabbed her left arm.
She readied herself, tightening her core and visualizing the strike.
Outside, she heard shouting. A heartbeat later, an explosion rocked the compound, followed by automatic weapon fire. She felt the broken tooth man’s grip on her left arm loosen as he looked over his shoulder and hollered into the hall. Instead of pondering what was happening, she simply exploited the opportunity. Her gaze ticked to the left side of his neck, and with every ounce of weight and strength she possessed, she drove the jagged spiral of aluminum into her captor’s neck. The razor-sharp metal pierced his flesh, and as it did, she pressed it deeper, twisting her wrist. The man stumbled backward, tripped, and fell. But he pulled her with him, and she landed on top of him. The back of his head smacked the tile floor with a resounding thud. Blood sprayed from his neck, spattering the side of her face as she scrambled to straddle his chest. She struck with the other shard, this time going for his eye instead of the neck. This strike connected as well, and he bellowed with pain and rage. She struck again with her right hand, targeting his other eye, then just his face in general—striking faster and faster, harder and harder.
Screaming and slicing.
Slicing and screaming.
Again and again . . .
And again.
Beneath her, he made a gurgling sound and feebly pawed at his blinded eyes and ruined neck. Outside, she heard more shouting and more gunfire. She climbed off his chest and stood above him—the hulking killer, rapist, terrorist whom she’d somehow just vanquished—and watched the blood pour from his eviscerated face and neck. Then she heard a voice in her head, not her voice but the words from her instructor at the Farm, a former Green Beret.
This tango is down. Time to move.
She spat on the bastard’s corpse. “Fuck you,” she growled, wiped the blood splatter from her face with her sleeve, and then moved to the door. Her focus suddenly sharpened, and she became aware, as if for the first time, that an intense gunfight was raging outside. Could this be another rescue attempt? Her heart fluttered in her chest. Perhaps she should shelter in place and wait?
No! I’m not waiting for anyone to come for me. I’m not a prisoner anymore, not now . . . not ever again.
Amanda crouched beside the door and peered into the hallway. She looked left, then right, and finding it deserted, she stepped out of her cell. She dashed across the hall and pressed her back against the wall. Then she sidestepped until she reached the cased opening leading into the next room. She peeked around the corner for a quick look and pulled her head back. The room on the other side of the wall appeared to be a sitting or gathering room with a tile floor and two small sofas facing each other with a coffee table between. She tried to remember the path she’d taken when they’d dragged her into this place, but she’d been wearing a hood and had been disoriented. She was pretty sure she’d walked across that tile floor. Yes, she was almost positive she had. Gunfire reverberated outside as the battle raging became more intense with each passing second. Her plan was simple: get out of the house where the Americans could see her and she could see them. Hopefully they would then provide cover fire while she ran to one of their covered positions. She exhaled, steeled her nerves, then dashed around the corner.
The room had been unoccupied on her last look, but not now. A lanky young man was backpedaling into the space, firing an AK-47 at a target in the opposite direction. Her brain performed a split-second calculation and realized that turning around and running away was a nonstarter. So she did the only thing she could do—dropped her shoulder and slammed it into the small of his back. He arched under the blow, lost his two-hand grip on his weapon, and sprayed the walls and ceiling with bullets. She didn’t have the mass or power to take him down, but she used her momentum and the power of her legs to drive him forward and smash him into the opposite wall. Without missing a beat, she drove her right knee up and between the man’s legs from behind, smashing his groin. He cried out and dropped his weapon as she kneed him a second time, but before she could land a third strike, he whirled and tackled her to the floor. She hit the tile hard, the impact knocking all the breath from her lungs. Time slipped into slow motion as his hands found her neck. She beat against his forearms as he began to choke her, but it was pointless. His grip was like iron. Then she remembered the cyanide bead in her pocket. Her right hand flew to her pocket, and her fingertips found the little glass sphere. As black clouds appeared in her peripheral vision, she reached up and tried to put the bead in his mouth, but his lips were pressed shut tight. In desperation, she dug her left thumbnail into his right eye. He screamed, and she put the glass bead into his open mouth. Then, in an adrenaline-surged last moment of consciousness, she drove the palm of her hand into the bottom of his chin, slamming his jaw shut and praying the fragile glass sphere would break.
If it didn’t, she would be dead.
Blackness eclipsed her vision, and she felt herself slipping into unconsciousness . . . Then the pressure on her neck disappeared. She gasped, sucking in a breath and hyperventilating as the world came back into focus. Above her, the terrorist arched his back and began to shudder. Then his eyes went wide and all the muscles in his body began to contract violently. Amanda pushed out from under him, crabbing backward on hands and feet, as he spewed frothy foam tinged with blood from his mouth. He began to seize, and she watched him tip and hit the ground like a log. After two or three seconds of twitching, he abruptly stopped, became rigid for a moment, and then lay still.
Outside, gunfire continued to rage, but between volleys she heard the unmistakable thrumming of helicopter rotors. And the sound was getting louder. Emotions swelled over her, hope and anticipation, as she rose on shaky feet. With bolstered resolve, she picked up the assault rifle from the floor.
“They came back for me,” she murmured, bringing the weapon up. “And this time they’re not leaving without me.”
CHAPTER 32
Target Compound Courtyard
Manbij, Syria
0035 Local Time
“Were you expecting this kind of resistance?” Raz hollered at Dempsey from his crouched position behind the BMW.
“No,” Dempsey shouted as another wave of rifle fire ricocheted over the hood of the armored car that was the only thing keeping them alive. He shifted low and left, popped up, and fired several three-round bursts at the line of shooters crouched behind a cluster of vehicles in front of the main house. His rounds didn’t find a target.
Damn, these guys are good.
Less than five minutes before their planned assault, Baldwin had observed and reported that a convoy of three vehicles was arriving at the compound. This unexpected complication was simply par for the course as far as the Amanda Allen rescue endeavor was concerned. Of course the terrorists were moving her again. And of course they’d brought lots of extra shooters to help out and spoil the raid again. With the Ember assault team on an Osprey en route from the Reagan and no FARP nearby to fall back on, they had no alternative but to stick to the plan and timetable as briefed. Dempsey and Raz had breached the front gate successfully and killed three tangos, but after that, things had gone to hell. Instead of quickly gaining the upper hand and dropping the rest of the insurgents like plinking cans, the remaining guys they were up against moved and shot like experienced operators.
“These guys must be YPG fighters,” Dempsey yelled at Raz.
“No, I don’t think so. YPG doesn’t have vehicles that nice,” Raz shouted, referring to the three black SUVs parked in a defensive semicircle by the compound’s front entrance. “And they’re not dressed like YPG guys.”
“Titan, Atlas, we’re pinned down,” Dempsey barked. “SITREP?”
“Atlas, this is Titan One” came Munn’s voice. “Overwatch is in place on top of the garage north of your position. But after dropping Zeus, we encountered heavy direct fire and couldn’t get the team on the rope. Our pilot is looping around and will insert on the other side of the compound—east of you—so we can try to flank the shooters you have engaged.”
