Chapter 41
Naval Air Station Sigonella
The room was a paramilitary’s dream. And an enemy’s nightmare. Carbines and subguns, sidearms and grenade launchers. Sniper rifles chambered for various rounds, plate carriers, optic devices. And of course, ammunition. Mountains of ammunition.
This was the Devil’s Playground.
The seven operators inside at that moment most certainly did.
“When did they stand up this place?” Ding asked, turning a TAC-338 in his hands.
“Within the last year,” Clark replied as he shrugged on a plate carrier for size.
“We’ve been closing armories downrange in recent years, and somebody decided it would be a good idea to set one up on the doorstep of Africa and the Middle East that was tailored for units like ours. Sigonella was the natural choice.”
“We needed this very much,” piped in Bauer as he jacked nine-millimeter rounds into a magazine. “The weapons we have been using were not ideal.”
Noticing that his team was plundering the room like a Black Friday doorbuster sale, Clark said, “Keep in mind, people, our new airplane does have weight limitations.”
It was a valid point. The C-17 that had brought them here from Incirlik would soon depart.
Waiting on the ramp to whisk them to Tangier, courtesy of the CIA’s Air Branch, was a Gulfstream G650.
The high-performance business jet offered speed and anonymity, but it didn’t have the payload capacity of a heavy-lift transport.
“Everybody grab a set of this comm gear,” he added, showing a miniaturized earbud and mic combo.
“How long do we have?” Charlie asked.
“Our air chariot awaits. There will be provisions on board so no stopping at the club for happy hour. This one stop was necessary, but as soon as we’re done here, we load up and launch.”
“Do we know where we will be staying when we reach Tangier?” asked Toussaint.
“I called the Four Seasons, but they were booked,” Ding said.
Given the recent operational tempo, Clark was encouraged by his team’s lighthearted mood.
The squad was at full strength. Ding had acquired antibiotics for his ear infection back at Incirlik, and it was looking much improved.
For his part, Wu was moving smoothly, the injury to his leg having been treated and confirmed as minor.
“The State Department has people working on that,” Clark said. “I’d expect another short-term rental.”
Ten minutes later, he cut off the feeding frenzy. They loaded up into the crew bus that had brought them here, and minutes later everyone was humping their new gear across the tarmac to the Gulfstream’s cargo hold. When they finished loading, the bay was bursting with Pelican cases and rucks.
The jet was standard-issue CIA, a larger version of the off-white Lear that had been in Bodrum days earlier, waiting for a connecting passenger who’d never arrived.
The pilots, too, were agency. Tom Hooper was compact, fortysomething, with mussed surfer-blond hair.
He met them at the boarding stairs wearing civilian clothes and a Navy ball cap.
“Welcome aboard Mystery Air. Flights to nowhere are our specialty!”
“Do we have a flight attendant today?” Wu asked. He was the only bachelor on the team.
“That’s a negative. Food and drinks are self-service. The exception is the java. The coffeepot has a tendency to catch fire, so leave that to us.”
The copilot came out of the cockpit and introduced himself.
Brian Sesniak was big and amiable, a few years younger than Hooper.
After everyone took their seats, he provided a bare-bones preflight announcement, covering emergency exit procedures, how to wear a buttercup oxygen mask, and an approximate flight time to Tangier.
His spiel included the hand motions of an airline flight attendant and a shit-eating grin, and earned a raucous cheer at the end.
The seating configuration was less than business class—not the plush club chairs a corporate CEO would expect, but standard airline-type seats in an arbitrary configuration.
Clark sat next to Ding as the jet began taxiing.
“You expect any trouble bringing this gun show into Morocco?” Ding asked.
“State promises we’ll get a pass.”
It was a quietly common arrangement. When paramilitaries traveled the world heavily armed, the first order of business was to not be thrown in jail for bringing weapons and explosives into a neutral country.
One method was to land at a remote airfield with no immigration oversight, but that wasn’t going to happen tonight.
The alternative was for the State Department to request special dispensation from customs and immigration authorities.
This ranged from completely looking the other way to softened inspections.
It was a malleable concept shaped on a variety of factors: the friendliness of the standing government, the regional diplomatic climate, and favors owed. Outright bribery wasn’t off the table.
Clark said, “Our instructions are to leave the heavy weapons on board—don’t ask, don’t tell.
Those are only a contingency anyway—we’re not looking to start a shooting war.
Security has been arranged for the aircraft.
We’re allowed to carry what we can conceal and won’t get hassled about it.
Our mission is to find Klaus, get him back to the jet, and haul ass out. ”
“What could be easier?”
Clark shot his son-in-law a severe look.
“Not getting superstitious in your old age, are you?”
“I’ll ignore that.”
Ding grinned. He did enjoy poking the bear. The engines spooled up, and the jet began its takeoff roll.
“Any idea how we’re going to find Klaus?” Ding asked.
“That’s the sticking point,” said Clark. “We have no clue as to where he’s holed up, and the seven of us aren’t going to find him by roaming the streets. We need a vector, some kind of intel. I’m told all the agencies are working on it, including Cyber Cell 6.”
“Kyle Ryan’s unit?”
“Yep. His new AI platform has been on a roll.”
“Let’s hope it keeps going. Without some direction, we’re going to be playing a lot of gin rummy.”
Clark gave Ding a hard stare. “I thought snipers were supposed to be patient.”
“And I thought abuelos were supposed to be retired.”
“Yeah, well…that’s the thing about being an abuelo. It makes you think about the next generation, what you’re leaving behind.”
“Making the world a better place and all that?”
“I guess.” Clark looked out the oval window, saw the tawny coastline of Sicily falling away.
“But some days it does wear on you. The world is changing fast, and we humans aren’t handling it well.
AI, social media, surveillance states. It’s like civilization is riding a centrifuge that keeps going faster and faster. ”
“Technology’s not all bad—it depends how you use it. You just mentioned that Kyle’s team is leveraging our latest and greatest to find Klaus.”
“True. But we’re not the only ones with technology.”
“Malenkov?”
“Could be. He used to be the jefe of the SSD.”
“But he’s gone private,” Ding argued. “A guy like that wouldn’t have deep cyber for finding Klaus.”
“A guy like that shouldn’t have had a state-of-the-art electronic device that could bring down an airliner.”
To that Chavez had no response. Silence took hold as the Gulfstream streaked high into the gathering Mediterranean dusk.