KBL (8 page)

The instructor had almost tripped over himself he was laughing so hard. “Tomorrow, you’ll learn the only easy day . . . was frickin’
yes-ter-d-a-a-y!!
”

5

U.S. Consulate-General, Lahore, Pakistan
December 23, 2010, 1000 Hours Local Time

Ty Weaver dropped his cell phone into the secure locker outside the door of the consulate’s Regional Security Office, where the facility’s Sensitive Compartmentalized Information Facility, or SCIF, was located. He punched the cipher into the keypad and, careful not to disturb the plastic holly wreath, pulled the door open.

Weaver, thirty-six, was listed by the consulate as a technical and security consultant who owned Kronos International, an Orlando, Florida, security company. In point of fact, Kronos was a CIA front, and Weaver, who had spent seven years as an operator at Delta Force, the Army’s Tier One hostage rescue and counterterrorist unit based at Fort Bragg, was currently a GS-14 working for the Ground Branch of CIA’s Special Activity Division (SAD), the Agency’s paramilitary arm.

He’d joined CIA in 2007, shortly after he’d served on a joint CIA-Delta mission in northwest China. Since then, he’d done two six-month tours in Afghanistan and a four-month temporary duty assignment (TDY) at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad. For the past ten months, he’d been back home in Ashburn, Virginia, with his wife, Patty, working as an instructor at the West Virginia facility the Agency used to train its personnel in evasive and defensive driving maneuvers. It was perfect: a reverse commute every morning out to Summit Point, and home by five.

But in mid-October, Rich Erwin, SAD’s branch chief for special operations, had called him in and asked him to volunteer for a second TDY to Islamabad. The Agency needed an operator who knew the lay of the land to get out in the boonies and spot targets for its armed Predator drones. Ty had the experience in-country, as well as the tradecraft capabilities and the technical knowhow. So, would he go?

It was the absolute worst of times, and Ty let Erwin know why. Patty was five months pregnant. She’d had a miscarriage the previous year, and her doctor had ordered her to take things easy this time. This would be their first child. The Agency had promised that he wouldn’t have to travel until mid-2011.

He looked across the desk, furious that the branch chief had even brought the subject up.

Rich Erwin shrugged sympathetically. “Hey, I know how tough this is for you,” he said. “Problem is, we’ve just created a joint special program element with the Asymmetric Warfare Group’s D Squadron.”

That was news to Ty. For years the military’s special operations units and the Agency had had a prickly relationship. It was a leadership culture thing: sure, they’d been forced by circumstance and mission requirements to work together, but it was for the most part oil-and-water. The operators were fine; many had come from Tier One units or Marine recon. But at the top, there’d been no homogeneity, no symbiosis, very little of the finish-each-other’s-sentences kind of unit integrity practiced by Tier One operators.

But now the D/CIA had formed a tight working relationship with Wes Bolin over at JSOC. They did better than just get along—they actually enjoyed one another’s company. Big things were in the works. This TDY was, for lack of a better term, the test program to see if the top-down relationship would transfer to bottom-up.

“Which is why we need you, Ty. You’re basically the only guy here who both knows Pakistan and the folks at Meade well enough to integrate on short notice.”

Ty had to admit Rich had a point. SAD had its share of SEALs and Marines. But D Squadron, which was one of the two classified mission components of the Fort Meade–based AWG, was staffed in large part by former Delta operators and Airborne Rangers from the 75th Ranger Regiment. Ty had put in three years at the 1-75 before he’d been selected for Delta. Plus, he’d worked closely with AWG’s C Squadron in Helmand Province in Afghanistan in 2008 and 2009. He’d helped them refine an effective method for identifying and targeting high-value targets, Taliban bomb makers, and fabricators of the al-Qaeda network’s improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

The tactics had originally been developed in Iraq back in 2005 and 2006 by the counter-IED program named Constant Hawk. But they were significantly improved and enhanced in Helmand under the Asymmetric Warfare Group’s Whiskey Solo program.

And now CIA wanted to adapt Whiskey Solo to the unique mission requirements of AFPAK, the Afghan-Pakistan theater. The new compartment would be called Whiskey Trio. The main challenge? Whiskey Trio had to operate completely under the radar, because the ultranationalistic Pakis went batshit every time some Jihadi was blown into the well-known smithereens by a Hellfire.

Rich said, “It’s only four weeks.”

“A critical four weeks, so far as Patty’s concerned.”

“We’ll check up on her.” Rich read the skeptical look on Ty’s face. “I’m serious, dude. Daily, if you want. Get her full-time care, if that’s what it takes.”

Ty looked at his boss with pursed lips. “Goddammit, Rich.” He stood up. “I’m going down to the cafeteria for some coffee.”

Rich’s expression remained neutral. “Sure, go on, think it over. But bring me back a cup, okay? Black, no sugar.”

Of course he’d volunteered. At heart, Ty was still a Soldier who believed in the old-fashioned values of Duty, Honor, Country. Even so, he’d wrung extra funds out of Rich Erwin so that Patty would be covered 24/7 while he was gone. And on the upside, the TDY would give him a chance to catch up with his old Delta compadre, call-sign Loner, who was running AWG’s D Squadron these days. Loner was a lanky, dark-haired chief warrant officer who lived in Maryland about a forty-five-minute drive from Meade. He was the best pistol shot Ty had ever worked with. And one of the hardest workers.

Ty would travel in the same way as on his first TDY to Pakistan: on an official—as opposed to a diplomatic—passport and under the alias of Tim White. His cover was technical security consultant to the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad and the American Consulate in Lahore.

Loner and two other D Squadron shooters, Kent and Gary, would also come in on burgundy (official) passports as contract security personnel detailed to work as drivers for the State Department’s regional security officer in Islamabad. The RSO would then detail them to the Lahore consulate.

On paper, Ty would report to the RSOs in Lahore and Peshawar to do security surveys; in essence, he would be the advance man for diplomatic forays. Which he would indeed do, to maintain what is called in the intelligence business “cover for status.” Ty needed cover for status because both consulates, as well as the embassy in Islamabad, were chockablock with personnel the State Department called FSNs: Foreign Service nationals. FSNs were required because, to be blunt, not very many American diplomats are fluent in the language of the country to which they are assigned. Currently, for example, the entire State Department had only six diplomats who spoke fluent Pashto, and none of them worked in Lahore. It was therefore FSNs, not FSOs (U.S. Foreign Service officers) who actually carried out most of America’s diplomacy at the consulate. The Americans were limited to dealing with those Pakistanis who spoke English.

Moreover, CIA was convinced that many of the FSNs who worked as consular staff, visa examiners, drivers, exterior security guards, translators, clerks, maintenance crew, cooks, and secretaries either reported to, or were officers of, ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service.

It was a simple fact of life that every American consulate and embassy was riddled with intelligence operatives from the host country. Which is why Ty and his colleagues had to maintain their covers for status and actually do the work their visas said they were supposed to be doing.

Hostile surveillance and infiltrators were the reasons there were always areas within embassies and consulates that were secure, and where no FSNs were allowed. The regional security officer’s office suite was one of those secure areas. The consulate’s SCIF was inside the RSO’s suite. If the facility was large enough, CIA preferred to have its own SCIF. But in Lahore, even though the consulate was located in Pakistan’s second largest city, it shared quarters.

The regional security officer was a fortysomething smart-talking redhead Second Amendment devotee known around the consulate as Mr. Wade. His radio call sign was Mountaineer, because Mr. Wade had gone to West Virginia University and his blue and gold WVU sweatshirt hung on a coat hook in the office. He wore it as a good luck talisman during football season, and so he was wearing it now, because the 9–4 Mountaineers were scheduled to play in the Citrus Bowl in Orlando in five days. Wade had done tours in Baghdad, Kabul, and Beirut. It hadn’t taken him thirty minutes to figure out who Ty worked for.

But since RSOs are Foreign Service specialists, as opposed to Foreign Service officers, and they often have disdain for their caste-conscious FSO colleagues, Mr. Wade had been more than willing not only to play along, but to give Ty his wholehearted support. Besides, Mr. Wade enjoyed the company of the three AWG Soldiers who had dropped in shortly after Ty had arrived. They called themselves Eugene, Gary, and Kent. Wade labeled them The G-Men and The Demon. Demon because Kent, who insisted on opening beer bottles with his teeth, could also do incredible things with the boot knife he invariably carried in his sock.

“Yo, Mr. Wade. Merry-merry.”

The RSO looked up. “Yo, Mr. Tyster, or should I say Mr. Tim. Merry-merry and a White Christmas to
vous,
too.” Wade giggled and jerked his thumb toward the SCIF door. “You got a call from House o’ Spooks.”

“They say what they want?”

“Yeah. They said NSA just intercepted a secure message and now can confirm that Santa Claus is indeed coming to town.”

“Everywhere but here, right?”

“Oh, no. Santa always makes an appearance in Lahore. Instead of a sled he travels in a tuk-tuk, and he brings us dust and rain. Especially rain.”

The RSO jerked his thumb toward the Keurig machine. “Coffee? I got a care package today. Wolfgang Puck French Vanilla.”

Ty’s idea of real coffee was day-old percolator-brewed mud. “I’d settle for Yuban.”

“Whoban?

“Yuban.” Ty parked himself on the edge of the RSO’s desk. “You know, the famous caffeine terrorist, Yuban Bin Laden.”

“You ban Bin Laden?” Wade stifled a cackle. “Then you didn’t hear him say, ‘Wake up and smell the coffee, because Yuban Bin Tryin’ for almost ten years.’ ”

“Don’t remind me.” Ty slid off the desk. “Wasn’t there some CNN report a couple of months back that he was here in Pak, living the life of luxury in some villa?”

“Yeah, I heard it. Total disinformation. Listen, I know this country. He ain’t here. He’s hiding in plain sight.”

“Where?”

“Washington. Driving a cab.”

“Funny.” Ty plucked a mug off Wade’s bookshelf, took it over to the Keurig, and made himself a cup of the RSO’s coffee. “Not bad.” He blew over the top. “Hot. Langley say what they want?”

Wade stuck his lower lip out. “Uh-uh. But it can’t be good news. It’s Christmas. At Christmas, all bosses turn into Grinches. You’ll see—they’ll probably extend you again. Ask you to work right through the holidays.”

“Don’t even think that.”

“You’re right. Positive thoughts only. They’ll fly you home first class. Give you a month’s paid leave. Promote you to the senior service.”