Read Strike Force Charlie Online
Authors: Mack Maloney
Strike Force Charlie (13 page)
It was called Lost View Lake and the name was appropriate. It was two miles long and a half mile wide, and an underground spring pumping warm water from its bottom almost always gave it a dense layer of fog on its top. This was especially true near the lake's center, where the fog was frequently its thickest.
The strange mist was present in the morning hours, sometimes not burning off until noon, even in the warmest days of summer. It would return at dusk and linger again until the next day. For this reason, local boaters and fishermen avoided the rectangular lake, preferring to use one of the hundreds of others in the region for their recreation. There were no cottages on the lake, no hunting lodges, no tour boats. No people around at all. It was the perfect place to hide.
This is where the Sky Horse found itself this morning. Floating on its inflatable pontoons, all systems shut down, the five members of the ghost team trying to get some much-needed sleep but failing miserably at it, especially Ryder.
He was uncomfortably jammed in between the two pilots' seats up on the flight deck. The others were flopped about in the cargo bay below. All the access doors and windows were shut tight. But still, some of Lost View Lake's mysterious mist was seeping in.
“Are you sure
none
of those mooks we whacked had any cigarettes on them?” Ryder called down to the others now.
none
of those mooks we whacked had any cigarettes on them?” Ryder called down to the others now.
Only Puglisi stirred. “They did and we smoked them already,” he called back up to Ryder sleepily.
Ryder checked his own dilapidated pack of Marlboros. He had exactly two whole and three partially smoked cigarettes left. Under normal circumstances, that would have lasted him about an hour this early in the morning. That is, if he'd had a couple cups of coffee available to him. Which he didn't.
He tried to stretch out his legs; with the light of morning, it would be impossible to keep trying for any substantial sleep. He knew it was unhealthy and that lack of winks would catch up with him sooner or later. But he wasn't totally unhappy that he hadn't caught any more than a nap or two since the team left Cape Lonely. With his psyche turned inside out, going to sleep risked an even greater possibility of unwanted dreams these past few days. It was bad enough that his late wife haunted just about every moment of his sleep time; when he closed his eyes now, he saw flashes of hatchets and huge .50-caliber rounds tearing into dark flesh, and tiny dead pigs, having their throats cut. He could hear the pleas of those soccer players who were about to have their bodies filleted, the choking sounds of their comrades having their mouths stuffed with bacon. For a Muslim to be buried with a pig was the ultimate disgrace. It would prevent said Muslim from ever entering heaven. So far, the tiny flash-frozen pigs had suited that purpose for the victims the team had been able to throw into a grave. Those they couldn't bury, well, stuffing their mouths full of bacon would have to do.
Yes, this was a nasty business he was engaged in. He knew it. They
all
knew it, coming in. But it was nasty because it had to be. Brutal and nasty and painful and disgusting was the only language the Muslim fanatics understood, because that's exactly the way
they
conducted themselves. This was what the ghost team was all about. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, American style. Their mission out here in Middle
America was long-winded but apt: If the terrorists believed that killing Americans and dying in the act would get them a ticket into heaven, with 77 virgins waiting for themâif they died without disgrace, that isâthen it was up to the ghosts to at least make sure that, in addition to stopping them before they fired their Stinger missiles, they indeed must die in disgrace, as a warning to future terrorists that if the ghosts caught you, there would be no virgins waiting for you at the Pearly Gates. There would be no Pearly Gates. That's why all the pork products. That's why all the new fodder for his frequently disturbing dreams.
all
knew it, coming in. But it was nasty because it had to be. Brutal and nasty and painful and disgusting was the only language the Muslim fanatics understood, because that's exactly the way
they
conducted themselves. This was what the ghost team was all about. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, American style. Their mission out here in Middle
America was long-winded but apt: If the terrorists believed that killing Americans and dying in the act would get them a ticket into heaven, with 77 virgins waiting for themâif they died without disgrace, that isâthen it was up to the ghosts to at least make sure that, in addition to stopping them before they fired their Stinger missiles, they indeed must die in disgrace, as a warning to future terrorists that if the ghosts caught you, there would be no virgins waiting for you at the Pearly Gates. There would be no Pearly Gates. That's why all the pork products. That's why all the new fodder for his frequently disturbing dreams.
“And just for the record,” Ryder moaned now, “we don't have anything that could be called âextra' coffee?”
“One cup a day,” Puglisi replied rotely. He'd been given the job of lording over their scant provisions. “You can have it now, or tonight.”
Ryder yawned. Coffee would be better later in the day, when he really needed it. Master Chief Eddie Finch's Care packages had been well intentioned. They were indeed stuffed with MRE field rations. (Food was not a problemâand if it ever was, well, they could always eat the frozen pigs, right?) But giving them just one jar of instant coffee was an astronomical miscalculation. With this crew, it was gone the first night.
And no cigarettes at all? That was almost inhuman with this group of smokestacks. Even Bates was smoking now.
Â
Ryder surprised himself by actually dozing offâbut only for a minute or so.
He was woken again by the sound of the William Tell Overtureâin digital burps and bleats. In other words, a cell phone was ringing.
All five team members were up, awake, and alert in a second. Ryder jumped down to the cargo bay. Gallant started the copter's generators running. Fox and Puglisi unsheathed their weapons and ammo. Bates, though, was especially animated. One side of the copter's interior wall suddenly lit up with a barrage of colors. Green, yellow, blue,
red. Laptops were hanging all over the wall, their screens flashing madly, keyboards dropping as if on cue, modem wires going everywhere. This was Bates's monster. He called it his Eyeball Machine. Built with giddy determination from a care package full of Radio Shack components and, as it turned out, some stolen NSA software, no one else on the copter had a prayer of understanding what it was exactly. They weren't sure Bates understood it himself. But they all knew what it could do. It could find the Al Qaeda missile teams up to an hour before they were ready to strike.
red. Laptops were hanging all over the wall, their screens flashing madly, keyboards dropping as if on cue, modem wires going everywhere. This was Bates's monster. He called it his Eyeball Machine. Built with giddy determination from a care package full of Radio Shack components and, as it turned out, some stolen NSA software, no one else on the copter had a prayer of understanding what it was exactly. They weren't sure Bates understood it himself. But they all knew what it could do. It could find the Al Qaeda missile teams up to an hour before they were ready to strike.
It had taken Bates about two hours to put it together, maybe another three or four to get it working right. It was the stolen NSA software that did all the work. Very top-secret stuff that Bates didn't even realize was inside the care package until he opened it. Who put it in there? Who would have been in a position to steal it in the first place? No one even asked the question. The team had stopped thinking about such things long ago.
Ryder had asked Bates how the Eyeball worked right after the Campo Raid. Bates had looked back at him like he was from the Stone Age.
“Do you really want to know?” Bates had asked him back.
“Sure,” Ryder told him, reminding him he'd flown X-planes for twenty years; he wasn't such a rube to new technology.
“OK, do you know what a Tee-Voh is?” Bates then asked him. When Ryder shook his head no, Bates just let out a sigh.
He knew this was going to take a while.
Â
As Bates explained it then, the popular TIVO device had the ability to continuously search for TV programs on its owner's cable system, pulling in shows that its memory chips knew the owner had a preference for. Bates's machine worked on the same concept, except his preferences were to track down the Al Qaeda missile teams, and instead of scanning a TV cable system, his rig was continuously scanning all of the information-gathering computers belonging to the
CIA, the FBI, the NRO, just about every U.S. intelligence agency in the alphabet soup of acronyms, including the NSA itselfâand doing so quietly, of course. Again, the top-secret software did most of the work, worming its way into those agencies' systems, revealing everything and leaving no tracks behind. And because much of the data flowing into those systems was in real timeâsatellite photos, wiretaps, intercepted Net communicationsâthe information bouncing back to the 50-year-old chopper, floating in the middle of the foggy lake, was pretty much instantaneous. For many hours of the day, the ghosts were more plugged in than 99 percent of the intelligence officials in Washington.
CIA, the FBI, the NRO, just about every U.S. intelligence agency in the alphabet soup of acronyms, including the NSA itselfâand doing so quietly, of course. Again, the top-secret software did most of the work, worming its way into those agencies' systems, revealing everything and leaving no tracks behind. And because much of the data flowing into those systems was in real timeâsatellite photos, wiretaps, intercepted Net communicationsâthe information bouncing back to the 50-year-old chopper, floating in the middle of the foggy lake, was pretty much instantaneous. For many hours of the day, the ghosts were more plugged in than 99 percent of the intelligence officials in Washington.
As such, Bates's monster could do many things. But it was most effective in intercepting and then tracking cell-phone calls. Of course, this was relatively easy to do if you happened to hold the cell phone the call was being made to. That's why above the monster included a gallery of just that: cell phones. All different shapes, all different colors and sizes. Two dozen in all, with 24 different “rings,” these had belonged to the 12 terrorists they'd iced in the past 72 hours. Each mook had been carrying two cell phones on his person when the ghosts attacked. It was the first thing the ghosts looked for, before dispatching their unfortunate adversaries. The more cell phones they had, the closer they got to sniffing out the other “soccer players.”
The ghosts also knew how the underground Stinger cell worked; it worked the same as
all
Al Qaeda cells worked. The individual missile teams were broken down into subcells. They had no contact with one another once they'd been dropped off by the team bus at the place they were supposed to shoot down their target airliner. Only when they were in place in their snipers' nest would they make a call to another subcell, not talking, simply letting it ring. A call coming in on that particular phone meant the team was established and ready to proceed. It was the twenty-first century version of simple tom-tom communication.
all
Al Qaeda cells worked. The individual missile teams were broken down into subcells. They had no contact with one another once they'd been dropped off by the team bus at the place they were supposed to shoot down their target airliner. Only when they were in place in their snipers' nest would they make a call to another subcell, not talking, simply letting it ring. A call coming in on that particular phone meant the team was established and ready to proceed. It was the twenty-first century version of simple tom-tom communication.
As they had taken all these phones from the terrorists, when one of them rang it meant another terrorist missile
team was slithering into position. Simple as that. Hearing that noise inside the Sky Horse, though, was the equivalent of hearing an air-raid siren going off.
team was slithering into position. Simple as that. Hearing that noise inside the Sky Horse, though, was the equivalent of hearing an air-raid siren going off.
And this was where the NSA software
really
came in handy. It could tap into the ultrasecret
Keypad
satellite. This was the spy system in the sky that could trace any cell-phone call in the world and put a location to it. So, once the missile team made the establishing call, it was like they were putting a target on their backs. And as the ghosts had the team's schedule taken from the George Mann file, with each site marked 1 through 9, they knew approximately where the terrorists were going to strike next.
really
came in handy. It could tap into the ultrasecret
Keypad
satellite. This was the spy system in the sky that could trace any cell-phone call in the world and put a location to it. So, once the missile team made the establishing call, it was like they were putting a target on their backs. And as the ghosts had the team's schedule taken from the George Mann file, with each site marked 1 through 9, they knew approximately where the terrorists were going to strike next.
(Bates's machine could do many other things as well, which meant that he was getting even less sleep than Ryder. When Bates wasn't trying to track down the different missile squads, he was on the Internet nonstop, tapping into all kinds of things, in an effort to find the buses themselves. He routinely hacked into the Greyhound company's corporate computers, trying to pick up a clue on the missing vehicles. He also monitored state police computers, highway department computers, even those set up in tollbooths along the highways of the Midwest, hoping to catch any stray report of a Greyhound bus “acting funny.” But the mooks had the advantage here. They could move day or night and not attract any undue attention. On the other hand the ghosts had to be very judicious in when and how they flew. They couldn't give up precious flying in the dead of night to try to look for either bus; the time they used for that would probably allow one of the missile teams to get a clear shot at an airliner. So while they'd be able to catch the missile teams before they had a chance to act, they'd yet to catch up with the bus that was dropping the teams off. They were always just about a day behind.)
The team members crowded around the display of cell phones now.
Bates got the monster working. Jamming a pair of headphones down over his head, he started pounding on his keyboard like a madman, all while the cell phone continued to
ring. The others heard a storm of bleeps and clicks; then Bates reached over and finally turned the blinking cell phone to talk, in effect answering it. The other team members froze. The person on the other end quickly hung up, as he was supposed to. Bates typed some more, assaulting the keys at near light speed. Not two seconds later, he went thumbs-up. A colorful graph suddenly appeared on his main laptop screen. The others knew what this meant: Bates had been able to trace the call. They clenched their fists in silent triumph.
ring. The others heard a storm of bleeps and clicks; then Bates reached over and finally turned the blinking cell phone to talk, in effect answering it. The other team members froze. The person on the other end quickly hung up, as he was supposed to. Bates typed some more, assaulting the keys at near light speed. Not two seconds later, he went thumbs-up. A colorful graph suddenly appeared on his main laptop screen. The others knew what this meant: Bates had been able to trace the call. They clenched their fists in silent triumph.
He began typing again. Now his main laptop graphic split in twoâone was registering the residue of the call's electrical pattern. Each one was unique. The other side of the graphic was showing a GPS screen. A flashing “pong” circle began moving down from the upper left-hand corner. It got smaller and smaller. They watched this screen closely until the circle stopped flashing. Only then did Bates reach over and finally push the phone to off.
Then he turned to the others and said, “Just as we thought. They're close by ⦠.”
Â
They'd hit a home run with Campo. The flight over to Kentucky had been swift, low, and adventure-free. It was hard for the team members to think this way, because they were around it all the time, but the typical person on the ground, looking up, was not an expert on aircraft types. People saw a jet airlinerânot a Boeing 737. They saw a military jetânot an F-15 or an F-16. They saw a helicopterânot a UH-60 or a CH-56. Or a half-century-old S-58 Sky Horse.
So the team members were able to make the initial trip with little ruckus. According to the Mann schedule, Campo was stop number 1 for the Hello Soccer club. It was rough terrain and because it was not far from Louisville Airport, planes flying in the area were either descending for landings or still climbing in their takeoffs. In either configuration, they were slow, their pilots were distracted, and the planes were without much maneuverability at allâin other words, extremely vulnerable to a hit by a Stinger missile. So, thinking that the terrorists would head for the highest point in the
Campo area had the ghosts locked in on Mount Winslow from the beginning.
Campo area had the ghosts locked in on Mount Winslow from the beginning.
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