Target Acquisition

Kubrick looked up and down the hallway and, satisfied, pulled Brognola over to a quiet corner underneath an oil painting of Andrew Jackson. Kubrick was a big man, ex-Ranger and former Tenth Group Special Forces who’d been with Detachment Delta in El Salvador. His reputation as a no-nonsense operator and premier unconventional strategist preceded him, and Brognola was more than willing to listen to what he had to say.

“I got guys,” Kubrick began, “rolling out of four or five tours in the Sandbox or the Rockpile then disappearing into a sensitive security operation for Homeland for months on end.”

“Okay.” Brognola didn’t offer the man any help.

“Something I have on good authority my boys are calling Operation Blacksuit.”

“Really?”

“Really my ass, Hal. I got hard-core recon boys and SEALs coming back talking about a gang of cold-eye killers, some of them foreign nationals, doing very wild shit. I got Special Forces sergeants with twenty years in, talking about specialists with crazy mad skills. I got twenty-year-old Airborne Rangers telling me about men twice their age kicking their asses in training runs or during hand-to-hand drills.”

Brognola drew his mouth into a flat, sharp line. In the ranking of security clearances the operations the general described were deemed above top secret and were given something called code-name clearances. Admitting that you had knowledge of a code name you were not specifically assigned to was a criminal offense significant enough to have your general security clearance revoked and an internal security investigation launched.

Hal Brognola’s connection to the Justice Department was well established in the Capitol, even if the rest of his purview was decidedly murky. Brigadier General Brooks Kubrick had just taken a very big risk by admitting his knowledge of the assignment of special operations personnel to the security of Stony Man Farm.

Brognola knew such a savvy individual would not commit such a faux pas lightly.

“Sounds impressive,” he said, voice even.

“Impressive? You’re right, what I’m hearing is impressive. I’m stretched to the breaking point for operators, I got more missions than operators, I got casualty rates rivaling my train-up rates, I’m short guys, guns and goods but long on tangos and I discover the Justice Department is sitting on a crew of shooters that make the FBI’s hostage-rescue team look like beat cops.”

“You’re starting to make me feel like a cheerleader who’s just wandered into the locker room, Kubrick. Is there a point to this?”

The general turned away and released a pent-up breath. “I got a problem, Hal. I need help. The Agency has dumped a real dog of an operation in my lap. In Pakistan.”

“What are we talking about specifically?” Brognola asked.

“You know the KLPD?”

“Khadi Lun Pe Dhoka,” Brognola answered automatically. “A sort of ‘boys in the basement’ bureau in their intelligence agency.”

“Exactly, bad mojo boys. Thick with the Taliban back in the day. The only Pakistani intelligence group to have any worthwhile presence in the lawless tribal regions to the northwest. For all the wrong reasons.”

“That jives with what I know,” Brognola conceded.

“The Agency put a task force into Islamabad. Paramilitary operators, almost exclusively made up by ex-Special Forces communication sergeants. Their job is to do electronic countersurveillance on the Pakistani security apparatus.”

“Help us find out who are the bad guys pretending to be good guys.”

“Exactly.” Brooks nodded. “I’ve got a list of KLPD agents directing enemy combatant operations. They’re working with al Qaeda cells, Taliban splinter groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba. But everyone has a political patron in the government. They have juice or cover or plausible deniability. They’re operating with immunity. Every time we turn around they’re screwing us. We can’t put our boys up into Waziristan without these snakes fucking us.”

“What precisely are you asking me for, Brigadier?”

“I got a honey pot operation. I got time, place, an A-list of partygoers. I got a pipeline in and out under everyone’s noses. I got a money shot of a direct-action takedown.”

“What’s the problem?”

“Prince Ziad Jarrah bin Sultan al-Thani.”

“He is…what, a Saudi?”

“A crown prince, or the son of a crown prince. His father was very high up in the defense ministry. Very high up. So high up I can’t get a green light on this op because his highness the son of his highness Hadji son of a bitch is playing sleepover at my hit site. He’s dirty as hell, spending his allowance money funding suicide bombers and sport torturers.”

Brognola nodded. “You wearing a wire, Brigadier?”

“What?” Kubrick seemed genuinely bewildered, but Brognola wasn’t at his first rodeo.

“A wire. You working with a special investigator?” Brognola slapped him in the chest, feeling for a hidden microphone.

“Jesus, Hal, no! I swear on my kids,” Kubrick protested.

In a second Brognola relied on decades of street experience and made his decision. He reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a business card. He reached out and carefully placed it into the JSOC officer’s hand.

“That e-address is tight as a nun’s habit, Brigadier. You send me what you have and I’ll see what we can do.”

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

BROGNOLA LOOKED UP at Barbara Price.

“What do you think?”

The honey-blonde Stony Man mission controller sat on the edge of the War Room’s massive conference table, a cup of coffee in her hand. She cut her eyes away from Brognola toward Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman, the head of her cyberteam. From his wheelchair Kurtzman deftly worked at the keyboard built into the unit.

“I think, Hal, that you handed me a complete operation tied up with a pretty pink bow.” The former NSA manager began ticking points off on her slender fingers. “Initial intelligence. Field reconnaissance. Logistical support to include transportation. Safehouse with arms, explosives, equipment and fresh changes of underwear.”

Brognola, seeing her starting to really warm up, gently interrupted. “Your point, Barb?”

“My point is that it’s one thing working with Agency, or Homeland or even Pentagon through SOG’s executive charter. It’s what, in part, we were designed to do from the beginning.”

“But?”

“But.” Kurtzman spoke up, “that’s not exactly what’s happening here.”

Price nodded. “This is a JSOC gig from scratch to burn. You’re just plugging the boys in as interchangeable with DEVGRU or CAG.” She paused and shrugged. “Or the Rangers, for all that goes.”

Barbara Price was listing off the premier units of the Joint Special Operations Command. The Combat Application Group, or CAG, was the elite Army counterterrorism and hostage rescue unit usually referred to as Delta Force, while DEVGRU, or the United States Naval Special Warfare DEVelopment GRoUp, was the successor to the more common reference of SEAL Team 6.

“You start doing this in this fashion,” Kurtzman added, “then where does it end? Remember Force Recon? The Marines tried for decades to keep that asset to themselves but now it’s out of Corps control and in JSOC’s.”

“The Marines got tired of seeing Green Berets and SEALs getting all the covert action and agreed to the move,” Brognola pointed out. “Look, this isn’t an attempt to poach our crews. It’s our specialty—last-minute, high degree of difficulty, direct action. This isn’t an attempt by the Pentagon to piss on our turf—it’s a professional favor. We’ve used and abused their personnel and equipment before, though they didn’t necessarily know it was us. What’s the problem?”

“I guess that is,” Kurtzman said. “JSOC initiated this…directly. It wasn’t a request or system of briefings channeled through Homeland or the Executive Office. They’ve thrown an end run, broken the cone of silence and come to us face-to-face. Something’s changed.”

“How do we know he’s not working with a Senate or Congressional special prosecutor? Times have changed, Hal. They’re trying to put covert-ops guys in prison these days.”

“Look, I ran Kubrick’s name past my Justice contacts. The FBI had nothing on him. Barb’s own check with NSA says Kubrick did some questionable things in El Salvador back in the day. He’s not a good candidate for setting us up. He checks out, guys. This is about killing bad guys with mass political protection. We’re all on the same side. The brigadier’s not working with the New York Times, people.”

Price pursed her lips then folded her arms. “I’ll alert the boys.”