SEAL Team 666: A Novel Page 24

  She explained her situation.

  “I’d love to help, Alexis, but it looks like there’s a big operation building along the Pakistan border. CENTCOM intends to conduct a series of airstrikes to root out some of Haqqani militant leaders in Northern Waziristan. C-130s have begun dropping psyop leaflets as part of an information campaign warning the militants that they’re going to be bombed.”

  “If we warn them, won’t they flee?”

  “Doesn’t work that way. Muslims are used to being threatened. It’s part of their culture to ignore it. Psychological Operations was hugely successful in Desert Storm One, responsible for upwards of three hundred thousand defections.”

  “I’ve seen some of the leaflets they used portraying Saddam as a devil.”

  “Those weren’t the successful ones. SOCOM had C-130s dropping leaflets on targets, calling them out by name and warning them that they’d be bombed the next day. Then they did exactly that. After the third or fourth time the C-130s dropped their leaflets, the Iraqis got the message. They’d take off running. It got to the point where they didn’t have to drop conventional bombs, just paper.”

  “Nice. And they intend on using that in Waziristan?”

  “Yeah. Only they’re going to drop GBU-43s. We call them MOABs.”

  “I’m not up on my bomb nomenclature. What’s a MOAB?”

  “Stands for ‘mother of all bombs.’ Like the BLU-82, a fuel air explosive used to clear landing zones, it requires presidential approval for release. It’s a twenty-one-thousand-pound bomb containing nineteen thousand pounds of H6 explosive. It vaporizes everything within a square mile, then continues its devastation, gradually diminishing to nothing on the farthest edge of its effective range.”

  Billings realized her jaw had dropped. She closed it as she thought about the absolute devastation one of those would do on downtown Washington, D.C., or any major city for that matter.

  “I know. We haven’t used it very often. The Russians have been using thermobaric bombs since their turn in Afghanistan. In addition to doing damage, they suck the air out of caves and anything within the blast radius. MOAB has a tremendous thermobaric capacity.”

  “So the intent is to drop leaflets, then the MOABs?”

  “Yep.”

  “How many will they drop?”

  “No one knows. They brought seventeen of them into theater yesterday, though.”

  Billings took a moment to process the information. Finally she turned back to the map. She thanked him and hung up. She had probably one more call to make. She went into the other room and spun up the video feed. It rang twice before it answered.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Vice President. I’m engaged in an issue here and need permission to reach across the pond to our friends in Whitehall.”

  He had a face that was Hollywood handsome and a voice made for politics. He was a moderate. He was a consensus builder. He would have been president had it not been for information surfacing about how he’d arranged for an abortion for his girlfriend in college.

  “Why can’t we handle it?”

  “Operation PUFF DRAGON.”

  “That would do it.” The vice president leaned back in his chair. Behind him was his desk in his working office on the grounds of the Naval Observatory. Pictures of his wife and Great Danes rested in silver frames. Paperwork was scattered on the desk’s surface. “Is this regarding what you briefed me before?”

  “It is, sir. Triple Six has found the locus of the problem and needs some support. We’re losing priority as we speak.”

  The vice president shook his head and frowned. “This is bad timing. PUFF DRAGON needs those assets. As much as we need Triple Six, I can’t change priorities.”

  “I realize that, sir. But I have another option. HMS Victoria is operating in the Indian Ocean en route to resupply at Diego Garcia. I might be able to convince the admiral aboard the vessel to send a sortie or two in support of our men.”

  The vice president made an expression halfway between impressed and perplexed. “How would you go about doing that?”

  “Long or short of it?”

  “Short.”

  “SEALs rescued him from North Vietnam in 1971. I think I can appeal to his sense of gratitude.”

  The smile of the vice president was one that any other politician would kill for. He used it now. “Sounds like a good time to collect, Alexis.”

  “It does. This mean I can make that call?”

  The smile dropped. “Make that call, but know this. The administration has deniability. If this becomes a cockup, you’ll be on your own.”

  “I expected nothing less, sir.”

  57

  ON THE ROAD TO KADWAN. AFTERNOON.

  Walker and Yaya sat on the bench seat of the old five-ton truck as it rolled down the Yangon-Mandalay road, or Highway 1. Eddie drove. He had the magic cable on his lap. Twice, Walker had to order him not to stick it in his mouth. It was bad enough that they were on a civilian road. They didn’t need any more attention given to them.

  Walker sat in the middle, while Yaya sat near the door. They both wore caps, pulled low over their eyes, from the soldiers they’d killed. Yaya could pass with his skin color, but Walker was the whitest thing on the road, so he sat in the middle scrunched down as best he could. He kept his 9mm in his lap, pointed at Eddie.

  Yaya kept busy with Eddie’s cell phone. He had it apart and was checking the SIM chips.

  They’d removed the bodies from the back of the truck and left them in the hole. They cleaned the truck bed as best they could, then reconnoitered the way to Kadwan. It was less than two hundred kilometers south of Thaton. Plus another ten kilometers, because they still had to get through the city, and they should be there within three hours, give or take, depending on traffic, which as it turned out was the definition of congestion. Motorcycles were the most popular vehicles by far. White mini-pickups seemed to be the cargo haulers of choice, although they passed several motorcycles balancing boxes stacked ten feet high.

  Eddie worked the horn like a New York cabbie. He knew just how close to get to the other vehicles and how fast to go without killing anyone. At first it had been a fearful onslaught of sight, sound, and motion, but once Walker decided to treat it as an amusement-park ride, it became much easier.

  Walker had realized early that they’d need money for gas, food, and bottled water. If he’d been an Army Special Forces soldier, he would’ve had a Rolex to trade. The SEALs didn’t issue Rolexes like their Army SOF brethren, but he and Yaya each had a hundred-dollar bill as part of their escape and evasion kit.

  When they reached Mudon, the largest city south of Thaton, a promise that they’d give him the other hundred convinced Eddie to get a dozen gas cans, fill them and the truck up, and get some food and water for the trip. He got more than ninety dollars in local currency in change.

  “Where’s my phone?” Eddie asked.

  “I have it safe,” Yaya said, patting his pocket.

  “I need to call my family. They’ll be worried.” He looked from Walker to Yaya.

  “That doesn’t seem so bad,” Walker said. “We can make sure he doesn’t call anyone else. What do you think, Yaya?”

  Yaya shook his head subtly.

  Eddie grinned like a salesman. “Walker is right. It’s not so bad.”

  “He can’t use his phone,” Yaya said flatly.

  Walker raised an eye, but didn’t ask. He’d caught the other SEAL’s nonverbal, albeit a moment too late.

  “Why can’t I?” Eddie asked Yaya. “Please, sir,” he begged, turning to Walker. “Can’t you make him let me use my phone?”

  “Enough. Jesus.” Yaya pulled out the phone, or what had once been a phone. It now had several wires attached to it, as if the Borg had come down and added pieces.

  Eddie screamed. “What have you done?”

  “Seeing if I can repurpose this for our use,” Yaya said. He pulled out his 9mm and pointed it at Eddie. “Listen, Eddie. I think you forgot
the process here. You drive the truck. We drive the guns.”

  Eddie looked from the gun to his ruined phone. After a moment, he put his head down and skulked to the driver’s side. He climbed in and closed the door.

  “Smooth move, Ex-Lax,” Walker said. He climbed in the cab of the truck. Yaya got in after.

  Within seconds they were once again part of the bumping, swerving, honking mass on the road. No one spoke for a good twenty minutes.

  “Is it going to work?” Walker asked.

  “I got it to interface with the MBITR and the base station, but it’s a software problem. His phone isn’t a real iPhone. It’s a knockoff. It uses an old Android operating system.”

  “Can you make it work?”

  “I’m not a software guy, but I remember some of it. All I can say is I’m trying.” He pulled out the phone and began to type into it.

  Eddie glanced forlornly at what had once been his phone. Walker watched the man’s face for a moment before turning away. Fake or not, it had probably cost the man a good chunk of savings. It was also probably a status symbol and the SEALs had taken that away from him.

  Then Walker reminded himself that Eddie was part of the crew who had killed and/or captured the other SEALs. In fact, it was time they talked about that.

  “So Eddie, let’s talk about your military friends.”

  Eddie shifted in his seat.

  “Who are they and where are they from?”

  “Karen,” he said, only pronouncing it as kayin. “From Kadwan.”

  “Are they from the Myanmar military?”

  Eddie shook his head.

  “Then where did they get the uniforms?”

  “We made them.”

  “So they wanted us to think it was the military. What was the plan—for us to get mad and attack?”

  Eddie shrugged. “I don’t know plans. I know that him wants to rule again. He wants to be king.”

  “I wasn’t aware Myanmar had kings,” Yaya said.

  “We don’t.” Eddie hastily added, “Not anymore. Not yet.”

  “Tell me about Kadwan.”

  “Old capital of Kayin. Him has removed everything new.” Eddie paused to swerve around a bike pulling a cart with a mound of old plastic bottles. “Everything is gone. My mother lives there and her home is gone.”

  “What do you mean gone? Was it bulldozed?”

  “His qilin. They destroyed it for him.” Eddie’s jittery eyes glanced toward Walker. “Please, no more.”

  “Not yet. We need to know about the qilin.” He described the creature they’d come into contact with on the cargo ship. “Is this one of them?”

  Eddie nodded.

  “How do you destroy them?”

  Eddie gave a shocked look, then shook his head. “Can’t be destroyed. They are messengers from the gods.”

  Walker and Yaya exchanged glances.

  Yaya mouthed, Messengers from the gods?

  Walker nodded.

  “Which gods made the qilin, Eddie?”

  “All of them.”

  Walker didn’t like the answer, but he didn’t feel that having Eddie try to explain would help them much, so instead he asked, “What’s their message?”

  “It is said that they come when a new ruler comes. Him has come.” Eddie looked down into his lap and grabbed the cable. He took it into his mouth and resumed driving. Clearly he wanted to be invisible for a time.

  Yaya continued to work on the Android software as best he could. The bumping, jumping ride down the road didn’t help, but there was nothing to be done about that.

  Eddie laid into the horn to get around a group of men carrying baskets of vegetables on their backs. They wore sarongs on the lower half of their bodies. They were shirtless. On their feet were simple pieces of rubber with straps. He edged around them, and was once more at speed. But it didn’t last. Suddenly, Eddie slammed on the brakes, stalling the engine. Had Yaya not put his foot on the dash, he would have smashed forward. As it was, Walker was unprepared for the sudden stop and slid from the seat into the front window. He struck with his shoulder, almost losing his grip on the pistol.

  They slammed back into the seat.

  In front of them lay an overturned vegetable cart and a motorcycle. Two men argued. The one in the motorcycle helmet was taller, but the other man seemed angrier, gesturing in great chopping motions at the produce. There seemed to be space to their left to drive around them.

  A policeman approached and smacked the hood of their truck with a baton. He wore a black Mao cap and black fatigues. An orange reflective vest covered his torso. He struck the hood again and screamed in Myanmarese, gesturing angrily down the road. It didn’t take a linguist to understand the international symbol for get moving.

  Eddie hastened to start the truck, turning the lever on the dashboard. The engine sputtered and stuttered. He glanced worriedly at the policeman.

  Walker noted the policeman had a walkie-talkie on his left hip. A Chinese PM pistol rested snugly in a patent leather holster on his right hip. He held the baton in his right hand, so if he was to grab his pistol, he’d lose precious seconds either dropping the baton, or changing hands.

  “Yaya,” Walker whispered. “See that walkie? Can you use it?”

  “Maybe. Not getting anywhere with this damned software. Using our tablets, I should be able to use the phone’s SIM chip. I won’t know until I try.”

  “Put that stuff away then. I don’t want it to get smashed.”

  “What are you going to—” Yaya glanced at the policeman, and comprehension showed on his face. Then he hastened to shove his work into the extra-large glove box.

  Walker reached out and put his hand over Eddie’s to stop him from trying to crank the engine. “Remain calm.”

  The policeman’s eyes narrowed as he shouted for the truck to move. Traffic had begun to move around them as if they were a boulder in a creek. Eddie shook his head in fear. The policeman moved to the door and stepped onto the running board. He shouted into Eddie’s face. Then he noticed the others in the cab. His furious gaze focused on Walker as he took in the white skin. His baton hand disappeared. It was then that Walker made his move.

  “Start the fucking truck,” he yelled, as he gripped the policeman’s collar and pulled him over Eddie and into the truck.

  Eddie turned the lever and the truck began to sputter. But he couldn’t see anything. The policeman’s head and torso were in his face. The policeman struggled, kicking with his feet, elbowing Eddie in the face and chest.

  Eddie screamed, but somehow continued trying to start the truck.

  The policeman’s eyes were wide with fear and anger. He screamed like a woman. Walker shoved his pistol into the man’s chest and pulled the trigger three times. The man bucked with each shot, but stilled after the third. Walker pulled him the rest of the way in. At the same moment, the truck started. Walker and Yaya shoved the dead man into the space beneath their feet.

  “Move! Move!”

  Eddie’s face was wet with blood. For a moment, Walker wondered if the man had been hit, but then he saw two exit holes in the metal roof of the truck. Each hole was surrounded by an oval of dripping blood and gore. The truck jerked forward, then jerked again. Once it found gear, it rejoined the flow of traffic.

  Eddie nodded as he wiped his face with his left hand. He pulled it away and stared at it. Tears welled from his eyes as he began to sob.

  “You got to suck it up, Eddie,” Walker told him. “I didn’t see you crying when you were loading the bodies in the back of the truck or when you thought we were dead.”

  The driver frowned, but didn’t say anything.

  The last thing they did before they entered the expressway was to shove a naked body out of the passenger-door window. It rolled and fell at the feet of an old woman selling cheap plastic jewelry laid out on a blanket.

  58

  THE ROAD TO KADWAN.

  Yaya was starting to find some success. He had wires stripped and attache
d to different parts of the inside of his tablet and the walkie-talkie. Every now and then it would erupt in a fit of static. Once they heard Myanmarese voices. Still, he cursed the steampunk machination he’d created. He even shook it once. “You should work, damn it!” He was rewarded with the staticky voice of an Englishwoman who was delivering the news. It brought a grin to Yaya’s face, but he didn’t stop there. He stuck his tongue in a corner of his cheek and bent over yet again.

  After ten minutes he leaned back and flexed his fingers. He stared at the rat’s mess of wires and shook his head. “It should work. I’ve done everything I know to do. I just don’t understand why it’s not working.”

  “Did you drop it?” Walker asked. Seeing the grin on Yaya’s face, he said, “I remember my father once telling someone that if it didn’t work, to give it the ‘three-foot drop test.’”

  “No.” Yaya wiped his face and cranked his neck. “I didn’t drop it. I’m afraid to. I have so many wires and connections, there’s no telling what would happen. I’m close now. I don’t want to step backwards.”

  “So now what?”

  “Now I stare at it until I figure out what the fuck is wrong with it.”

  The truck slowed. Walker glanced out the window. By his estimations they’d reached the southern edge of the city of Dawei. All traffic had come to a stop. A roadblock up ahead had a dozen police and military. Their guns were drawn. They were turning everyone away. Evidently the road was closed.

  “What do you think?” Walker asked Yaya.

  “Doesn’t look like they’re searching for us.”

  “Just keeping people from traveling south.”

  He turned to Eddie, but saw that the driver’s door was open. In the rearview mirror he saw their driver scurrying back the way they’d come, and Walker slid into the driver’s seat.

  “Looks like we have to go to Plan B,” he said, shifting the truck into gear and turning off the road. He’d spied a side street, which he took for about a hundred yards until he noticed something. He backed up, then stopped the truck.

  “I wasn’t aware we had a plan B,” Yaya muttered.