Gathering Storm

Separated from the relatively new Annex with its state-of-the-art Computer Room and Communications Center, the War Room sat beneath the original farmhouse that was the public face of the Stony Man complex. The house, the wood-chipping mill and sundry outbuildings were all that was visible to the casual eye. The vital sections of the SOG operation lay underground, concealed from prying eyes. Protected by thick concrete walls and surrounded by electronic sensors, the unseen heart of the complex was manned day and night, all year round. Terrorism and its associated threats didn’t operate on a nine-to-five basis, and neither did Stony Man. Everything about the Farm was covert, from buildings, equipment and personnel. It wasn’t supposed to even exist. Stony Man was the President’s secret weapon. A totally dedicated force ready to respond to any global threat aimed at America, her allies or simply a threat to stability. One of the problems with incidents in Stony Man’s remit was the probability of escalation drawing in other nations and the U.S. being caught in the ripples.

Stony Man had learned, through experience, that reaching out to stomp on a possible threat at its inception often prevented it developing into an out-of-control epidemic of death and destruction. The Stony Man combat teams were used to being handed missions that came out of scant information that grew and intertwined with alarming speed.

Able Team had arrived from different locations earlier that morning. The other group, Phoenix Force, was due to arrive within the next half hour. It had recently returned from a mission in Central America, where its members had infiltrated a gunrunning operation to identify the buyer. What the team didn’t know, but would soon become acquainted with, were the details included in one of the folders Brognola had on the War Room table. The players in the weapons-buying deal were one of the reasons the big Fed had called his people together.

What he was about to brief them on had the potential to be both wide-ranging in its implications as well as threatening to the security of the U.S. mainland. The situation was building to become disturbingly serious unless Stony Man did something about it quickly.

One of the telephones rang. Brognola picked it up and heard the gruff tones of Aaron Kurtzman, Stony Man’s cyberchief. He was a big man, with a commanding presence that swamped the fact that he was confined to a wheelchair. He was capable of being hard on his cyberteam when the need arose, but they would work for him until they dropped, such was the depth of their respect for the man. Right now The Bear, as Kurtzman was known, and his team, were immersed in collating and analyzing information coming into their domain from varied sources. It all had to do with the matter at hand and the moment he recognized Kurtzman’s voice, Brognola knew things had gone up a notch.

“You want the bad news first, or the bad news?”

“That’s what I like about you, Aaron. You always wrap things up nicely.”

“Didn’t you once tell me I was hired because of my winning ways?”

“I don’t think so, pal.”

“Okay. We are picking up reports of activity along the Turkish-Iraqi border. It appears the Kurds have made a couple of incursions in Turkish no-go areas and attacked a military post. One Turkish soldier killed and a couple more wounded. The Turkish authorities have started to move military units into the area and there have been warnings about reprisals if this sort of thing happens again.”

“This information reliable?”

“Oh, yes. No doubts on that.”

“Why now?”

“I’m heading down to see you. There are other things I need to discuss. All related.” Kurtzman paused. “You got any of that War Room coffee on the go?”

“Yeah.”

“Thought so. I’ll bring my own.”

Brognola grinned as he put the receiver down. Kurtzman bringing his own coffee was as much of a threat as anything that might come in via the communications setup.

He picked up his copy of the files he was about to present to Able Team and Phoenix Force. For the next few minutes, Brognola went over the data. Not for the first time. He had been reading during his helicopter flight to Washington and his briefing with the President. He had gone over it all with the Man, and he had skimmed through it on the return flight to Stony Man. It made compulsive reading, despite the content, which was far from uplifting.

In essence, there was a growing threat from a number of sources. In isolation each item was disturbing. Linked together they formed an alarming scenario that implied a concerted effort to destabilize the Middle East region and also pointed at some large-scale security threat to the U.S. itself.

The current incident concerning the Kurdish attack on a Turkish outpost was one of a number of similar incidents. The way they were happening suggested, at least to Brognola, a pattern. Pieces of a puzzle that needed fitting together. The President had made it clear he wanted the SOG to take on the task of dealing with the affair.

The White House, earlier same day

“YOU’VE SEEN the photographs Leo Turrin sent in?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“How in hell did this happen, Hal? Khariza was supposed to be dead. Out of our hair. Now he’s shown up on the Italian Riviera alive and well and having a poolside chat with his old regime cronies. Did somebody slip up, or have we been had?”

“Right now, Sir, I don’t have answers.”

“Get them. Put your people on this full-time. Last thing we need right now is the Middle East blowing up in our faces on top of this mainland threat. It’s just what the extremists want to happen. Stir up feelings until the whole thing goes out of control. Security assessment teams are indicating some kind of terrorist strike here on U.S. soil. The way this is going, now would be an opportune time for such an attack. We have commitments in the Middle East. A large percentage of our efforts are channeled in that direction. We don’t know that these Mideast incidents are a distraction or part of an overall plan. We need to know, Hal. People are dying out there. And there are Americans on the list. Something has to be done. Damned if I’m going to sit back and just let things slide.”

“I understand, Sir. Phoenix Force has already had contact with one of Khariza’s group. Kamal Rasheed. They picked him up in Santa Lorca, trying to buy weapons. We handed him over to the CIA.”

“There’s something in the wind, Hal. Too many things happening out there that tell me we could be in for a bumpy ride. All these incidents. Rumors flying around. Familiar names keep cropping up. Linked to Khariza’s inner circle. And now he rises from the dead. It all sounds a little too neat to me. Get your people on the job, Hal. If there’s a tangible threat to mainland security, I want it handled soon as. I want Stony Man to take it on board. I don’t have the time or inclination to go sparring with Agency protocols. They’ll want to discuss it in committee, weigh the various arguments and options, advise me it isn’t the right time. I want something done now. There’s too much bullshit coming at me from the other agencies. Hal, I want direct action on this. Last thing this country needs is another World Trade Center disaster. The American nation has suffered enough. Find the bastards behind this mess and come down hard on them.”

“I already have my people pulling in all the data they can. Soon as we get it all together, maybe we can pin something down.”

“Hal, this is priority. Find out what’s going on and shut it down. Any problems over anything you need, call me. I’ll leave contact details so you can access me at anytime.”

Brognola recalled some of the hot spots the information had indicated. They were widespread across the Middle East and Europe.

“Glad you mentioned that, Sir.”

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

BROGNOLA HEARD the War Room door open. He glanced around to see the men of Able Team entering and making their way across to the conference table.

Carl Lyons, the team commander, Rosario Blancanales and Hermann Schwarz, were skilled, seasoned individuals. Each man had his own unique personality. For the most part, Able Team handled missions within the borders of the U.S. With the spread of terrorism, the associated threats and the expansion of the playing fields, Able Team was sometimes to be found taking trips well beyond the territorial boundaries of the U.S. mainland. In the end they went where the mission dictated.

Blancanales took himself to the coffee station that held the simmering pot of coffee and poured himself a mug.

“Hey, anyone want coffee?”

“I’ll have one,” Brognola said, recalling Kurtzman’s promise to bring his own. “Black. No sugar.”

“That it?” Blancanales asked. No one else spoke.

Lyons dropped into a seat close by Brognola, studying the big Fed closely.

“You okay?”

“I could do with a couple of days somewhere quiet and deserted. Apart from that, I’m doing fine, but thanks for asking.”

Schwarz, sitting a little distance away, leaned forward. “Why don’t you go with him, Carl? A break would be helpful right now.”

“I don’t need a break.”

“I was thinking about me and Pol,” Schwarz said, his face blank.

“One day, when I’m really gone, you’ll remember all the things you said.”

Blancanales placed Brognola’s coffee on the table, then took a seat. He glanced across at Lyons.

“No, we won’t. We’ll be too busy having f-u-n.”

The War Room’s door opened and Aaron Kurtzman rolled his wheelchair across the floor. He was carrying the familiar coffeepot he kept brewing 24/7 in the Computer Room. Behind the broad-shouldered cyberexpert was Barbara Price. Tall, blond and utterly capable, Price was Brognola’s mission controller. She thrived on a crisis alert, remaining calm and in control, whatever the situation. She moved ahead of Kurtzman, reaching the conference table and depositing a stack of files in front of her seat.

“Phoenix has arrived,” she informed them as she took her place. “Be down any minute.”

Kurtzman had moved across to the coffee station. He placed his pot down and plugged it into one of the power sockets.

“Never leave home without it,” he said as he took his place at the conference table, in front of the panel of controls he used to illustrate his findings on the large TV wall screens. He tapped the keyboard and the screens snapped to life. Images and data were displayed in sharp profile.

“Any new material?” Brognola asked.

“Try this.”

Kurtzman brought up a report from the Arabic TV network Al-Jazeera. The station, broadcasting all across the Middle East, had become known for its strong, uncensored images during the Iraq war. It had come under some criticism for the way it showed the news, but countered that it was primarily there to broadcast to the Arab nations and to depict the incidents as they happened, not in the sanitized versions shown to Western audiences.

“Say what you like about these guys,” Kurtzman remarked, “but what you get is what you see.”

The item showed a bullet-riddled car skewed across a street. Doors were open and bodies were seen in the vehicle or hanging half out of it. There were also three bodies on the road. The whole scene was familiar to the Stony Man crew. An ambush, the car riddled with autofire and the passengers killed before they could react.

“Do we know who the victims are?” Price asked.

“UN personnel based in Baghdad. The three on the ground outside the car were Iraqi police. They were in the car just showing on the right side of the picture.”

“Did this actually happen in Baghdad?” Schwarz asked.

Kurtzman nodded. “Our mystery players are starting to get confident. No more hiding in dark alleys. They’re showing they can do this with impunity. In broad daylight.”

Phoenix Force came into the War Room at that point, taking their places at the table.

“We miss anything?” David McCarter asked.

Brognola indicated the screen image. “Aaron was just showing us the latest incident in Baghdad. UN team ambushed and shot. Three Iraqi police officers, as well. That’s on top of the Kurdish attack on a Turkish military post.”

“From intel reports we’ve been monitoring there seems to be a lot of activity in the Middle East region,” Price said. “Now, I understand there’s always something going on, but in the last week or so, this activity has gone up a notch. There’s a concentration around Iraq. Attacks on U.S. and U.K. personnel. The UN. Covert intelligence suggests there’s a deal of background rumblings in the major Iraqi cities. And we’ve all heard about the renewed incidents in Israel and Palestine. We have information on recruitment in the Mideast and Europe of hard-line Ba’athist supporters. Loyalists of Saddam’s regime. All low-key at the moment. We were hard put to get a trace on the who and the why, but these photos have kind of got us on track.”

Price spread out copies of Abe Keen’s prints.

“Khariza?” Manning said. “He’s supposed to be dead.”

“Looks anything but deceased to me,” Calvin James remarked.

“The journalist—who took these—Abe Keen, was found murdered in his apartment in London the same night he got back from Italy where he had taken the photos,” Brognola said.

“Aren’t those others from his old group?” Blancanales asked, glancing up from examining the prints.

Brognola nodded. “They’re all there except one. And we know where he was.”

“Kamal Rasheed. Brokering a deal for arms in Santa Lorca,” McCarter said by way of explanation.

“Phoenix broke up the connection in Santa Lorca and got a name. Luiz Santos. Aaron ran a make and it seems he’s been in the business some while. The information we got was that the weapons Rasheed has previously bought went via Santos into the U.S. What we need now is where they went after that and what they are going to be used for. The organizer Phoenix found in Rasheed’s attaché case may give us some answers about Rasheed’s dealings.”

“Anything from it yet?” James asked.

“Most of the entries were in Arabic script. They’re being translated now. If and when we get anything useful, it will be sent to the appropriate team,” Kurtzman said.

“Are we looking at anything significant time-wise?” Gary Manning asked. “What I mean is, are we looking at a special date? A reason to launch any possible attacks on a particular day?”

Price shook her head. “There is a significant Iraqi election of provincial leaders coming up. It’s taking time to build the permanent inner council to run the country. You all know the timetable. A couple of less-than-successful attempts. Clashes between political and religious thinking. Intertribal rivalry. Only this time ’round, everyone is hoping the various parties can reach an amicable working agreement. If these incidents keep occurring they could throw the various groups into doubt. And that would go down a treat with Khariza’s group.”

“So an incident on the day of the election would give cause for concern,” Manning said.

“It’s a point worth noting,” Brognola said.

Calvin James stood to fetch a cup of coffee.

“They’ll be voting Saddam back into power next.”

“May not be as wild as you think, Cal,” Price said. “Not Saddam Hussein, but members of his old regime may be trying to get sympathizers into the ruling party, even if it has to be by the back door. That came from our Israeli sources. They have confirmation on ex-fedayeen behind troubles on the Gaza Strip. Stirring things up among the Palestinians.”

“I wondered when that bunch would stick its head over the parapet again,” McCarter said.

“We knew the fedayeen wouldn’t just fade out of existence,” Brognola said. “They cut and run, but they’re still out there. They won’t quit. Not as long as there’s even the remotest chance they might be able to get back into power again.”

“Bit like the Nazis.”

“David has a point,” Brognola said. “Look how long they carried on after WWII. Even though they were scattered all over the globe, they plotted and planned their comeback. Okay, it didn’t amount to much in terms of retaking power, but they still recruited believers and kept the old guard protected while they were able.”

“The Nazis had a lot going for them,” Encizo pointed out. “Look at the money they had salted away. That gave their organization a lot of clout. Enough money can buy you a lot of power.”

“We’ve already seen an example of Khariza’s fedayeen shopping for weapons,” Brognola said. “This was small-scale dealing. I figure they’re using money they managed to haul out of Iraq once the war started to go against them.”

“Small change,” Kurtzman said. “Cash they kept around for emergencies.”

“The money recovered in Iraq is nothing to what the regime hid over the years,” Brognola said. “Now that we have intel that Razan Khariza is on the scene, it suggests he and his crew are making moves. The big accounts have enough cash in them to buy a couple of small countries. If the fedayeen get their hands on those they’ll have finance to run a war. But until they get their hands on the real money, they are going to use every means available to them. Beg, steal or borrow, Razan Khariza isn’t going to sit back and wait. Hence the weapons deal Phoenix interrupted.”

“What kind of money are we talking about?” Manning asked. “How big does it go?”

“I doubt if anyone knows exactly just how much money the regime salted away over the years,” Brognola said. “It’s common knowledge that the money came from a variety of sources. In the region of $2 billion was literally stolen from the shah of Iran some years back. Then there was oil revenue. Kickbacks on deals. Money siphoned off aid programs. Back-door deals. The regime had backing from investors who helped them negotiate special terms. Even banks chipped in. We’ve had figures of $30 billion in total, but the stuff is so spread about we may never know the actual figure.”

Kurtzman opened one of his files.

“Money was handled by agents, brokers, companies created so that cash could be made to vanish. The regime made extensive use of electronic cash transactions. They were able to move it back and forth across the globe. In effect, the cash was being laundered.”

He brought up an image on one of the large wall screens.

“From Iraq to London. Across to South Africa. Hong Kong and Japan. Even Russia. Down to the Balkans.”

“Looks like it’s done some traveling,” James said. “Aaron, isn’t it possible to follow the electronic trail?”

Kurtzman sighed. “Not as easy as it sounds. The way the money has been pushed around lessens the chances of tagging it. Each transaction weakens the electronic trail. One big chunk would be broken up and distributed among a number of recipients. They would push it further along the path. Some would be put into legitimate businesses. It’s like shuffling a pack of cards before you deal. There’s no way of knowing where a particular card will show up. By the time the cash comes together again, no one knows where it originated.”

“The whole system was designed to conceal what was being done,” Brognola added. “And to make it difficult for what is being attempted now. M-I6, Mossad, CIA, they all have teams out looking for the regime’s missing billions. One thing we did come up with. Aaron put names and faces through the system—Saddam’s agents, his brokers, whatever you want to call them. Key individuals have disappeared. Others we know have died in suspicious circumstances. The conclusion is they were killed by regime hit men as a way of guaranteeing their silence, preventing them giving any information as to where the money might be.”

“If Khariza was such a big noise,” Manning asked, “how come he doesn’t have access to at least some of the cash?”

“Small amounts, no problem,” Brognola said. “But he’ll need the big money to broker his main deals, the kind of money he can’t get without access to the right accounts.”

“Our friend from Mossad, Ben Sharon, has a contact who might be able to give us some guidance,” Price said. “His name was mentioned in Rasheed’s organizer.”

Brognola nodded. “Aaron.”

The screen image changed to show a head-and-shoulders shot of a man in his forties—black hair, clean-shaven, a lean face, bright eyes staring directly at the camera.

“Ibn el Sharii. According to background checks, he was part of Khariza’s staff,” Kurtzman said. “Big Saddam loyalist until the regime had his brother executed as a traitor just before the war. Something about him having been caught in meetings with pro-Western groups. Rumor has it Khariza carried out the execution personally. Insider information tells us that Sharii took the news badly. He realized his own time was running out, so he got out of Iraq before he went the same way as his brother. Before he left he set up a virus in the computer program where the access numbers and codes were stored. The moment anyone tried to access the system to get the account codes, the virus would just corrupt the whole thing and wipe it completely. Sounds like he wanted to leave the regime something to remember him by.”

“Giving the finger to the fedayeen isn’t a good way to stay healthy,” James said.

“Maybe Sharii decided he didn’t have anything more to lose. He stayed low, out of sight in Europe, finally reached London. It was a Mossad agent who spotted him there. Sharon connected the information Abe Keen sent to us with Sharii’s knowledge. Mossad agreed to let Sharon follow through with us because we’ve worked with him before. Mutual needs, really,” Price said. “One more thing. Khariza still has plenty of sympathizers out there. People who agree with his aims. Groups who want us to suffer. They’ll give him help with what money and equipment they can, and they’ll point him in the direction of anyone who he wants to get his hands on.”

“Thing is, you’re right,” Blancanales agreed. “There’s a whole world of help out there for someone like Khariza.”

“They’ll be crawling out of the bloody woodwork,” McCarter said. “Sad thing is, we’ll have people from our own countries ready to help, too.”

“They have their beliefs as much as we do, David.”

McCarter glanced at Brognola. “Don’t I know it. All I’m saying is it makes it harder for us to get to the right people.”

“Aaron has got some more intel for you,” Brognola said. “It should give you background on the missions you’ll be assigned once he’s through. Barbara has logistic details and backgrounds for cover identities. This is up and running, people. The way things are accelerating, we have to start in top gear. It’s obvious the opposition is operating in a number of different areas, so we have to cover what we can. We’re going into this with minimal information. You know my feelings on that, but the President has the bit in his teeth and I can understand his motives. Situations can change fast, and if we don’t stay on top we could be too late if the main event comes out of left field. I know this is throwing you in without much background. It means you’re going to have some location changes. Can’t be helped. Let’s find out what Khariza is up to. Go for anything that might give us answers. The President has given this to us because he knows we’ll locate and terminate without interagency rivalry or internal agendas getting in the way.”

“Any contact with other agencies as a matter of interest?” Calvin James asked. “We’ve had problems before from them because they don’t know us and we don’t know them.”

“If anything gets in the way, you pass it to me. I’ll field it and get the President to step in.”

“Hal, with due respect, that’s a crock,” Lyons said tersely. “We end up in a face-off with some agency rule-book geek, there isn’t much chance for time-out so we can call home and get clearance.”

Brognola held up his hands in surrender. “You got me there, Carl. In the field you have to call whatever you feel is the right choice. If there’s no time and it’s a case of being compromised, then do what you have to. It comes down to the choice about which is the priority decision. Let’s call this what it is, guys. We are in a war situation. The ex-regime groups are out to do two things. Inflict as much pain and suffering as they can on specified Western targets and stir up trouble in the Middle East. At the back of all this are the attempts to get hold of power in Iraq. Do I have to spell out the end results if we don’t go out and stop it?”