Extraction (John Taylor #8) - Chapter 4

Taylor got to his car and pulled out his laptop. He wasn’t a computer person like Whitaker, but he had time to kill and he wanted to do some more research before he got into this. For one, he needed to find out what exactly Packer was doing here and he wanted to find out what this project was all about. He opened his email and saw Bryant had come through.

He had to jump through some hoops to decode everything, not that this was overly sensitive data. Mostly it was just that Bryant had gone spook and was paranoid about everything. With the files was a note that he couldn’t get the information on why Northbridge was in Somalia, but he’d have it soon, and would have someone in Djibouti when they landed to brief him on it.

Taylor looked at the note for several minutes, considering the implications of it. Bryant dealt in favors as much as money, and if he had someone based out of Camp Lemonnier who’d be able to brief him on the situation, then this was going to end up costing Taylor more than he’d expected. All he’d really wanted was a brief explanation, although maybe that wasn’t possible and there was more going on here than even Taylor suspected. If that was the case, he wanted to ask questions instead of just reading some dry breakdown from an analyst that Bryant managed to get a copy of. Taylor decided he’d pay it when the favor came due, but he was rapidly getting concerned with what he was getting into.

Pushing the thoughts aside, Taylor started going through the files, since he had time to kill until Whitaker and Kara got there for dinner. While the profiles of all of the White Mountain team members were good reading, very little of it was a surprise. They were, all in all, just as much a group of lowlifes as Taylor had suspected them of being.

Stone was a real piece of work and should never have been put in charge of a spelling bee, let alone men who would one day need to go into combat. He had been a SEAL like he claimed, and gone through BUDS as a lieutenant after spending a few years on shipboard duty. He’d lasted about two years as a squad leader before being dishonorably discharged for repeated instances of hazing new recruits, even after being counseled on it several times. His discharge happened after one of those recruits ended up injured to the point of leaving the service on a medical discharge.

Taylor couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to go through the hell that was BUDS training, get on a team, only to have one of your officers betray you like that. The military was all about looking after the men with you. You might have to commit them to actions that would get them killed to achieve a mission, but you’d never recklessly endanger your men. Taylor couldn’t imagine many of the other people on his team now knew what he’d done, or they’d never have followed him. Or maybe not, since most of them weren’t choir boys themselves.

The second in command, Dunn, had been kicked out for drug use. He’d been using a fairly dangerous anabolic steroid and had been cheating the random drug tests. When he finally got caught for cheating the tests and they tested his blood, they’d found not just the steroids but also cocaine, which probably wasn’t a great combination.

The rest of the members were, for the most part, just as bad, although none of them held a candle to Angelo. His record was long; perhaps three times the size of everyone else’s. He’d never gotten past the rank of corporal. As soon as he got  a couple of stripes he’d get in a fight or commit some kind of insubordination and get busted back to private. The thing that took up most of his file was an extended NCIS investigation for murder. Bryant hadn’t supplied the actual investigation records, but there were enough notes from his superiors around the time to piece some of it together. A female ensign in an administrative unit had gone missing and he was apparently the last person seen with her. From the notes, it was pretty clear everyone thought he was guilty, but no one seemed to be able to pin him on it.

Taylor considered accessing the FBI’s records to see if they had anything on it, but it didn’t really matter. It seemed completely in his character and Taylor was already not planning on turning his back on the man. He’d eventually gotten kicked out on a weapons violation, but Taylor had seen others with the same violation only get reprimands and extra counseling, which probably meant it was just a pretext. Once the military wants you out bad enough, they’ll find a way to get rid of you.

The only person that really stood out from the group was the Lopez kid, who looked more like someone who caught a bad break than an actual problem. He’d been in the infantry and a few of his men had convinced him to tag along on some kind of excursion outside of the base, into a small local village. They’d decided it was okay to have some fun with some of the village’s women and thought the young Lopez would want to go along. While these kinds of things weren’t common in the army, they did happen. For his part, Lopez had apparently tried to report it to his company commander, who didn’t want to hear any of it, preferring to sweep the whole thing under the rug.

That was probably what would have happened if one of the girls didn’t happen to be the god-daughter of a local big-wig who the army was trying to use to help pacify the area. When word of the assaults reached the big-wig, he’d complained to a general, and shit started rolling downhill. They’d given discharges to everyone involved and actual prison sentences to the NCOs who’d been there, which was all but unheard of. The fact that Lopez hadn’t participated, something other soldiers who had corroborated, and had tried to report it to his CO didn’t seem to matter. The general had been on a head-hunting mission, and he wanted everyone involved out of the army, to show the big-wig that he was taking it seriously.

So Lopez, all of twenty-two, was out of the service with a bad-conduct discharge that would follow him around for the rest of his life. How White Mountain had gotten their hooks into him Taylor didn’t know, but they’d probably looked at his discharge and assumed he was like them, and recruited him. Had Lopez been more experienced he probably would have turned it down and found something else to do, but for a twenty-two-year-old kid who’d dreamed of being a soldier, this probably seemed like a second chance.

Taylor was just starting a second scan of the records, just to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, when Whitaker and Kara drove up. Taylor had spent some of the time waiting to look up places where they could go and had found a small diner not far from the airport that seemed all right.

They followed in Whitaker’s car and were shortly sitting in the brightly lit throwback to the nineteen-fifties, with its vinyl booths and jukebox playing second-tier oldies. The place had just enough dirt and wear to make Taylor think that it might have actually started in the fifties, instead of being someone’s idea of a throwback restaurant.

He was happy to see both of them, even though they’d all spent time together the night before. Kara was impatient, practically bouncing in her seat while they ordered, so she could start talking about whatever had her riled up while Whitaker kept looking at him when she thought he wasn’t paying attention. Although Kara had experienced some of what this kind of mission would be like when he rescued her out of Belarus, she still didn’t really understand what Taylor was getting himself into. Whitaker, although she’d been the one to push him into doing it, had a much better understanding and was clearly worried.

Taylor didn’t want to start off talking about it and bring the mood down, so instead after they ordered he asked, “Okay, what’s got you so wound up?”

“We spent this morning looking at stuff for baby,” Kara said, her English slipping a little since she was excited. “We look at stuff for baby room, clothes, toys, and educational things to help him be big and smart.”

“Him?” Taylor asked, looking at Whitaker.

“She’s just guessing. It’s way too early to actually know that.”

“I know it will be a him. You are already outnumbered. Nature wants you to have another male in the family. And I wanted a little brother. He will go to school and if anyone picks on him, I will come and kick their ass.”

“Of that, I have no doubt. Maybe we should wait on getting stuff until we actually know a little more about the baby, don’t you think? I mean, right now it’s just an over-the-counter test. Not that I’m not excited about it, because I am, but I think maybe we should wait until after the actual doctor’s appointment before we start redecorating.”

“I tried to explain that to her, but you know Kara. She will not be reasoned with.”

“I’m not saying we go out and buy a bunch of stuff now. I just want to be prepared. If I learn all the options now, we will know exactly what to get when the time comes.”

“She is going to end up driving you insane, you know that, right?” Taylor asked Whitaker.

“I know, but I’m okay with it. I think it’s good for the baby to have a big sister who’s this devoted to it already. Can you imagine what she’ll be like when the baby’s actually here?”

“I just want to make sure my little brother gets everything a child should have. He’s going to grow up so happy and loved and he will always, always be safe.”

Taylor was able to read between the lines. Kara’s childhood had been a nightmare that very few people could ever understand. It made sense that she’d be so dedicated to giving the exact opposite to her future sibling. She was trying to live vicariously through it already. He’d have to mention it to her psychologist, since he didn’t know if that was something they should be paying attention to, but from a layman’s perspective, it seemed like a way to cope with her past.

They continued talking about the baby after the dinner came, although it was really Kara doing most of the talking and Taylor and Whitaker listening, occasionally trading knowing but happy glances about the girl’s antics. When Kara finally started to wind down, Whitaker brought up the subject she’d really come out here for.

“So? How is it?” She asked.

“About what you’ve probably already guessed. The whole operation is slipshod as hell. They’ve basically decided it’s going to be a cakewalk and the only opposition they’re going to face is some poorly equipped militia that will run at the first shots.”

“That never goes wrong.”

“Exactly. They might have just said ‘we’re only expecting boys and old men,’” Taylor said, referencing a famous intelligence report during Operation Market Garden in World War II that ended in high casualty numbers for the allies.

Whitaker nodded, although from her look Taylor was pretty sure she didn’t actually get the reference. Being in the Bureau though, she’d had her own fair amount of experience with bad intelligence.

“So what are you going to do?”

“What can I do? They’ve made it clear that I’m not particularly welcome and they’re only going along with my participation because Claire made so much noise about it. I raised my objections, but I don’t have any leverage to change anything. I can either go and deal with it or stay behind, but I guarantee you if they go on their own, a bunch of hostages are going to end up dead.”

“Is your life worth hostages you’ve never met?” Kara asked.

“If it wasn’t for Claire’s husband, I wouldn’t go at all.”

“Do you think you can get him out?” Whitaker asked.

“I think so. If anything, once we’re in I can use them for a distraction and go for the hostages. If I don’t think I can get to him though, I won’t go for it.”

“Okay. Just be careful,” Whitaker said.

“There’s another complication though. I ran into Edward Packer as I was leaving, heading into the hanger where the team was loading up.”

“What is he doing there?”

“I don’t know. I think he’s working for Northbridge, but his being involved in this is a bad sign. I talked to him, but he all but sprinted inside.”

“Now I have a very bad feeling about this,” Whitaker said.

“I know. Dave has someone in Djibouti that will brief me on what’s really going on, because nothing about this setup is making sense.”

“Do you think Claire’s husband is involved in something shady?”

“I don’t think so. Dave got me files on the team and some of the hostages, including Claire’s husband, and he seems pretty up and up.”

“So Packer ended up at Northbridge? I’d wondered what happened to him after he got blackballed.”

“I was surprised. I get they hire political hacks to lobby for them, but no one able to actually get anything done is going to talk to him. Seems like a bad move on Northbridge’s side.

“I don’t know; I can kind of see it. Even as a pariah, his Rolodex is worth some money. Guys like him need to relocate somewhere, right?”

“Maybe, I just don’t put it past him getting mixed up with some kind of end-run to make a name for himself in the company.”

“Just make sure you’re focused once you get over there and you don’t let all this get you distracted. This isn’t an investigation and you’re not working for the Bureau this time. Just get in, get him and get out. Leave the rest of them behind if you have to.”

“Yeah,” Taylor said, his mind wandering a bit.

He’d been trying to just stay on task, but he’d spent too much time working as an investigator, and he was finding it hard to turn off that part of his brain now, and this situation was giving him a lot to think about. The entire thing, from the project being worked out of a country with no internal security and a problem with roving warlords, to the decision to forgo the normal ransom payment and bring in a PMC to extract the hostages. The whole thing smelled to high heaven and was setting off bells in Taylors’ head. He knew Whitaker was right though. Once he was in country, he needed to just focus on the job at hand.

“Should I talk to Joe?” Taylor asked, almost as an afterthought.

Joe Solomon was the current FBI director and the man that he and Whitaker reported to directly, mostly because Taylor caused too much havoc if they put him inside the agency’s bureaucracy itself. He’d gotten enough good press and closed enough cases that it was in their best interest to keep him, but Solomon knew better than to put Taylor in the regular hierarchy.

“I talked to him already. He’s not crazy with it, but White Mountain cleared the operation with the DOD contacts, at least enough to get some military support, from what I could find. He just wanted me to tell you not to cause him any headaches.”

“I’ll try not to, and their military support is incredibly minimal. They can’t even get a ride into Somalia and had to arrange for a private ship to drop us just off the coast. They did get the Army to agree to help with exfil, but I think that might have been someone thinking that if everything went to shit, they’d eventually get called in anyway, so they might as well try and make sure they already had assets ready to deal with it.”

They moved off the topic, since there wasn’t much else to say, and just talked about family stuff like Kara’s plans for next year and her upcoming internship and more ideas for getting the house ready for the baby. Both Kara and Whitaker were excited about it, so Taylor let them go, just enjoying hearing them talk.

Taylor still stayed at a motel near the airport, despite only being a little over an hour from their house, mostly because they were supposed to be on the way out before the sun came up, and Taylor didn’t want to burn sleep driving back and forth. The one thing he’d learned in the Army was to always get as much sleep as you could, because once you were in the field, it might be days before you had a chance to sleep again.

Even getting in fairly early from dinner and going straight to sleep, he was still wiped out when his alarm went off and he dragged himself out of bed. He might have gotten a few more minutes sleep if he’d just racked out at the hanger like some of the team seemed to be doing, but Taylor didn’t feel any need to ingratiate himself with them and if he had a chance to sleep in an actual bed he’d take it. He wasn’t twenty-five anymore, after all.

Driving up to the hanger, he was surprised to see Claire just outside the fenced-in area, leaning against the hood of her car. Instead of pulling inside and parking, Taylor pulled up next to her and got up.

“What are you doing here?” Taylor asked.

“I just wanted to see you one last time before you left.”

“Is everything all right?” he asked, warily.

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I’m just so worried every time I think about Wayne and what they might be doing to him.”

“He’ll be safe, still. If they think they can get some money for him, they won’t seriously hurt him, since if they accidentally kill him they won’t get paid.”

“That’s not as comforting as you might think it is.”

“I know. I’m sure you’ve got a lot of people in your life who love and care for you and are telling you that it’ll be okay and everything will work out, which is probably great, but it’s easy for you to realize they’re just being supportive. I’m not trying to make you feel better, I’m trying to give you a realistic idea of what Wayne’s chances are.”

“And what are his chances?”

“I’ll be honest, it’d be better if the company just paid the ransom, but this group is all experienced and well-armed, so they should be able to handle whatever we run into. I’ll do everything I can do to get him out safely. I promise.”

“Okay, ” Taylor thought, “that was a little bit of sugar coating. ”

“Okay. I appreciate it. I’m sorry, I know you have a lot to do before you have to leave. I didn’t mean to bother you.”

“It’s okay. Last year Whitaker had some similar stuff going on in Germany and I was completely wound up about it until we got her out safely, so I get it. What you’re feeling is completely normal.”

“Listen to you. ‘What you’re feeling’ and ‘it’s probably great you have people comforting you.’ You sound like a completely different person.”

“Not that different, but yeah, I’ve changed I guess.”

“I’m glad. I worried about you the last time I saw you. You looked really bad.”

Of course, the last time he’d seen her, was when he’d found out she was married and pregnant with another man’s baby; and that the thing that had kept him going for three years in captivity, had been a lie. He didn’t hold any grudges, but he had good reasons for looking bad. It was a really rough point in his life.

“What doesn’t kill us, and all that. Since you’re here, have you ever met a guy named Edward Packer, either before this all happened or when you were trying to get information about what happened afterward? He’s short, kinda pudgy, has brown hair and beady little eyes. Looks kind of like a fat weasel?”

She laughed in spite of herself at the description and looked off into the distance as she thought, going through faces and names, trying to find a match.

“Yeah, I think so. I never knew his name, but I’m pretty sure that describes the guy who tried to keep me from talking to the board about allowing you to go on the rescue mission.”

“You’ve spoken to him?” Taylor asked.

“Yeah, although only one time. I’ve seen him a couple of other times, but we never spoke. When I first went to his project lead, who hadn’t gone overseas, this guy showed up. I was upset about them not getting Wayne back. They were trying to tell me that Wayne had signed both NDAs and agreements to waive liability if something happened overseas, and if I kept being a problem, I could be in trouble for violating Wayne’s agreements. I told them I didn’t care, and I knew people. I mentioned you and the fact that you knew the President and were a big hero and everything, and told them you were a close friend, and if they didn’t listen to me I was going to go to you. I might have suggested you worked for the FBI and you could investigate them. Sorry, I know we haven’t talked in years and I had no reason to bring you into it, but I didn’t have anything else. I also have a few people I’ve made friends with over the years that I also called and asked for help from. They responded when I started threatening them.”

“It’s okay. I would have gone in and yelled at them for you if you’d have called me.”

“I know. I think that’s part of the reason I did it. Anyway, they started treating me differently, explaining what they were doing and that they’d get Wayne back. I was actually ready to back down until they mentioned White Mountain. I’d remembered some news stories about them from last year, one of which had been about a messed-up rescue attempt that got several hostages killed. That’s when I demanded you get involved. They didn’t say no right away. Instead, they said they needed a few minutes and went off and talked. Finally, this guy I’d never met came in to talk to me. He tried to convince me that your going would be a mistake, and if anything should happen, I could be responsible if I forced them to include someone unqualified. I had a bad feeling about this guy the moment he started speaking, so I stuck to my guns. He tried to tell me it was impossible, but I threatened to go over his head. He said do it, so I did.”

“Who’d you go over his head too?”

“I went out of his group and started calling on board members, vice presidents, and managers in other departments, whoever I could get contact information for. Eventually, I was told there was a board meeting about it and that they’d like to talk to me. I showed up and explained to them my concerns and my demands. I didn’t come out and make the same threats as before, but it was pretty close. They asked me to wait out by the secretary’s desk, and that’s when I saw him again. He went in to talk to them and came back out thirty minutes later looking pissed. I don’t know if someone overruled him or what, but they said that someone from White Mountain would get with me in a few days, which is when I came to talk to you.”

“Was Packer someone Wayne had mentioned before? Maybe a higher-up in his division?”

“No. I’d never heard his name or met him before he showed up and tried to get me to go away. Does that help?”

“Yeah, it does.”

“Who is this guy? Does he have something to do with why Wayne was out there?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out,” Taylor said.