“That would be worse than Western converts or the ISIS-embedded flood of Syrian refugees to Europe and North America,” the attaché agreed.
“A super alliance. An alliance with a common goal to attack our interests, distract us, decoy us, divert us, bait us, to get us to chase our own tail, to blame others, to hunt ghosts in shadows, to put America in its place, with a long-term goal to destroy our freedoms. What would the next evolution of the al Qaeda and ISIS doctrine look like? Yet be cloaked in stealth.”
The intel officers at the table looked at one another, wondering where Merk was going with the insight. Merk sat forward, took three glasses of water, and aligned them in a triangle. “Syria-Somalia,” he said, touching one glass, then the second glass, “Iran-Yemen,” and then the third, “North Korea… this is not George Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil.’ It’s a new paradigm, run not at the top by each rogue entity, but by unseen middle layers. That’s far more dangerous.”
“Come again?” Kell Johnston uttered. “The planning doesn’t come from fanatics and dictators, but from military generals and warlords fed up with taking orders from their leaders?”
“Now throw in borderless al Qaeda, American and Euro jihadists, the Somali pirates, their ilk, and all the copycats and wannabes,” the ONI attaché added with a look of concern, coming to grips with a cold new reality. The CIA agents gazed at one another.
Merk pointed at the attaché, saying, “Every piece of intel we gather is either a false lead, a trapdoor, a diversion, or some item that can’t be verified, that can’t be traced back to its rogue source, yet falsely accuses another party. And then we have another problem.” He dropped a teabag into the middle glass of water and they watched the water change color, with the tea leaching out of the bag, spreading around the glass. “We need to read their tea leaves to know what they are planning to do next. Set off a dirty bomb, an incendiary device?”
“Okay, Toten, you’re onto something,” the Asian American CIA agent said. “We have another slice of evidence for you.” He aimed the remote at the wall screen and clicked images of a US drone and a Longbow Apache attack helicopter that shot the inferior Iranian drone out of the sky. More infrared images showed that the wreckage of the drone had fallen into the outer bay off Zeila, near the shoals of Ceebaad Island, where Merk and the dolphins operated the night before, collecting intel on the hijacked ship. “We downed the Iranian drone three hours ago,” he said. “Now do you think it’s untraceable?”
Chapter Sixty-One
Dawn. without informing the CIA agents, Merk and the ONI attaché took Peder Olsen out of the brig and escorted him with a pair of MPs to a nondescript warehouse. Inside, Tasi and Inapo were housed until they were going to be transported back to the Naval Amphibious Base in Little Creek, Virginia.
“Hey, Toten?” Dante called out, running over.
Merk wheeled around to the hostage negotiator. He spotted the mobile phone in Dante’s hand and put his hand up to halt him. He motioned the ONI attaché to take Peder into the warehouse, where he would join them in a moment.
“Merk, listen—”
“Dante, don’t break my rules about PDAs and the biologic systems,” Merk said, pointing at the mobile phone. “My op is classified. Turn the device off.”
“What? You mean, your fins being stationed here?” he said, pointing to the warehouse.
“Turn it off, damn it,” Merk said, growing incensed. “You breached my op’s secrecy.”
“I was just going to tell you—”
“Piss off, Dawson. You were inside enemy territory. You engaged the pirates in Hargeisa and at the border. You operated from a runway shared with a Syrian diplo jet,” Merk said. “Ten-to-fucking-one Syrian Electronic Army hackers were on board. They scanned and hacked you.” He snatched the phone out of Dante’s hand and examined it. “Maybe they’re listening now.”
Merk held his finger to his lips to keep quiet, turned the device off, and handed it back to him. He moved away from his ex-SEAL commanding officer as if the man had contracted Ebola.
Inside the warehouse, Merk joined the ONI attaché, Peder Olsen, and a team of US Special Forces biologists and veterinarians, who were conducting last-minute prep work to get the dolphins ready for dry transport to the new Camp Lemonnier airfield, and then load them onto a C-5 Galaxy cargo plane that would fly them back to the US with half the NMMP team.
Merk led Peder between the two inflatable pools filled waist-deep with salt water. The pools were ringed with tall orange net fences.
“Are these your trained dolphins?” Peder asked.
“They are the ones who spotted your bombs under the supertanker, and then the next day the sea-mines around the container ship in Zeila bay,” Merk said, nudging Peder to stand between the pools. As Peder peered through the net at Tasi, Merk stepped back and nodded to Inapo in the other pool.
The dolphin fluked around in a circle and on the rotation whipped his tail, lashing a rope of water over Peder. The netting vibrated; the pool water sloshed back and forth like an overflowing bathtub. The Norwegian sniper shook off being doused, with water streaming down his face, dripping on the floor. He glared at Inapo, saying, “Ja, hell, I’m all wet, thank you.”
Inapo bobbed up and down in the pool, laughing, mocking the drenched Norwegian. Peder wringed his clothes and shook his hands dry. Inapo sculled backward on his tail and belly-flopped, splashing Peder again. Thoroughly soaked, he swore in all the Scandinavian languages at the dolphin, threatening to roast Inapo for dinner, when, from behind, Tasi splashed the Norseman with a flume of water. Peder turned and sneered at Tasi to stop — when both dolphins splashed him with furious whipping of their tails, chasing him behind Merk.
Peder raised his hands in surrender, backing away from the pools.
The dolphins spun around, clicking, squealing victory whistles, laughing, nodding.
Everybody broke out in laughter at the Norwegian mercenary’s expense.
“Ja, go get changed. We’re leaving to Ramstein AFB in an hour,” Merk said.
Chapter Sixty-Two
Merk sat in the flight deck of the C-5 Galaxy with the pilot, copilot, navigator, cargo master, and ONI attaché, waiting for the long runway to clear out a trio of incoming C-17 Globemaster III transport planes. The ONI attaché pointed to the first two planes, noting they were from the 18th Air Support Operations Group at Pope Field, North Carolina. It was the third aircraft that drew his attention: The 53rd Electronic Warfare Group from Elgin AFB, Florida.
Camp Lemonnier, which housed 1,800 servicemen and special operations forces, and the latest CIA drone base, was getting bigger, faster. As asymmetrical warfare became the future of the twenty-first century, it all added up to more than drone surgical pinpricks and air strikes to prevent the reemergence of ISIS and its savage attacks.
“Cyberwar is entering a new phase of nastiness,” the ONI attaché said. “The cyber assault team is being flown here to bore into the Syrian Electronic Army and Iran’s cyberterrorists deployed by the Revolutionary Guards Corps.”
“That’s one threat to the US, but not the main one,” Merk said. “Why go after the hackers with computer code? Why not take out their bunkers? That will send a message.”
Not expecting to hear that from Merk, the former SEAL turned pacifist dolphin trainer, the ONI attaché exchanged glances with the cargo master. They watched the last Big Bertha C-17 Globemaster III land heavy, fully laden, rolling across the runway, which had been expanded a few years back to receive the larger transport planes. The jumbo jet reversed engines, slowing down as it rode toward the end of the runway. The copilot signaled everyone to take their seats.