Killing Mercury

Book 5: Will Parker Thriller

by Anderson Harp

Genres: Thrillers

Synopsis

CODE RED
 
Decorated Marine and small-town Georgia D.A. Will Parker has nothing to do with the outgoing U.S. President or his administration, including the secret service. And that's the way he wants to keep it. But Will's about to get in deep, whether he likes it or not.
 
With two terms behind him, President Prisock Jordan is leaving the White House. And his daughter, Elizabeth, a student at Harvard, couldn't be happier. She's even planned a ski trip in hopes of ditching her secret-service detail, which calls her by a code name: Mercury. But a terrorist has different ideas. Injured in the president's last drone strike on the outskirts of a Yemen city, Hamza Bin Laden is on Mercury's trail--with the help of social media and a Russian hacker.
 
When a Marine major and confidante of Elizabeth's learns that Hamza may be in the U.S., he fears for her life. With Elizabeth suddenly incommunicado, he requisitions an F-35 and flies to Georgia to beg for help--discreet help--from a reluctant Will Parker. But with a shocking turn of events, the threat level quickly skyrockets, forcing Will to deal with a secret service who won't listen to him. For only Will has the clues to Mercury's true location. And when a terrorist cell murders a group of college students in a remote cabin, it's up to Will and one bright and brave survivor to make their way across treacherous, foreign terrain to get to Mercury--before Hamza does . . .
 
Praise for RETRIBUTION
 
"Tense and authentic--reading this book is like living a real life mission."
--Lee Child
    
"I seldom come across a thriller as authentic and well?written as Retribution. Andy Harp brings his considerable military expertise to a global plot that's exciting, timely, and believable . . . to say that I'm impressed is an understatement."
--David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of The Protector
 
"Retribution is a stunner: a blow to the gut and shot of adrenaline. Here is a novel written with authentic authority and bears shocking relevance to the dangers of today. It reminds me of Tom Clancy at his finest."
--James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of Bloodline
 
"Outstanding thriller with vivid characters, breakneck pacing, and suspense enough for even the most demanding reader. Harp writes with complete authenticity and a tremendous depth of military knowledge. A fantastic read--don't miss it!"
--Douglas Preston, #1 bestselling author of Impact

Release date: November 3, 2020

Publisher: Lyrical Press

Print pages: 313

Sample

Chapter 1

The Outskirts of Zinjibar, Yemen

War is a prologue to revenge.

The sun’s setting caused the shadows from the torn and broken buildings to paint a jagged picture across the street. Dresden had no less damage after the B-17s and Lancasters of World War Two had leveled the city. The thousands of tons of explosives that shredded the German town overlooking the Elbe River seem to have done the same damage to the small Yemen coastal town of Zinjibar. Here it was the constant barrage of rocket propelled grenades, mortars, and Chinese-built machine guns. Empty shells of buildings, jagged walls scored with bullet holes the size of grapefruits, outlined what was left of neighborhoods. The smell of spent gunpowder, burnt wood, melted tires and death lingered.

Zinjinbar’s streets had become only winding pathways through mounds of fractured cinderblocks, shredded wood scraps, burnt out shells of cars, piles of shredded clothes, a bloody shoe tossed on the heap and the broken evidence of the death and destruction caused by a series of battles. First, the Houthi rebels had attacked, then the government, and finally, al-Qaeda had taken control of the small town. The shadows left long, sharp knife-like marks of the gloom that stretched over the remaining ruins. As the machine gun fire stopped, those remaining came out of their shelters and cleared access for their mule carts, motorcycles, white Toyota vans, and pickup trucks. A small boy missing a leg bore his light weight on a makeshift crutch as he made his way down the street and disappeared into the wreckage of a home. On the backstreets of Zinjibar, rows of mud- and clay-roofed villas, connected together in tight lines, survived the brunt of the destruction.

One sign of what the town once was still stood, oddly: a gigantic soccer complex, the Al-Wihda stadium, just outside the town center. Now, it was the shell of what once was. The ghosts of past football games only haunted its field. The structure, disfigured by the constant barrage of shelling, seemed more like an old man’s mouth of jagged teeth, with some broken, some missing.

The town of Zinjibar, within a close walk to the waters of the Gulf of Aden, had been the home of small fishing boats, made for centuries of wood, but replaced in recent decades with thin, long fiberglass skiffs powered by single outboard motors. Each was manned by a handful of men. At the end of the day, they would pull their boats on shore and walk into the town to their homes. One such place, buried deep in a neighborhood of brick, clay and cinderblock structures, stood out—at least to a particular observer on the other side of the world.

The two-story structure sat in a row with its neighbors and, on the back side, was connected to a small alley. Two men, dressed in black shirts and green camouflaged pants with their AK-47s on their laps, sat sleepily on overturned oil barrel halves on the flat roof behind parapets that guarded them from the street. The flat roof was an oven. It was a different color as it was floored with a “good hat” made of “nurah” or a heavier lime-based material that held the structure during the rare rains. They used a torn tent to protect them from being spotted from above; however, they were not good stewards of the ruse. Because the tent blocked what little breeze came off of the Gulf of Aden, they hid under it only in the noonday heat. Now, with the sun setting, they came out of their shelter.

One of the guards looked at his watch, a small Timex, and then moved his hands to animate the conversation he was having with his fellow guard. He pointed down at his sandals, seemingly complaining of a past injury to his foot.

The observer could not hear what was being said between the two AQAP soldiers but she saw each and every detail of the men from the unpiloted aircraft that soared more than forty-eight thousand feet above Zinjibar. The drone watched its target from well beyond the sight of those on the ground. The MQ-9 Reaper’s camera lens was like the eyes of a hawk, only better. While a hawk’s eye was eight times more powerful than the human eye, the Reaper’s camera could see the man’s watch and tell time from it. It even saw the flies that circled the two men as they swiped them away with their hands.

The other man had a finger missing on the hand he was using to hold the stock of his rifle. The drone’s camera even picked up the scar tissue that had built up around the old wound.

The targeted building had been under the watchful eye of the Reaper’s Operation Center at Shaw Air Force base in South Carolina for days now, and with good reason. It was thought that its occupant led a cell of one of the bloodiest groups in the world of international terrorism. AQAP, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as it was called, extended a long reach from this dusty, arid town. It had caused the slaughter at the office of the French magazine Charlie Hebdo and attempted a grander attack with a failed bomb detonation in Times Square in 2010. It was AQAP that had blown a hole in the side of the USS Cole, killing several seamen asleep in their bunks. It had even prompted the killing spree carried out by an Army recruiter in Little Rock, Arkansas. AQAP took pride in its slaughter of the innocent. It had murdered fifty-six innocent doctors, nurses, and patients in a hospital raid in the capital Yemen city of Sana’a. Women and children in beds, healing from injuries suffered in past attacks, were torn to shreds by the assassin’s machine gun fire on the hospital wards. AQAP also had taken hold of Zinjibar, lost it, and then regained it multiple times over several battles.

* * * *

“Definitely AQAP.” The Reaper’s pilot in South Carolina focused in on the guards from the drone’s perch in the upper troposphere. The house had caught the attention of the eye in the sky by the most innocent of mistakes. A child with a basket full of bread had visited there a week earlier. She’d knocked on the door while the guards above were asleep in the midday sun. A hand had reached out, taken the loaves, and handed her some money. It was a man’s hand. The child had left with an empty basket. A Reaper had been on random patrol over the town for weeks. Later, analysts had noticed that two men were standing guard on the house’s roof under the thin cover of a tent.

And now, three small white Toyota trucks appeared in the alley behind the house. They stopped only briefly. Two armed men jumped out and entered the rear of the structure.

“Gonna call this in.” The pilot sat up in her chair as she spoke to the senior airman sitting on duty next to her. The two, assigned to the 50th Attack Squadron, sat side by side in twelve-hour shifts. The Reaper hadn’t come from Shaw—it was only controlled by the crew there. The constant communications that guided the aircraft came via satellites, but the aircraft’s home was a secret base called Camp Baledogle. “B-Dog” was in Somalia and kept the Reapers on duty by refueling within striking distance of the home of terror—Yemen. B-Dog’s airfield had been built by the Soviets during their past efforts to win over the Somali Air Force. Later abandoned, it was taken over by the Department of State’s Africa Peacekeeping Program—which, when translated, meant the U.S.’s war against al-Qaeda. This Reaper was one of four that were rotated on duty above the target. As one became low on fuel, another drone would take off from B-Dog and relieve the other. The surveillance remained constant with the stateside operators swapping out. It was this crew that brought the action.

The RPA pilot keyed her microphone to the operations center. The officer in charge passed the call up the line to the White House operations center, through the CIA and Pentagon; in a matter of minutes, the video from the Reaper’s eye had reached the higher-ups.

“Pilot, what’s the armament on this bird?”

She had placed the communication on speaker. She didn’t recognize the voice. Her sensor operator glanced at her, her stare showing the tension in the room.

“I’m sorry, sir.” She hesitated to answer the question.

“This is the Chief of Staff of the White House.”

“Oh, sorry, two GBU-thirty-eights” The Reaper continued to circle above the target with a five-hundred-pound bomb under each of its wings. The craft was an improvement over its younger brother, the Predator, with the ability to reach higher into the heavens—nearly fifty-thousand feet—and carry more payload. Each GBU-38 contained five hundred pounds of explosives that could be guided into a car window. The terrorists might still be able to hit so-called soft targets—the children at malls or theaters—but they had to live with the constant fear that every small glimmer they spotted on a clear, sunny day could obliterate them and their families in an instant.

“What’s your rank and name?” asked the man who had identified himself as the chief of staff.

“Yes, sir, Lieutenant Isbell here.” Her voice sounded too young to be manning a machine that could cause the death of a covey of terrorists with the pull of a trigger. She had the slight tinge of her southern Arkansas upbringing in her voice. Shaw was a long way from Helena on the bank of the Mississippi River.

“Tom, do we have recognition on the two?” the chief of staff asked someone in the room with him.

“Just confirmed from Hawaii. The second one is Jamal.”

The drone pilot in the ground cockpit had a small poster in her cubicle showing photographs and names of the principals above her in the chain of command. “Tom” was the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Lt. Isbell felt her heart beating as she realized the Reaper’s eye had caught something that had pushed this matter to the top of the pile. She had been trained from her first day at the Air Force Academy for what was next likely to happen.

“Okay, let me get the boss.”

* * * *

Jamal had not seen his wife and young child for more than a month. He kept his family in this most protected safehouse available, not allowing anyone to visit, come or go. It had been stocked with everything the occupants needed until the next move would be made. This visit wasn’t meant to happen; however, Jamal’s child had been ill for several days with a high fever and constant diarrhea. The heat had caused her mother to use up nearly all the water. Jamal feared the worst. Cholera had taken the lives of other children by the hundreds. He felt the child’s forehead. She was hot and dry. Her lips were parched. The diarrhea had stopped only when the little body had nothing more to give. Her eyes continued to stare out into space. Jamal had seen it before. Only medicine could save the girl’s life.

He would not let their only child die. They had tried to have a baby for years. The men were jealous of his wife’s beauty, but she was frail. Jamal had married her when she was only fourteen. She came from Sana’a, was a good mother and obeyed all of the teachings of Mohammad.

“We’ll get her some antibiotics.” He promised the mother. “And more water. Clean water.”

She provided a slight smile that didn’t remove the worried look from her eyes. Jamal used one of his cell phones to call the nurse who had helped the wounded after the battle that had retaken Zinjibar. He tried never to use the cell. Messengers only. But urgency forced him to take the risk.

He hoped the call, so brief, would escape the eyes and ears of the Americans. Swift destruction of the chip after the call should stop the trace.

The cell rang, and rang. He pressed it to his ear, waiting for an answer.

“She needs to drink.” He called another number. Again, it rang and rang. “Do you have some clean water?”

“Yes.” The mother held up a plastic bottle of water. “This is it. But she won’t swallow.”

Now Jamal knew that his daughter needed both antibiotics and an IV. Barely three, she continued to stare into space with a blank look, as if her father was not there.

“I’ll get help.” He redialed the number. Spending this time on the phone was the last thing he wanted to do. He knew that the Americans followed every conversation and used their powerful systems of surveillance to home in on targets.

“Yes?” The nurse’s voice finally answered.

“Lala is very ill.”

“Cholera?” The nurse’s voice did not seem surprised that another young child was desperately ill. It was framed as a question that needed no answer.

“Do you have something that can save her?”

“Yes.”

“Bless Allah, I’ll be there shortly.”

“Is her skin dry? Hot?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t try to move her. The sun will kill her.”

Jamal kissed his child on the forehead. He squeezed his wife’s shoulder, looking back at his lieutenant near the door. A display of affection would not sit well with his men. He stopped, pulled the chip out, and broke it in half. Then he grabbed his AK-47 and headed to the door where he stopped, looked back at the two huddled in the corner of the small, starkly empty room, and waved at his wife to reassure her.

“It’s Allah’s will that she be spared.” He spoke the words to comfort her more than anything. The calls took too long, he thought as he turned and paused at the door. The sky was clear, but he knew it was no indication of what lurked out there.

I’ll need to move them quickly, he thought as he stood in the door. As soon as I can get something into Lala.

“Another safe place nearby?” Jamal asked the man at the door.

“Yes.” The man that rode with him had been a good lieutenant from the beginning. “On the other side of the stadium.”

“We need to move them as soon as we come back with the medicine.”

One risk to avoid another…a chance he had to take.

* * * *

“So, you have Jamal?” The president’s voice was recognizable to the pilot as soon as he spoke. Like a celebrity who was always on the television, his voice had a positive timbre and fast pace that she’d often heard on various news channels.

“Yes, sir, but he’ll be gone,” said Tom. “He’s a killer that who has to be stopped. This is the first time in years we’ve even had a chance. The guy hides well.”

“Okay, let’s go down the checklist.” The chief of staff had taken back control of the conversation. “I got the PPG in front of me.”

The chief was speaking of the top-secret Presidential Policy Guidance for direct lethal action against a terrorist outside of the United States. It was the guidebook for when a kill would receive a green light. Even POTUS had to be sure that a Congressional hearing a year from now would be satisfied, particularly when a city block might be leveled.

Isbell’s hand felt the chill of sweat as she held the Reaper’s stick. The slightest touch caused the bird’s nose to rise. The pilot kept the drone in a slow circle over Zinjibar and the sensor operator kept it focused on the building. The two guards on the roof were standing, now facing the alley at the back of the house. Their attention had been drawn to three trucks in the alley. They seemed animated, as if talking to one of the drivers who had gotten out of the truck and was standing guard.

“Are we confirmed that this is our HVT?” The chief of staff seemed to be reading from a checklist as he spoke.

“Absolutely,” said Tom. The Director of the CIA didn’t hesitate.

Isbell knew that Jamal had been on the high-value target list since the Cole. “Absolutely” meant that Jamal was beyond being captured and they were certain the target was Jamal. “Our counsel agrees.”

“The surrounding buildings?” It was the voice of the president.

“No, sir, this area is a ghost town. Nothing left on this side of Zinjibar.” The Director of the CIA certainly seemed an advocate of what was going to happen next. The PPG required that nearby non-combatants be at little risk. So, if Jamal had made any mistake, it was locating his safe house in a remote part of the blown-out city.

“He’s been on our nominated list for some time,” Tom spoke again.

“So, Tom, you’re telling us this will be isolated.” The chief of staff remained stuck on the list. It was not a casual question. A bomb that leveled a house would outrage the world if scores of other innocents were killed and the footage hit CNN that night. APAQ had become skilled at ensuring that the bodies of dead children were uploaded to the internet after an American bomb strike.

“Yes, sir.” Confirming the target was isolated. “And with regard to the PPG. If we don’t do this, American lives will always be at risk.”

“This guy was behind Arkansas and Paris,” the president said.

The RPA pilot sat up in her seat when she heard her president speak. The Arkansas attack had reached deep into her home. It had happened years ago, before she’d even left for the Academy, but the death of recruiter Private William Long proved that any man or woman who wore the uniform of their nation was always at risk. Little Rock was not thought of as a place APAQ could reach. But it had.

“Yes, sir.” The chief of staff showed no sign of hesitation.

“Okay, let it go.” The president’s voice seemed heavy with the decision.

There was a long pause.

“Your last one,” the CIA chief noted. The changeover of administrations would occur within days.

“I won’t miss this,” said the president.

His heavy responsibilities would soon be passed to the next man to sit at the head of the table.

A short time later, the Reaper rose abruptly as it lost five hundred pounds of cargo. At the altitude of the aircraft, the bomb would take some time to reach the ground. The order was given. The bolt of lightning had been sprung from the clouds.

Isbell’s speaker went silent.

* * * *

“I’ll be back shortly.” Jamal waved to his wife and child as he turned and ran with his lieutenant toward the trucks. He almost stumbled on the scattered rocks that covered the back yard. His sandal twisted under his foot but he regained his step, his lieutenant on his heels. He reached the middle truck and tossed his rifle through the back window.

A blinding flash of light struck just as his saw the rifle land on the truck’s back seat. It seemed that the world went instantly into slow motion.

The blast lifted Jamal up and threw him across the bed of the truck. Like a large fish pulled in by one of the local boats, he flew through the air. The wave of heat singed everything. The concussion blew out the windows and lifted the truck up on one side.

The air was sucked out of Jamal’s lungs for a brief moment, his vision blinded by stars as he gasped for breath.

Some moments later, Jamal pulled himself toward a nearby wall with his arms. His ears were ringing with a loud shrill. His legs did not seem to work. His left side felt burnt. One side of his face, his left arm and his leg were all singed. Jamal looked around for his lieutenant, who had been directly behind him when the bomb struck. The man had disappeared. Blood and fragments of a body coated Jamal’s shoulders and the wall that he pulled himself up to.

He felt a warm liquid drip down his cheek, and brushed it with his hand. The red tinge dripped onto his clothes. Jamal brushed his ear only to see his hand drenched with more blood.

The driver of one of the trucks was standing over him. The man’s mouth was moving, but he didn’t seem to be saying anything. He was pointing to the first truck in the line of trucks. The third truck was on fire. Jamal’s Toyota was resting on its side. Somehow the first truck remained unscathed.

“My wife? My child? My Lala?” He spoke the words but heard nothing. His mouth moved but nothing came out. Tears furrowed through the dust caked on his face.

The man slung his AK-47 over his shoulder and reached behind Jamal, lifting him up. Jamal looked down to his motionless legs.

The man’s mouth continued to move. There was fear in his face. Jamal knew that a strike would be followed by another if they had any doubts about whether the target had survived.

The driver dragged Jamal to the first truck and lifted him up into the bed.

Jamal lifted his head and looked back at what had once been the building where his wife and child lived. It was now a gaping hole in the ground.

As the vehicle started to move, Jamal screamed out with all of his might. All he heard was silence. Tears ran down his face and blood dried on his skin and a yellow cloud of dust engulfed the Toyota as they pulled away. Soon Jamal could barely breathe or see the sky. All was dark. The dust cloud at least served one purpose. It gave cover for the fleeing vehicle.

He raised his fist upward and cried, “Antiqam! Antiqam!”

Again, his mouth moved, but his scream was silent to his ears.

Chapter 2

A cabin near the Susitna River, Alaska

“Got to go back to Georgia.”

Will Parker put his cell phone in the pocket of his parka. His voice was somber. It had been some time since he had returned to his farm in the south. The snow storm had finally stopped after days of trapping them in his cabin north of Anchorage. The sun lit up the drifts of snow in such a blinding way that one could only glance outside. An early fall meant sudden storms, but the weather had quickly cleared as a brilliant blue, cloudless sky opened up and the sun’s rays overcame the temperature.

“What’s up?” Karen Stewart came up to Parker, who towered over her.

“I lost a man.”

“What? Who?”

Will Parker took the loss of one of his team no less than the loss of a member of his family. He didn’t lose his Marines.

“Shane Stidham.”

“Oh.”

“A drunk driver came across the center line on the interstate south of Atlanta.” Will had spent many a night deep in Kuwait where none of them thought they would ever see home again. The small team of Marines had been dropped well beyond the front lines with the mission of calling in air strikes. They were designated as ANGLICO, or an air and naval gunfire liaison company that used its radios and lasers to drop fire upon the unsuspecting 1st Hammurabi Armored Division. The fear of death had never left their minds. But they’d survived. Now, on some empty interstate highway, Shane’s luck had run out.

“Both trucks were moving well above the speed limit.” He paused. “In opposite directions.” The few times he had ridden with Shane, th. . .