With The Pandora Deception, Bruns and Olson return with a captivating portrayal of modern day combat that "compares with the best of the timeless classics by Tom Clancy, Dale Brown, and Stephen Coonts." (Mark Greaney)
To effectively combat the rise of global terrorism, the U.S. military must now rely on more than traditional weapons and tactics. Don Riley of the U.S. Cyber Command is given charge of a brand new effort: a new team in the CIA Operations Directorate called Emerging Threats. To establish this team he recruits three talented recent commissioned naval officers—Janet Everett, Michael Goodwin, and Andrea Ramirez—and together they uncover a new terrorist group. The group is going under the name of the Mahdi, a messiah figure of Islamic mythology, and is operating in the geopolitical tinderbox that is the Nile River basin.
But the Mahdi is no ordinary terrorist group. Their stock in trade is not the usual suicide bombings and surprise attacks. In fact, the Mahdi has created and is about to release the worst kind of weapon: a hugely destructive bioweapon, known as Pandora, with a devastating fatality rate. And it will take all the resources that the U.S. can bring to bear—intelligence assets, cyber warfare and military assaults—to not only find out who is really behind the Mahdi, but to stop them before they successfully destroy the balance of power in the Middle East.
A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press
Release date:
September 15, 2020
Publisher:
St. Martin's Publishing Group
Print pages:
352
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USS Donald Cook (DDG-75) On patrol in the Gulf of Oman
Commander Alan Renner, commanding officer of the Cook, dragged a handkerchief across his brow, then stowed the damp material in the hip pocket of his blue coveralls.
He would have expected that after twenty-seven days on station in the Gulf his body would have adjusted to the heat and humidity, but every day felt like a new assault on his person. He positioned himself directly under a blast of air-conditioning raining down from the overhead vent. The sweat on his forehead turned clammy.
An officer dressed in green camouflage appeared in the open doorway of the port bridge wing.
“You wanted to see me, Captain?” With an open, freckled face and blond crew cut, Lieutenant (j.g.) Zack McCoy looked substantially younger than his twenty-three years. Renner was comforted to see the tall, muscled figure of Chief Ramone behind the young man. Ramone was a veteran of countless boarding operations. He would keep the rookie lieutenant out of trouble.
Renner addressed the quartermaster of the watch, a trim woman with her dark hair pulled back into a bun. “The XO and the Commodore are in Combat, Quartermaster. Ask them to join us for the briefing, please.”
“Aye, sir.”
Executive Officer Seth Gooden held the door for the Commodore as the two men entered the bridge. Gooden was a solid officer on his third tour in the Gulf, and Renner trusted his judgment. Renner sensed a tension in the XO as he led the senior officer to the chart table.
The source of Gooden’s tension wasn’t a secret. Captain Jack Tasker, newly appointed Commodore of Destroyer Squadron 60, was conducting a tour of his new command. His first stop on the tour was the Cook.
Tasker was a tall man with a rangy frame and long arms that hung loosely by his side. Since the Commodore had only been on board the Cook for less than a day, Renner hadn’t made a determination about his new boss, but he could already tell one thing.
Tasker was aggressive. He planned to make his mark on his new command quickly, as in today.
“XO, conduct the briefing, please,” Renner said.
Gooden’s trim fingernail tapped the Iranian port city of Chabahar. “Contact departed the port at 1030 local, crossed into international waters one hour later.” He dragged his finger diagonally across the blue of the Gulf of Oman. “Probable small cargo vessel, making a steady nine knots. Course and speed indicate she may be headed toward Yemen. In accordance with the latest Fifth Fleet guidance, Captain, I recommend we intercept the contact and launch a VBSS team.”
The new orders the XO referred to had arrived with the Commodore. Intel had picked up new weapons among the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in the Yemen civil war. All ships on patrol in the region had orders to stop and search all Iranian and unflagged ships headed in the direction of Yemen. If weapons were found, the ship was to be seized and sailed to the nearest friendly port.
Armed and specially trained US Navy action teams, known as Visit, Board, Search, and Seizure teams, were comprised of ship’s crew volunteers. Most stops turned up dirt-poor sailors trying to eke out a living in cross-Gulf trade, but every boarding operation was a risk to the safety of Renner’s crew.
“Mr. McCoy, you will lead the VBSS team,” Renner said. “Let’s keep it safe, professional, and thorough. Understood?” Renner clocked a look at Chief Ramone as he gave the order to McCoy.
“Aye, sir,” McCoy replied. “Permission to issue small arms?”
“Permission granted,” Renner said. He turned to his boss, the Commodore. “Anything to add, sir?”
Tasker shook his head, but his gaze raked over the youthful face of McCoy.
Decision made, action flowed swiftly. Renner set an intercept course for the contact and increased speed to twenty-two knots. In the background, the XO passed word for the VBSS team to muster at the small arms locker.
Renner strode to the open doorway of the bridge wing and into the hot sun. In addition to their numerous electronic sensors, the ship maintained a visual lookout watch on each side of the bridge and on the fantail. He nodded to the sailor. “Let me know as soon as you have a visual, lookout.”
The young man’s eyes remained glued to the binoculars. “Aye, Captain. I’ve got smoke, but no ship yet, sir.”
Renner scanned the horizon with his own glasses. A smudge of thick black smoke marred the hazy blue line between water and sky.
As they drew closer, the contact was revealed to be an ancient dhow with a single smokestack. It was a big ship, over a hundred feet long, with a beam of at least thirty feet and a high square aft deck. The vessel still had two masts from its days as a sail-powered ship, but Renner saw no evidence of sails. Or a flag to indicate where the vessel was registered.
Unflagged, shallow-draft ships like this one were usually family owned and were commonly used for shipping commodities—food, lumber, livestock—across the Gulf. They were also a favorite of arms smugglers.
“All ahead one-third,” Renner ordered. As the ship slowed, the howl of the wind on the bridge wings lessened and a fresh wave of sticky heat rolled in the door.
“XO,” Renner said. “Would you invite our friends to stop, please?”
Gooden grinned. “Aye, Captain.” He gripped the handset of the VHF radio. “Unflagged vessel, this is USS Donald Cook. You are directed to stop and prepare to be boarded. In accordance with UN Security Council directives, we have authority to search your vessel for illegal arms shipments.”
He repeated the directive, then passed the handset to a sailor, who repeated the message in Farsi and Arabic. Petty Officer Jahandar was a thin young woman with sharp features and skin the color of walnut. She was dressed out in black body armor, and a dark green ballistics helmet covered her bobbed hair. An M9 service pistol was strapped to her right thigh.
The Cook had matched the course and speed of the dhow. Through the binocs, Renner watched a group of men gather on the foredeck of the smaller ship.
Jahandar’s radioed warning received an angry response from the dhow. Renner raised an eyebrow in question.
“They say they don’t have to stop for us, sir,” she said.
“Combat, this is the captain. Ready the five-inch gun to put a warning shot across their bow.”
“Ready the five-inch for a warning shot, aye, sir.” Even as the order was repeated, Renner saw the Mk 45 turret slew into position.
The men assembled on the deck of the dhow noticed it, too. Still, the ship did not slow down.
“Five-inch gun ready in all respects, sir.”
“Fire,” Renner said.
The report of the 62-caliber gun reverberated off the windows of the bridge. Renner watched the ejected shell from the turret bounce onto the deck.
The firing of the gun had the desired effect. The dhow slowed immediately, and a thick cloud of oily black smoke settled over the open water between the two ships.
“All stop,” Renner said. “XO, launch the VBSS teams.”
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