Odessa Reborn: A Terrorism Thriller (Gunner Fox Book 4) Read online

  Then Rommel got to the crux of the matter. The point of the letter. The pushing open of the door, ever so slightly, to gauge whether Himmler was of a similar mindset as to what the future held for the Reich.

  When we travelled together in the jeep at Nürnberg many months ago, we discussed the conflicting ideologies that brought about this war. You and I are soldiers and we recognize our approach to Germany’s greatness differs from the politicians’.

  We agreed that our endeavor was a necessary continuation of that war to end all wars both of our fathers endured. Now, like then, the war involves a reconfiguration of national boundaries, power and influence on the European continent. Further, the battles we fight now are a means to recover what had been taken from us two and a half decades ago.

  Reichsführer-SS Himmler, our fortunes have turned. We are at a crossroads in our promotion of the Reich. It is time for another approach. For if we do not change our tactics soon, Berlin, and the Reich, will be in peril.

  Make no mistake, we will keep fighting until the final victory. However, I fear the war will be lost unless we find another way. It is my duty to relay my thoughts to you regardless of the risks I take. I am a dutiful soldier and will carry out my orders with vigor. My opinions are my own and are based upon my observations on the battlefield as well as many years of experience in dealing with the politicians.

  I believe our options are few.

  Kapitulation?

  Tabun, vielleicht?

  Sieg Heil!

  s/ Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel

  Surrender? Perhaps, Taboo? There was one other suggestion that Rommel intentionally left out—Valkyrie. That topic was certainly taboo around Himmler, but a viable option nonetheless.

  Chapter One

  Present Day

  Aboard USAF WC-130J

  Two airmen aboard the Air Force WC-130J aircraft moved to the aft loading ramp and door. The ramp-style door was designed to accommodate a wide variety of oversized cargo, including everything from utility helicopters and armored vehicles to standard palletized freight. In an aerial delivery role, it could airdrop loads up to forty-two thousand pounds. Today, it would drop people.

  “Are you kiddin’ me?” shouted Cameron Mills. The former Air Force major held her helmet under her shoulder as the airmen made the preparations to open the ramp. “You wanna tell me what’s wrong with using the paratroop door over here like any sane person would?” She swung her arm to the right.

  Gunner Fox laughed at his best friend and fellow member of Gray Fox. “If you’re scared, say you’re scared.”

  Cam flipped him off.

  The platform door began to slowly open, allowing the turbulent air to enter as well as the noise from the aircraft’s four turboprop engines. The two simultaneously stepped forward to catch their first glimpse of their surroundings. Gunner bent over at the waist and pointed upward toward the sky.

  “See, clear as clear can get. Twinkling stars. Smiling moon. Not an asteroid in sight.”

  Cam rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Aren’t you the funny one tonight? Are you sure about this?”

  “Come on, Cam. It’s a perfect night. Picture perfect. See?”

  He nodded again toward the aft door as it continued to lower to a fixed position. Two more members of the six-man crew approached them to conduct a final gear check.

  One of the airmen shouted his instructions. “Sir, ma’am, we need you to put your helmets on to confirm operation of your video and audio comms. Also, I need to remind you to flip on your NVG once you deploy your chutes.”

  “Roger that!” shouted Cam over the noise.

  They were laden with stuff. In addition to their state-of-the-art headgear, they wore protective suits designed to make their bodies more aerodynamic for this deep dive, as they called it. They would be deploying their chutes at the last possible moment to ensure they landed in their projected target area after they’d rapidly sailed like human projectiles toward Earth.

  Gunner adjusted the specialized pack attached to his back, containing the tools necessary to fulfill their mission. Cam fidgeted with hers as well.

  Gunner complained about the extraordinary gear strapped to his back. “This is like one of those turtle-shell-shaped boxes the tourists attach to the roof of their crossover on their way to see Mickey freakin’ Mouse.”

  “I kinda look at it as being pregnant in reverse,” quipped Cam. “You know, instead of carrying a kid on the front side, it’s on my back.”

  Gunner regained his focus and went through the final safety checks with the airmen. After they confirmed their comms were fully operable, the lights dimmed in the rear of the WC-130J, indicating they were a go.

  The two of them slowly made their way to the aft ramp with the assistance of the airmen. The suggestion to skydive on this mission had been Gunner’s. The decision to assist in the operation had been Cam’s. There was simply no better way to achieve their goal, and the timing couldn’t be better. It was either undertake this dangerous, psychotic insertion now or face much tougher odds of success later.

  Gunner had worked with a lot of operators throughout his career. All of them would’ve simply shaken their heads and laughed at the suggestion. Suicide, they’d say. Never been done would be the assumption. Even if you pull it off, the mission couldn’t be completed with just two people. You’d need at least a team of six or eight.

  Gunner knew better. He had confidence in Cam and the entire Gray Fox team supporting them on land. A mission of this sort could only be accomplished by taking advantage of the element of surprise. He laughed to himself. This would certainly be a surprise, all right. Hell, I’ll be surprised, too.

  He turned to his partner and gave her a thumbs-up. “Ready, Cam?”

  “You’re an asshole,” she responded through the comms and raised her middle finger to her childhood friend for the second time in the space of ten minutes.

  One of the airmen stood between them and counted them down using his gloved hand.

  Five … four … three … two … one.

  He waved both of his arms from the front of his body to the rear. Another airman slapped both of the operatives on the back and pointed toward the open space. Neither of them hesitated as they walked deliberately into the dark sky and jumped.

  “Ride or die!” shouted Gunner as they were airborne.

  “Ride or die!” Cam joined in.

  The air around them was calm, devoid of clouds or precipitation. Above, the sky was dark, but one could see for trillions of miles. Neither spoke as they raced back to Earth, focusing instead on the task at hand.

  Their specialized Devtac ballistic helmets provided them onboard telemetry that delivered data on speed and direction in the event course corrections were required. A small radar provided them a marker for the target landing zone as well as a red blinking blip indicating the location of their partner. It was important the two not run into each other so their chutes didn’t get entangled during the final drop to Earth.

  Gunner could see the lights of their target getting closer and rapidly expanding in his field of vision. A timer on this helmet screen provided the precise moment when they were to begin the final steps of their descent. In unison, as they were prompted by the computer, both Gunner and Cam plunged the toggles of their chutes toward their feet, locking their muscular arms in place to avoid losing control.

  Gunner’s weight had carried him slightly farther ahead of Cam. As a result, he was prompted to open his parachute first. As the canopy began to flare, Cam sped past him slightly, and then she engaged her chute as well.

  Gunner’s muscles burned as he controlled his chute to remain on course. He had drifted off the target ever so slightly. He struggled to adjust the tension on the cords, a herculean effort under the circumstances.

  “Come on,” he muttered into the comms before shouting to himself, “Turn. Damn it!”

  Then, like bony fingers reaching out of a haunted grave, wind from the eye wall of Hur
ricane Archie reached out and grabbed Gunner’s chute, pulling him into the violent tropical cyclone that enveloped them.

  Chapter Two

  72 Hours Earlier …

  Los Zetas Cartel Marina

  Carvajal, Tamaulipas, Mexico

  Abduwali Ali was a long way from home. The Somalian sat in the back seat of the Mercedes E-class, staring at the barren landscape along the Mexican Gulf Coast. His driver, a young soldier in the Los Zetas cartel, was also his bodyguard. Not because Abduwali was the only African in the state of Tamaulipas and looked at with disdain by the Mexicans, nor because he was presumed to be a wealthy financier. Abduwali was nothing more than an asset. A valuable commodity used by the notorious Mexican drug cartel in their criminal enterprises.

  He was once a man on the run, even in his hometown of Mogadishu—the lawless coastal capital of Somalia. Warlords ran the city, but the price put on his head by the British government made his life expendable. After several attempts to bring him in, dead or alive, as they say, he gathered his laptop computer and escaped the country.

  He’d found a specialty that led to riches. Many young Somalian men die before they’re thirty. Others keep their heads under the radar and avoid the criminal activities rampant in Mogadishu. They become fisherman or farmers. They avoid the military and the police. They try not to make eye contact with the local clan warlords.

  First, Abduwali was a fisherman. Then he became a pirate.

  His career as a burcad badeed, an ocean robber, became legendary. Abduwali was a savior for the poor of Mogadishu, a city wrought with poverty and disease. As he gained respect for his exploits as a pirate, a legend grew, and soon he was nicknamed badaadinta badah—savior of the sea.

  Abduwali treated piracy like a business. He started with the essentials—stolen fast boats. Advanced weaponry was procured from Yemen, where he’d made contacts with international arms dealers. He parlayed his cut of his earnings into deposits with a known hawala dealer to procure the weapons. Then he’d make the trip to Puntland, Yemen, to complete the transactions.

  Over time, his arsenal ranged from AK-47s to RPG-7s. Cases of hand grenades and tear gas were added over time. What set him apart from other pirating operations, however, was his self-taught internet expertise. He once quipped to his team—Google is my friend. He’d discovered virtually everything he needed to know about a piracy mission could be found on Google and elsewhere across the internet.

  Abduwali was a planner. After achieving a modicum of success on smaller ships, he developed a team that undertook coordinated attacks on larger vessels. Despite the countermeasures and armed security employed by shipping companies in recent years, Abduwali was able to circumvent them and take control of the vessels. His payouts were in the multimillions.

  In piracy circles, he was considered an oddity—a pirate with a conscience. He abhorred unnecessary killing and instilled the same beliefs in his men. To be sure, firefights ensued during the hostile taking of a ship, and lives were lost on both sides. But the security personnel engaged in the battle were viewed as enemy combatants and therefore fair game. He didn’t kill for the sake of killing. He forbade his men from taking women and raping them. As a result, over time, those who were asked to pay the hefty ransoms he commanded did so without escalating tensions on board their ships.

  Then, during one attack, things went horribly out of control. One event tarnished his reputation so badly that the international community elevated him to one of the most wanted men on the planet.

  The true facts were never made known because everyone who bore witness to the events leading to the massacre was dead except Abduwali. Nobody was interested in his version of events.

  It was to be a one-boat, six-man operation. He’d been tracking a one-hundred-twenty-foot pleasure yacht sailing north along the east coast of Somalia. The occupants, a wealthy couple and their three teenage boys, had been posting photos and videos of their trip on social media.

  The boarding of the vessel was relatively easy, with only one of his men suffering a superficial wound, and one of the vessel’s first mates accidentally shot himself in the leg. After the pirates gained control of the yacht, the family of five was gathered together on the bow and the crew of four was locked in a stateroom. In the space of just a few minutes, with Abduwali’s advance planning, the vessel was wholly under his control.

  Several phone calls were made to the couple’s chief financial officer in an attempt to extort payment. The hostages, and the CFO, repeatedly denied their ability to pay the amount Abduwali sought. The pirate responded with facts to the contrary. He threw in their face all of the information found on their annual financial reports filed with the British government. He argued their philanthropic endeavors alone would cover the cost of the ransom he demanded. Yet the two men continued to argue their inability to pay.

  Abduwali became increasingly frustrated, and his men sensed the same. On two occasions, the sons of the couple got mouthy with their Somalian captors. Words were exchanged, and then the boys received punishment in the form of pistol whippings.

  Abduwali began to question if the CFO was stalling to give the Brit time to mount a rescue. Another call was placed. This time, he held a gun to the man’s head, but he never pulled the trigger despite the bloodbath that ensued.

  The crew had suddenly appeared from below deck. They’d managed to escape the stateroom and kill the man assigned to guard them. All of them, including the injured crew member, emerged from two different ladders that led to the bow. Bullets began flying in all directions.

  Abduwali never returned fire. The shooting startled him, and one of his men was shot right next to where he was standing. Abduwali lost his footing and fell behind the Zodiac parked on the bow. When the shooting stopped, everyone had been killed or were in the process of bleeding out on the once spotless white deck.

  It took less than a minute to slaughter everyone on board in a fusillade of bullets. Abduwali fell to his knees, wiped his hands in the blood, and raised them high into the air, begging Allah for forgiveness. In a daze, he managed to find his way back to his boat and left for Mogadishu. By the time he arrived, the British special forces had arrived at the yacht and reported their findings to Whitehall, the British Secret Intelligence Service.

  Abduwali was a wanted man, and the reward was ten million dollars.

  He was able to escape into Yemen and, with a hefty payment, was provided false identification and a passport. His plan? Travel into Mexico and make his way into the United States, where he planned to blend in with the large Somalian population in the state of Minnesota.

  Then his fate changed. During his travels, he’d perused many mercenary and soldier-for-hire websites out of curiosity. He never expected to find the functional equivalent of a help wanted ad for pirates, yet he did. Certainly, the language was veiled and coded. But as an experienced pirate, he got the gist of the ad.

  He entered Mexico through Mexico City and then purchased a barely drivable car with cash. He drove to Monterey, the capital of Nuevo Leon in northeastern Mexico, for the job interview. During the trip, he conducted internet research on the employer by taking all known information available from the ad, followed by running down leads from the Google results.

  Within a day, he’d determined the location of the interview to be a Los Zetas drug cartel stronghold. This meant only one thing. He would possibly be worth more to the cartel than the ransom offered by the British government.

  He decided to expose his entire résumé to the men who interviewed him. They were impressed. Then he told them about the reward on his head. They were upset. None of their leadership had such a reward offered for their capture, they complained.

  Tequila was shared and hands were shaken. He was in. He’d found a new home, and an employer, in the least likely of places.

  Chapter Three

  Los Zetas Cartel Marina

  Carvajal, Tamaulipas, Mexico

  Abduwali’s driver slowed the bullet-hole-r
idden Mercedes and slammed the steering wheel with the palms of his hands as a farmer tried to coax a burro across the road. The delay encouraged several chickens to wander into the path of their vehicle as well. His impetuous driver chose to use his pistol as a horn to force the issue. He dropped his arm out of the driver’s side window and fired two shots into the air while cursing the man and his animals.

  Abduwali hated Mexico. His employers and their lieutenants were arrogant murderers who forced people into drug slavery. He’d made the decision to move forward with the Los Zetas because they’d made him into a partner of sorts. They demanded production and profits. They made it clear they were willing to provide him with a home, a woman, and protection. However, it was made abundantly clear they expected results.

  His frustration had grown over the last six months as the level of results, the proverbial goal posts, using an American football analogy, had been moved considerably. He’d heard rumors that the DEA had infiltrated their drug trade in the States and caused a significant cash-flow problem. In addition, the border wall designed to keep their human trafficking and drug movement out of the U.S. had forced them to modify their modus operandi.

  The Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico had become an alternate route into the U.S. The usual destinations for their narcotics and human smuggling operations—San Diego, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas—were replaced by Florida and other Gulf Coast states. They were even successful in chartering aircraft into Canada and conducting smuggling operations from there.