Stiletto #1: The Termination Protocol: Book One of the Scott Stiletto Thriller Series Read online

  Stiletto #1:

  The Termination Protocol

  By

  Brian Drake

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  PUBLISHED BY

  Single Bullet Press

  San Francisco – Los Angeles – Prague

  All Right Reserved

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  Stiletto #1: The Termination Protocol

  Copyright © 2014 by Brian Evankovich

  Revised Edition Copyright © 2017 by Brian Evankovich

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  Also by Brian Drake:

  Bullet for One

  Reaper’s Dozen: 12 Tales of Crime & Suspense

  Prologue

  Afghanistan – 1987

  IT WOULD be a beautiful country, Captain Dimitri Roskovitch decided, if there weren’t snakes with Stinger missiles hiding in the rocks.

  Roskovitch steered the flying tank that was the Mi-24 gunship helicopter through a winding mountain pass, the walls of the canyon on either side sloping to the usual dry terrain common to the whole of Afghanistan. The rocky ledges were potential ambush points where mujahedeen fighters and their U.S. rocket launchers waited. Maybe. Probably. Roskovitch sweated beneath his flight suit, his eyes constantly scanning the warning lights left of his center instrument panel. They would glow red once the early warning system detected any incoming missile, but Roskovitch had not survived 18 missions in the Mi-24 without double- and triple-checking every system his life depended on.

  This mission, his 19th, couldn’t end fast enough.

  He flew lead in front of two other Mi-24s spaced out behind him, each carrying more weapons than he. Roskovitch’s chopper only had the 23mm gun pod, and he hadn’t bothered to engage the safety on his control stick. Should any mujahedeen present themselves, he needed to open fire and get clear so his escorts could destroy the threat. The payload mounted underneath his helicopter could not fall into American hands should he be shot down. If he was shot down and survived the crash, he had orders to activate the gunship’s self-destruct mechanism, and kill himself with the 9mm Makarov in a flight suit pocket. With the gunship’s armor plating, he’d more than likely survive anything other than a direct hit with a Stinger.

  The payload wasn’t the usual explosive shell Roskovitch was used to dropping on enemy camps. The cylindrical steel canister contained a nerve gas nicknamed Delta Nine, but officially designated zanimicrochloraldite 4004, or z4004, a colorless and odorless sarin nerve agent supercharged by Soviet scientists to kill within thirty seconds. Normal sarin caused death within ten minutes.

  And there was a special target for the Delta Nine, too.

  Roskovitch and his team were heading for the Panwa region, which seemed more arid than elsewhere in the country, but it all looked the same to Roskovitch. The leadership of the White Leopard Brotherhood, major players in the whole of the mujahedeen, were gathering for a strategy session, and Moscow wanted the group violently wiped out. Perfect job for the Delta Nine.

  But the heavy weight of the canister required the subtraction of most other weapons, hence Roskovitch’s escorts.

  Roskovitch swallowed, his throat dry. The valley walls continued flashing by. The warning panel remained quiet. He knew better than to drop his guard. Ten more minutes to target.

  JUBAIR AHMED counted three Mi-24s in his spotting scope and quickly stashed the scope in a pocket. He hefted the Stinger missile launcher to his shoulder.

  He sat in a makeshift sniper’s nest behind a cluster of rocks, the canyons wall swooping downward mere feet from him, the opposite side across the yawning canyon identical and concealing his teammate Ilias. Jubair and Ilias were two young mujahedeen fighters barely out of their teens and already they had numerous Mi-24 kills to their credit. Today they were the vanguard of protection for the Brotherhood meeting.

  When the thumping helicopters finally appeared, he let out a curse. There was only him and Ilias, two Stingers, and three gunships. He primed the rocket and sighted through the eye piece. The only chance they had was to knock out two and hope the third followed what most Soviet pilots did: turn tail once they were alone.

  Jubair waited. The gunships flew low, but the Stinger could still get them from the elevated angle from which Jubair lay. The Russians were making the mistake of thinking the Stinger could only go from surface-to-air.

  The viewfinder showed 80 yards. Ilias would not fire until Jubair did. He set the sights on the lead gunship.

  The air was hot and dry, the surface beneath him hard and uncomfortable, tiny rocks poking through Jubair’s thin clothing. Jubair endured because otherwise his country would be lost to the Russians. If the Russians said they’d leave after he shot down 50 helicopters, Jubair would shoot down 100 to make them leave faster.

  Seventy-five yards. Sixty. Jubair mouthed a silent prayer and fired the Stinger.

  The shudder of the heavy launcher shook him head-to-toe and the missile left the tube with an angry spout of flame blazing from the rear rocket motor. White smoke trailed the missile. The explosive projectile closed the distance at incredible speed, but Jubair’s heart quickly sank.

  The lead gunship pulled into a steep climb and raced for the open sky above, ejecting flares to confuse the heat-seeking missile and send it careening into the side the of the valley. The explosion sent a cloud of flame and particles of dust into the air.

  From across the valley, a second missile fired, zeroing in on the second gunship as that pilot turned his guns toward Jubair. The rocket smashed into the fuselage and detonated; a direct hit. The gunship split in two with both fiery sections falling to the ground.

  The third gunship veered in Jubair’s direction, following the still-visible smoke trail from his Stinger. Jubair stood to meet his doom, staring through the canopy glass as the gunship neared and the pilot unleashed a stream of rockets. Jubair’s world went black before he ever felt the impact of the salvo.

  THE G-FORCES pushed Roskovitch into the back of his seat as he climbed. Five-thousand feet. Seven-thousand. His warning lights flashing wildly, the alarm blaring, his countermeasures defeating the Stinger but the alarm still wailing.

  It meant there was another missile locking on.

  Roskovitch keyed his radio. “Federov, how many are there? Federov, do you copy?”

  Another voice came over the radio. Vasily. The third pilot. “Two targets destroyed, we’re clear.”

  Roskovitch acknowledged and leveled off, turned, and pointed his nose back toward the canyon, pulling back into a hover. His heart sank when he saw the burning wreckage of Federov’s chopper.

  “Direct hit, Captain,” Vasily said, his machine circling nearby. “He had no chance.”

  “Back on course,” Roskovitch ordered, swinging the Mi-24 back in the direction of their target. “They’ll pay for this.”

  Roskovitch pushed his throttle to full and the jolt of the acceleration forced him back into the seat once again.

  ILIAS ABU-AHMED watched his friend Jubair die in a hail of rockets and flame.

  He sighted his Stinger and loosed his own projectile in reply, jumping from his prone position and running for the rocks behind him. He heard the explosion, felt the shockwave push against his back. He stole a glance back. The third gunship
was turning his way. His boots pounded the hard-packed desert floor. Cannons roared behind him. Ilias dropped and rolled into a narrow crevice. The ground exploded around him. Ilias kept the back of his neck covered and made himself small, as the strafing continued. The huge gunship flashed overhead. Ilias stayed flat while the gunship spun around and flew over a second time. Agonizing minutes passed as the two surviving choppers hovered before turning to continue on. Ilias looked up only when he heard the engines fading in the distance.

  Ignoring the dust and grit covering his clothes and making his face itch, he broke into a sprint, lungs burning, racing for his horse ground-tethered 50-yards away.

  Swinging over the saddle, he spurred the horse onward, the animal galloping at full speed. He wouldn’t be able to stop the attack on the camp, but maybe he could help once he arrived.

  ROSKOVITCH STARTED flicking switches to arm the bomb. His warning lights began flashing once again as the camp radar picked him up. He stayed focused. Vasily zoomed past him, rockets and cannon blazing, to take out the surface-to-air guns ringing the camp.

  The camp loomed closer. Puffs of smoke exploded around him, flack shells signaling he was in-range. The gunship shook with each explosion but none of the shells burst close enough to damage the helicopter. Even if they did, they were low-power French anti-aircraft shells and nowhere near a match for his armor.

  Roskovitch slowed his breathing. Vasily swooped in low, ground explosions in his wake, and Roskovitch saw his first glimpse of people running for cover around the camp. Soldiers stood and fired at him. If the ineffectual bullets were bouncing off his underbelly, he couldn’t tell.

  “Get clear, Vasily,” he said into his radio, as his left index finger found one more switch and the Delta Nine canister fell from its clamp.

  The chopper drifted up a hair as the extra weight of the cylinder vanished, and he pulled back into yet another climb. Vasily radioed he was following. At ten thousand feet, he leveled off, circled back, and tipped the chopper at a downward angle to get a look at his handiwork.

  A neat cloud in the center of the camp spiraled upward, the blast having ripped a crater in the earth and the fire and debris spreading throughout the camp. Tents burned. He couldn’t make out figures at this height, but it didn’t matter. By the time, he and Vasily started on their course back to base two minutes later, everybody on the ground was dead.

  ILIAS PULLED his horse short as soon as he heard the blast.

  The horse whinnied and shifted when the shockwave reached them. The thunder followed.

  An orange ball of flame dissipated quickly, faster than normal, Ilias thought, as he pushed the horse onward at a trot. What remained was a cloud of white smoke. Thick white smoke. It hung in the air as there was no breeze to clear it. When Ilias came over the last rise before the camp perimeter, he heard the screams.

  The camp consisted of tents and wooden buildings, all obviously damaged, but the inhabitants were either laying still on the ground or thrashing about before their bodies stopped moving altogether. Ilias sat on the rise, his eyes fixed on the horror, his horse breathing hard. Presently the last scream faded, but the white cloud remained. Obviously, the Russians had not dropped an ordinary bomb. They had used a chemical agent of some type, and it was lethal.

  No way Ilias was going any closer. He swallowed hard, his throat dry and seemingly choked with dust, and ordered his body off the horse. On shaky legs, his breathing shallow, he found a camera in a left-side saddle bag. One of the Americans who often visited the country had handed him the camera and asked him to bring it back if he ever photographed something worth showing. He stayed well away, but Ilias began a slow circle of the camp, taking one picture after another. The camera had the ability to zoom in, and Ilias took advantage of the feature. When he finished, he dropped to his knees and vomited into the dirt.

  Chapter One

  Central Intelligence Agency – Present Day

  GENERAL ISAAC Fleming sat behind his clean desk at C.I.A. headquarters with a headache centered right behind his eyes. He was the man in charge of the Special Actions Division, the leader of a staff of “skull smashers” who pulled off the impossible and most dangerous missions. It was his job to have headaches on a regular basis, but the cause of the current painful throb brought more distress than normal.

  The report he held in his hand detailed information about a Russian chemical weapon called Delta Nine, now for sale on the black market. He had thought the nerve gas had long ago been destroyed, but a few canisters were said to be available. He couldn’t imagine the catastrophe if the gas fell into the wrong hands—and were there any good hands for something like that? The one time the Soviets had used the weapon would be forever etched in his memory, and he’d only ever seen pictures of the aftermath. He was looking at those pictures once again. They were attached to the report on the Delta Nine’s potential sale.

  He keyed the intercom on his telephone set.

  “David?”

  Fleming’s chief-of-staff and number two, David McNeil, responded from the outer officer without delay. “Yes, sir?”

  “Who’s available? Something urgent.”

  “Scott is in his office, sir.”

  Fleming’s brow wrinkled in thought. Scott Stiletto. One of his best. Scott could be totally cold when necessary, but if he had a fault, it was his do-gooder streak when he found an underdog in need of a defender. For Fleming, he was the perfect operator with the proper mix of humanity and ruthlessness.

  “Send him in, please, David.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  Fleming returned to his reading. The analysts who had prepared the report not only detailed the sale of the nerve gas but also a suggestion on who might be handling the deal for interested parties. While he waited, he made some calls to arrange Stiletto’s transport and back-up, and looked up as his office door opened and Scott Stiletto entered. The young man approached the desk with a confident stride. He was in his late 30s, trim and well-muscled but not overly so, with a short crew cut and chiseled jaw. He had no distinguishing features; in fact, looked quite normal, unassuming. Stiletto was known around the building for keeping to himself, yet he was also known as a capable artist who was never without a sketch pad.

  “Take a seat, Scott, we have a big one.”

  Stiletto eased into the chair in front of the General’s desk. His pulse quickened at the General’s words. The man behind the desk might have been his boss, but they were also good friends. At least he thought so. Sometimes the General could be a little aloof about his feelings toward the team. Pictures around the office showed General Fleming in various stages of his Army career. He’d only been in charge of S.A.D. for three years, having joined after retiring from the military, but to Scott it felt like he’d been there forever. Fleming knew how to champion his people; they wanted to do right by him because he took care of them.

  No family pictures adorned the desk. Fleming kept family details private, but everybody knew he’d been married to the same woman for almost 40 years. He had sharp blue eyes and dark hair, a scar on his right cheek. Those blue eyes bored into Stiletto as the interview began.

  “Delta Nine nerve gas, ever hear of it?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Developed during the ‘70s and later destroyed it in the ‘90s. Allegedly.”

  Stiletto suppressed a frown. The General always kept his words short when a situation caused one of his migraines. He, on the other hand, wanted to hear more. “Did the Russians ever use it?”

  “Once. Afghanistan, 1987, horrible results.”

  Fleming opened the folder in front of him and set in front of Stiletto four glossy black-and-white photographs. Stiletto leaned forward to examine them. His stomach turned.

  Each picture showed a camp in the desert, the ground littered with bodies, the few visible faces etched with agony.

  “The Delta Nine,” Fleming said, “is a form of sarin gas the Soviets modified to kill within a minute. Normal sarin takes
ten minutes. They used it, in this case, to kill off leaders of the mujahedeen.”

  Stiletto sat back, his face neutral, but his mind racing. Death and violence were nothing new to him; he’d contributed his share. Wholesale slaughter, on the other hand, was something he couldn’t tolerate.

  “You said ‘allegedly’ destroyed, sir.”

  “Right. We know several canisters of the gas,” Fleming continued, “have come up for sale on the black market.”

  “We need to stop the sale.”

  “You read my mind. The problem is, we don’t have any solid leads on where it is, who has it, or who may want to come in contact with it.” Fleming grinned. “This is where you come in.”

  Stiletto made a fist. As usual he was presented with a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces and the enemy three steps ahead. But Stiletto liked it that way. The chase. The capture.

  The kill.

  “We always have a clue somewhere, sir.”

  Fleming nodded. “There’s a man named Liam Miller we want to talk to. He’s a smuggler and an arms dealer, but he also serves as a go-between for parties who want to remain anonymous yet still make black market purchases. Our best guess is whoever is offering the gas for sale, and whoever wants to buy it, may be in contact with him.

  “He’s at his camp in Libya right now. Go there. Grab him. Bring him back alive. We have a plane already standing by and you’ll have support from one of our drone operators. Any other questions?”

  “I’ll save them for Miller,” Stiletto said, halfway out of the chair. And then he was gone.

  Somewhere in Libya