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  The CO listened but then shook his head at the Grays’ recommendation that an all-points alert be put out across the Med. “That won’t be necessary,” the CO told Olsen.

  Olsen was puzzled. “But, sir — these people have already stolen several million dollars’ worth of combat gear. Dangerous stuff.”

  “Higher Authority’s got a handle on it,” the CO replied, calmly lighting a cigarette.

  “Higher Authority, sir?”

  The CO smiled — a rarity. “Higher Authority doesn’t necessarily mean Navy High Command, Ensign.”

  Olsen had to think a moment. “Are you saying a special ops unit is taking these things?”

  The CO just shrugged. “Maybe… ”

  But Olsen wasn’t going to settle for that — besides, it looked as if the CO wanted to tell him. “If some special ops group wanted all this stuff,” he began, “then why didn’t they just requisition it through proper channels? Those guys do that all the time — with the right authorization, that is.”

  Again the CO shrugged. “Maybe they’re not an authorized special ops group.”

  This took a few more moments to sink in, but finally it dawned on Olsen what was really going on here.

  “The Ghost Team?” he asked in a whisper.

  The CO let out a long stream of smoke and nodded. “But remember, I never said that… ”

  Both men had heard about the Ghost Team, of course. They were a very mysterious special ops outfit that might very well be operating without government approval — or at least beyond the control of the Pentagon. That’s what made them so cool, though. Their exploits at Hormuz, Singapore, and right inside the United States had made them folk heroes. Like characters from a comic book, these near-mythical figures seemed to be the only people actually fighting the perpetrators of 9/11.

  “I talked to someone just a few minutes ago,” the CO finally confided in Olsen. “Someone with a Level six security rating, which he proved to me was legit. He asked that we just turn a blind eye to this, said that it would end shortly.”

  “All this stuff must be for something important,” Olsen said, in a million years never thinking he would be involved with the Ghost Team someday, however tangentially. “Something to tell my kids, I guess.”

  The CO nodded, then joked: “But only if your kids have a Level Six security rating.”

  Then almost as an afterthought, Olsen asked him: “If I might be so bold sir, this guy you talked to — what was he? An admiral? A general? CIA?”

  The CO just shook his head. “He didn’t say. He just gave me his security level and the day’s passwords.” He thought a moment, then added: “Funny, though. He did give me his name — Mullen, or Murphy, something Irish. But he sounded like he was right out of the middle of Texas… ”

  Chapter 9

  Hakpit, Iran

  Colonel Armeni Barji was asleep at his desk. Again…

  He was commander in chief of Iranian Revolutionary Air Force Base #3, here at Hakpit, in the extreme western portion of Iran, a place near the vast southern marshes that led right into nearby Iraq.

  Commander in chief of an entire air base might have sounded like a big job, with lots of authority and political pull, but in this case, the opposite was true. Base #3 wasn’t a combat facility. It was a graveyard.

  And what was buried here?

  Fighter planes. Old ones.

  Base #3 was where the bulk of Iran’s F-14s had come to die. Not to be refurnished or made ready to fly again. But to be entombed.

  Iran was the only country the U.S. Navy’s premier F-14 was exported to — this back in the days of the Shah, a pig by another name, but a pig who had many high-level friends in the White House at the time. The sale had taken place more than 30 years before, and because Iran had been turned upside down by Islamic radicals in the intervening years, for a while the Tomcats wound up being flown by one of America’s staunchest enemies. That situation didn’t last long, though. Lack of spare parts started humbling the Iranian F-14 fleet after just a few years. These days, hardly any of the exported Tomcats were flying regularly.

  Eighteen of the F-14s were now here at Base #3. Officially, only four of them were airworthy, and them just barely. Could those four actually go into combat? Could they ever hope to fire the weapon the Tomcat was built for — the very dangerous over-the-horizon Phoenix missile? No way. These planes were used mostly for training purposes by the Iranian Air Force or, on occasion, for aerial flyby displays made during military holidays.

  This was no place to be then, and Colonel Barji was bitter. Now almost 60 years old and at one time a general, he’d flown in the IAF since the war against Iraq back in the late seventies. He’d carried out strafing missions on rebellious villages inside Iran and the occasional sneak attack on Sunni Muslims living just over the border in Iraq. That had been the extent of his military career — shooting at unarmed people. But just by longevity alone he was somewhat of a hero inside the Persian air corps.

  Or he used to be anyway. A dispute over lack of flying time with his old F-14 unit located just outside Tehran led to a fight with his CO. Barji was reprimanded, disciplined, reduced in pay and rank, and sent here. That had been two months ago. One of Iran’s most seasoned, most veteran pilots was now a nonperson, out in the marshes, at the country’s aerial cemetery.

  So, yes, he was bitter.

  But he was also looking forward to getting his revenge.

  Barji had been working a scam since the day he arrived at Base #3. In his first week, he’d submitted a false report to IAF headquarters stating that one of the flyable F-14s had been destroyed by a hangar fire. It was a lie, but no one in Tehran ever came down to check it out. So not two weeks into his stint here, Barji had one of the workable F-14s in his back pocket.

  Then he had his men — they too were black sheep and exiles — steal as many parts as possible from the 15 or so inoperable F-14s, covering their tracks this time with false repair reports. By doing this, they were able to essentially construct an entirely new F-14. One that could fly and carry bombs and fire a nose gun, but was a complete phantom, a plane that could not be found anywhere on the books.

  At the same time, Barji let it be known, through a network of relatives he had spread out over the Middle East and southern Europe, that he had two F-14 Tomcats for sale.

  He wasn’t so stupid that he would think a legitimate government would buy them to use in their air forces. What he was hoping for was some country — China, Russia, maybe India, would buy them and secretly have their pilots train against them just as U.S. pilots trained against simulated and real MiGs at places like Top Gun and Red Star in the American desert. In that regard, the planes could be regarded as very valuable.

  His asking price: a bargain basement $1 million each.

  If he ever got it, he would defect immediately and live the rest of his life in very non-Revolutionary style in South America.

  Or at least that was the plan.

  The planes had been for sale for nearly a month now, and Barji had yet to get any takers. No feelers. No nibbles. Nothing. Again, he was not naive. He knew this thing was fraught with danger. Though Iranian officers had been selling off pieces of the armed forces for years to places like Pakistan, Uzbekistan and other countries, he realized that with each passing day he was closer to being caught by his superiors. Only a very grisly execution would result.

  He was asleep at his desk because there was no phone in his living quarters and he wanted to be on hand should a prospective buyer call. So it was strange then that while dreaming of a phone ringing underwater he thought he heard a knock at his door instead. Or was that thunder?

  He opened his eyes, expecting to see out the window that yet another lightning storm was making its way across the marshes. What he saw instead was a man, calmly sitting in the chair across the desk from him, holding what looked like a stack of dollar bills in his hand.

  This person was dressed all in black, including a black ski mask tucked un
der his oversize battle helmet. He had his feet up on Barji’s desk and was smoking a cigarette.

  Barji wiped his eyes. He was so sure he was still asleep, he actually smiled at the phantom, then put his head back down to resume his slumber.

  That’s when the man slammed his boot down on Barji’s desk again, resulting in a loud thump!

  Barji was wide awake now. The man was real.

  “What is this?” Barji began blustering in Farsi. “Who are you?”

  The man sat up straight. “I’m here to buy your airplanes.”

  “What the hell?” Barji coughed, this time in English. “You can’t come in here and—”

  The man held up his hand and interrupted Barji. “Are they for sale or not?”

  Barji’s vision cleared to the point where he could now see the patch on the man’s right shoulder. Barji recognized it right away. A picture of the Twin Towers with an American flag flying behind, the letters NYPD and FDNY floating above, and below the words We Will Never Forget.

  Barji thought his heart would stop right then and there.

  The infamous American Ghost Team was here? At Base #3? How was that possible?

  At that point, Barji looked out his window again and saw all his men being marched past the headquarters building. Hands in the air, they were being herded along by more gigantic soldiers in ski masks and battle helmets.

  Barji turned back to the ghostly figure. He knew well the reputation of these bloodthirsty Americans. They supposedly slaughtered any Muslim who crossed their path.

  “You are here… to buy the airplanes?” he mumbled again.

  “That’s right… ”

  Barji was very confused. “But…you’re the American military.”

  The masked man just shrugged. “We’re Americans,” he corrected Barji. “Let’s just leave it at that. Now, do you want to deal or not? We’re in a hurry.”

  Barji was still baffled. He didn’t know what to say.

  “Look, I’m here to make a purchase,” the man insisted. “What do you care who you sell them to?”

  But still Barji was having a hard time taking all this in. All he had to do was pick up his phone, hit the red transmit button, and an emergency call that something was wrong at Base #3 would be flashed to Tehran. He might not live for very long after taking such an action, though.

  And in reality, the phantom was right. What difference did it make who bought the planes? Russian, Chinese, Indian… that’s just who Barji had been expecting. But an American’s money would be just as good. Better, in fact…

  But it was still so weird.

  “And that?” Barji said, pointing to the stack of bills in the man’s hand. “Why pay? Why not just take the airplanes?”

  The man smiled, his teeth visible through the ski mask. “It’s easier to have you cooperate,” he replied simply. “Quieter, too.”

  That’s when Barji got a sly look in his eye. He had a pistol in his desk drawer. “So what’s to prevent me from keeping the money, keeping the airplanes, and shooting you right now?”

  The man just shrugged again — then pointed to something over Barji’s shoulder. The Iranian officer turned to see five men standing ramrod still and in unearthly silence, not two feet behind him. Each one had an M16 rifle with a bayonet attached pointed at the back of his head. They, too, were wearing the Twin Towers patch.

  Barji almost wet his pants. Had they really been back there all along?

  These people are ghosts, he thought to himself in terror.

  At that, the man in the chair leaned forward and put his hands on Barji’s desk. “Now please,” he said, with some exasperation. “Can we get this show on the road?”

  Barji could almost feel the sharpened edges of the bayonets touching his skin.

  He gulped and then croaked in thick English: “By all means.” The man in the chair relaxed, then stood up. “OK, that’s better,” he said, putting the stack back inside his pocket for safekeeping. Then he added: “And, oh yeah, we need some bombs, too.”

  * * *

  Base #3 was a sprawling place. It stretched out over 16 square miles, though a lot of it was underwater most of the time.

  There was, however, an auxiliary runway located at the far end of the base, the part closest to the Iraq border. It was almost never used.

  This was where Barji and his mysterious visitors were now. The two phantom F-14s had been brought here, by his own men, still under the guns of the strange Americans, pulled with the base’s pair of two-ton trucks. Two more trucks were filled with five-hundred-pound bombs. Also on hand were two portable ignition units, equipment necessary to start the planes’ engines.

  Both of the F-14s were horribly stripped down. Most of their avionics were gone. Certainly all the gizmos associated with the Phoenix missile system were missing. All of the long-range tracking and radar suites — gone. Even their rear seats, where the planes’ radar officers would usually sit, had been ripped out. Their cockpits were as bare-bones as a modern jet fighter could get.

  The engines weren’t exactly up to snuff, either. Many of the turbine blades had cracks in them, and the compressors were leaking something all over the ground. But when the ignition units were attached, both planes did turn over, and more important, they stayed turning. It took a few minutes, but they finally reached the minimum number of rpms needed for them to get off the ground.

  Parked nearby was the trio of very unusual helicopters used by the Americans. There were many soldiers in black moving around now. Some were unloading bombs from the trucks and putting them into the copters’ spacious cargo bays. Others were keeping an eye on Barji and his men. Just about all of these soldiers were carrying huge rifles, topped by the razor-sharp bayonets.

  This was not how Barji had anticipated his deal would go. But money was money. If he survived this strange transaction, he couldn’t imagine himself not being rich, even after paying off his men.

  As soon as the F-14s’ engines were warmed, a couple figures emerged from the helicopters. They were dressed in black pilot suits but were also carrying sidearms. They walked over to the big fighter planes and checked to make sure both still had their arresting hooks attached. Then they climbed in and, after a few minutes of studying the cockpit instruments, began taxiing for takeoff. Barji crossed his fingers, praying to Allah that the damn airplanes got off the ground.

  The two jets moved smartly and, despite the darkness and the bumpy runway, screamed away into the night. With a little goose from their pilots, they leaped into the air, one right after the other, climbing for altitude.

  They went wide out over the marshes and performed a series of loops and spins, barely seen in the waning dark but at extremely low altitude. This display went on for a few minutes before both planes suddenly turned as one and roared over the small group gathered on the auxiliary runway.

  But instead of slowing down to land, they kept on going, flying off to the south.

  Barji looked back at his buyers, confused again. He was expecting a bullet to his head by this time. Instead, the man who’d originally spoken to him handed him the packet of bills held together by many rubber bands.

  “I still don’t understand all this,” Barji said. “Why pay us? Why didn’t you just shoot us all — and simply take the airplanes?”

  Suddenly the American got right in his face. “Listen, asshole,” he growled. “When we start a war with you guys, you’ll know it.”

  With that, all of the men in black walked back to their helicopters, climbed aboard, and took off. They, too, flew south.

  Barji’s men all collapsed to the ground and started wailing in prayer, so relieved that the American Ghosts had not butchered them. Only after Barji saw the silhouettes of the helicopters disappear over the horizon did he undo the rubber bands on the stack and start peeling off the bills. There certainly seemed to be enough to add up to $2 million. Would he be a rich man yet? The first thousand-dollar bill looked real… but to Barji’s dismay, the rest of the pack were
fakes, hundreds of pieces of a green-ink Italian newspaper, cut precisely to look like dollar bills. They blew out of his hands, one at a time, and soon covered the runway.

  Then Barji looked closely at the first bill, the only authentic note in the pack. Or so he thought. It, too, was fake, a very clear, photocopy of the front of a real thousand-dollar bill.

  The reverse side was blank white paper. On it, written in thick black pen, was one word: Sucker….

  Chapter 10

  Abdul Harbosi was having a bad day. He was a low-level Taliban operative, middle forties, unmarried of course, the eleventh son of what once was a prominent Afghani family. He lived in a place called Qimruz Gorge, an almost-forgotten region of western Afghanistan. Made up of tall mountains and barren valleys, the Qimruz straddled the far eastern border of Iran. Only a few mountain passes separated it from the Persian state, and the traffic, such as it was, flowed both ways. Over the years, the tribal inhabitants of the Qimruz considered themselves as much Iranian as they were Afghani. That’s how close they were.

  Back when the Taliban ran Afghanistan — before the Americans threw them out — Islamic terrorists from all over the region came to the Qimruz because of its proximity to Iran. Supply lines for weapons and money were easy to find here. As it was also a place from which someone being pursued could get inside Iran in a matter of minutes, it was the perfect place for Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters to come to hide. No surprise, most of the twenty thousand people who lived here were bin Laden sympathizers.

  Afghanistan was changing. It was becoming more modern, more democratic, in many of its regions, ever since the Americans arrived. Not so in the Qimruz, though. The old rules still applied here. Women were still required to wear coverings head to toe or risk being stoned to death. The population still had to pay almost 100 percent of their meager incomes in mullah taxes or risk having their homes demolished by the notorious religious police. Anyone caught singing had his or her throat cut. Anyone reading a Western-style book had his or her eyes gouged out. Get caught flying a kite, playing with a toy, or wearing more than three bright colors at once, and you’d find yourself hanging at the wrong end of a noose. No matter what your age was, man or woman, child or elderly, if you stepped out of line and defied the religious authorities, you felt the wrath of Allah big-time.