The Pandora Deception--A Novel Read online

  Begin Reading

  Table of Contents

  About the Authors

  Copyright Page

  Thank you for buying this

  St. Martin’s Press ebook.

  To receive special offers, bonus content,

  and info on new releases and other great reads,

  sign up for our newsletters.

  Or visit us online at

  us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

  For email updates on David Bruns, click here.

  For email updates on J. R. Olson, click here.

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  FROM J. R.

  For Quasar and Dexter, two gentle old dogs.

  Though you’ve crossed the Rainbow Bridge, leaving the Olson pack behind, you will always be in our hearts.

  FROM DAVID

  For Alex and Cate.

  Being your father is the best job in the world.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  THE AMERICANS

  Donald Riley, Deputy Director of Operations, Emerging Threats group at CIA

  Judith Hellman, Director of National Intelligence

  Roger Trask, Director, Central Intelligence Agency

  Lieutenant (j.g.) Janet Everett, Submarine Officer; Analyst, Emerging Threats group at CIA

  Ensign Michael Goodwin, US Navy Cyberoperations Officer; Analyst, Emerging Threats group at CIA

  Lieutenant (j.g.) Andrea Ramirez, USS Michael Murphy (DDG-112) Comms Officer; Analyst, Emerging Threats group at CIA

  Lieutenant Commander Minto, Executive Officer of USS Michael Murphy (DDG-112)

  Elizabeth Soroush, Special Agent in Charge, Minneapolis Field Division

  THE ISRAELIS

  Rachel Jaeger, Mossad operative

  Noam Glantz, Mossad Kidon team leader; Rachel Jaeger’s operations chief

  Benyamin Albedano, Mossad Director of Operations

  Shira Fishbein, Mossad Head of Cyber Operations

  THE MONEY MEN

  Alyan Sultan al-Qahtamni, Saudi business tycoon

  Saleh bin Ghannam, Saudi business tycoon and former head of the Saudi Secret Service

  Haim Zarecki, Israeli business tycoon

  Itzak Lehrmann, Israeli business tycoon

  PROJECT DELIVERANCE TEAM

  Jean-Pierre Manzul, CEO, Recodna Genetics; boyfriend of Talia Tahir

  Dr. Talia Tahir, doctor with the World Health Organization; girlfriend of Jean-Pierre Manzul

  Dr. Lakshmi Chandrasekaran, research scientist for Recodna Genetics; Indian microbiologist

  Dr. Katie McDonough, research scientist for Recodna Genetics; Australian synthetic biologist

  Dr. Greta Berger, research scientist for Recodna Genetics; Swedish CRISPR expert

  Dr. Lu Xianshan, research scientist for Recodna Genetics; Chinese expert in aerosolized transmission of viruses

  Dr. Faraj al-Harbi, research scientist for Recodna Genetics; Saudi national

  MINOR CHARACTERS

  Kasim, head of security at the Recodna Genetics laboratory

  Sven Gunderson, Director, World Health Organization, Eastern Mediterranean Office, Cairo, Egypt

  Jason Winslow, archaeologist; specialist in Arctic field research

  Dylan Mattias, Directorate of Operations, CIA

  CHAPTER 1

  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.”

  Renner made his way to the bridge wing, binoculars in hand, to find the Commodore already there.

  Together, they watched the rigid-hulled inflatable boat containing Lieutenant (j.g.) McCoy and his eight-man boarding team lower to the water. The pilot gunned the engine, and the small craft shot away from the ship.

  A second RHIB, containing a second team, had been launched from the opposite side of the Cook, and it roared into view. Renner nodded in approval as one craft took a cover position on the stern of the dhow and the other circled the boarding target.

  “Cook, Boarding Team,” McCoy’s voice said over the open circuit. “Commencing boarding now.”

  “McCoy, Cook, copy.” The XO’s voice filtered out from the open doorway to the bridge.

  Renner watched the boarding RHIB come alongside the dhow and two team members use telescoping poles to raise a boarding ladder. One armed sailor scrambled up the ten feet from the boat to the deck and took a cover position, his M4 at the ready.

  Chief Ramone was next, followed by McCoy, then Petty Officer Jahandar, the Farsi translator. In less than two minutes, the team was on board and the helmsman of the RHIB gunned away from the side of the dhow.

  The wind had died and Renner could hear voices across the flat water. The sharp tones of Jahandar rang out as she and another sailor herded the crew of the dhow to the high aft deck. Renner counted fifteen crew members, all men, most in dirty T-shirts, shorts, and sandals.

  She peppered the crew with questions and fed a steady stream of information back to McCoy. The ship was en route to Mirbat, Oman, carrying wheat and a hold full of sheep.

  Ramone’s deep voice carried over the water as he broke up the remaining team members into pairs to search the ship.

  Ten minutes ticked by, then fifteen.

  Renner heard one of the boarding team groan. “Chief, I can confirm there are sheep and they have shit all over the—”

  “Stow it, Vasquez,” Ramone’s voice thundered over the circuit.

  Five more minutes, then Vasquez again: “Mr. McCoy, you need to see this.”

  Renner and the Commodore exchanged a glance. “XO, status report,” Renner called.

  Before he could respond, McCoy’s voice came over the open circuit. “Bridge, boarding team, we’ve got weapons on board. At least a hundred antitank guided missiles and two more crates with missile components.”

  “Captain!” the XO interrupted. “We’ve got company, sir.”

  On the bridge, Gooden was hunched over the radar repeater. “Combat, identify this incoming target. Now.”

  “Bridge, Combat, probable high-speed patrol boats. Looks like a swarm, sir. A dozen at least.”

  “Boghammars, Captain.” The XO’s voice was grim. “Recommend we go to general quarters.”

  “Do it,” Renner said. As the XO took charge of getting the ship to action stations, Renner moved to protect his crew members still on the boarded vessel.

  “All ahead full,” Renner ordered.

  “Answers all ahead full, sir.”

  Renner felt the reassuring surge of one-hundred-thousand-shaft horsepower propel the Cook through the water. One of the bridge crew handed him a flash hood and he pulled it over his head.

  “Ship is at general quarters, Captain,” the XO reported.

  “Very well, XO. Left ten degrees rudder”—Renner eyeballed a heading that would put the Cook between the incoming patrol craft and the dhow—“come to new course two-eight-zero.”

  “Bridge, Combat, we estimate twenty incoming fast attack craft.”

  Iranian patrol boats were essentially armed cigarette boats. Extremely fast and maneuverable, they could carry about a thousand pounds of light arms such as .50-caliber machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and 107-millimeter rockets. While devastating to unarmed tankers, they were no match for a US Navy warship.

  “Combat, Captain. I’m treating this as a show of force. We will respond if fired on.”

  “Bridge, Combat, aye. Five-inch gun is standing by, sir.”

  Renner raised the binocs. The incoming craft were visible now, arrayed in a line of sharp-pointed hulls. Churned white water rooster-tailed behind them.

  This was just a show of force by the Iranians. The pack would break off in a few minutes.

  “Bridge, Combat, we have incoming aircraft! Two fast-movers bearing two-niner-zero, range three-zero miles, four hundred knots.”

  Renner felt his stomach clench, but kept his glasses trained on the incoming patrol boats. Under magnification, he could make out the sailors on board the ships.

  Aircraft and patrol boats? A multi-layered attack?

  “Get me an ID on the bogeys, Combat,” Renner replied.

  “Probable ID is Iranian Kowsar fighters, sir. Time to intercept—” The weapons officer’s voice broke. “Incoming fire from the patrol craft!”

  Renner saw repeating flashes as one of the patrol craft released a volley of rocket fire. He responded by instinct:

  “Helm, right full rudder, all ahead full. Combat, return fire with the five-inch gun.”

  The steady blam of the Cook’s heavy gun was like a metronome as every three seconds a new round was re
leased.

  One of the incoming Iranian patrol craft evaporated in a geyser of water. Then a second, and a third.

  The incoming rockets sped toward the Cook. Renner heard the Phalanx CIWS engage, adding a blaring drone to the din as the six-barreled Gatling cannons spat out fifty twenty-millimeter rounds every second. In the background, he heard the roar of the ship-mounted .50-calibers opening up.

  It was over in less than ninety seconds. The united front of patrol ships scattered, leaving a crazy quilt of crisscrossing white wakes in their hasty retreat.

  “Cease fire!” Renner roared.

  The five-inch gun went silent.

  “Combat, light up those Iranian fighters with fire-control radar. Stand by to launch VLS on my command.”

  A second that felt like an hour dragged by, then another.

  “Bogeys are breaking off and bugging out, Captain.”

  Renner walked to his captain’s chair and hoisted his body into the leather seat. He gripped the armrests until his knuckles turned white.

  Any second now, the adrenaline rush would fade and he’d start shaking like a leaf. He took a deep breath, held it, then released it slowly.

  “XO?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Secure from general quarters. Let’s get a prize crew on the dhow and pilot that illegal cargo to Oman.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Normal bridge activity resumed around him, the comforting noises of the familiar.

  Renner stripped the flash hood off his head and dug into his pocket for his handkerchief.

  “Congratulations, Alan.”

  Renner paused in wiping his face. He’d completely forgotten the Commodore was on board.

  “For what, sir?”

  “For not starting World War Three.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Liberty Crossing, McLean, Virginia

  Don took the stairs to the executive level of the Liberty Crossing complex. He showed his ID at the final security checkpoint and entered the outer office for the Director of National Intelligence. A young woman wearing a sleek headset manned a multiscreen computer behind a desk.