The Thin Black Line Read online

  Praise for The Thin Black Line:

  “Realistic, vivid, dramatic, this is a story told by someone who knows what he’s talking about. I offer a bow to this exciting debut and to the newest member of the thriller writing community. Make a note: in the years ahead Simon Gervais is a name you’ll be seeing on many more book covers.”

  – Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author

  “When Simon Gervais writes about the world of high-stakes global security, he knows what he’s talking about. His world-class security expertise shines through in The Thin Black Line, a high-speed, break-neck, turbo-charged thriller that takes readers behind the scenes of the war on terrorism.”

  – David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of The Protector

  “The Thin Black Line is a refreshingly smart and blisteringly original tale that’s equal parts financial thriller and cat-and-mouse game with the survival of the United States economy hanging in the balance. Simon Gervais puts his own law enforcement background to solid use in hitting a home run his first time at the plate. A major debut that places him on the level of Nelson DeMille and Brad Thor.”

  – Jon Land, USA Today bestselling author of Strong Darkness

  “Chilling, compelling, and cutting edge. Global security expert Simon Gervais gives us a husband-and-wife counter-terrorist team that must fight inner and outer demons – and find a way to survive both.”

  – Barry Lancet, author of Japantown

  “Drawing from his military and tactical training, Gervais offers up a crisp, taut thriller that action fans can really sink their teeth into.”

  – Steven James, national bestselling author of Checkmate

  “The Thin Black Line is a heart-pounding read! Simon Gervais weaves bona-fide tradecraft into a high-octane story that never lets up. This is one thriller you don’t want to miss!”

  – James R. Hannibal, author of the Nick Baron black ops thrillers

  The Thin Black Line

  Simon Gervais

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  Studio Digital CT, LLC

  P.O. Box 4331

  Stamford, CT 06907

  Copyright © 2015 by Simon Gervais

  Cover design by Barbara Aronica-Buck

  Story Plant Paperback ISBN: 978-1-61188-205-6

  Fiction Studio Books E-book ISBN: 978-1-936558-59-9

  Visit our website at www.TheStoryPlant.com

  All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by US Copyright Law. For information, address The Story Plant.

  First Story Plant Printing: April 2015

  Printed in the United States of America

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  To my brothers and sisters in uniform.

  I know and understand the sacrifices you’re making.

  This book is for you.

  PROLOGUE

  Algiers, Algeria

  Two years ago

  Back to the embassy, Eric,” Ray Powell told his driver. “Let’s make it quick.”

  “Sir.”

  As soon as his bodyguard settled himself in the passenger seat, Powell felt the big armored SUV move forward.

  “Justin, do you know if the communication officer was able to fix the truck’s secured satellite phone?” Powell asked his bodyguard.

  “Don’t think so, sir,” Justin replied. “They told me they’d need the truck for at least ten hours in order to do the work.”

  “Goddammit! Why is it that the technology never works when we need it?”

  “Sorry, sir,” Eric said after a short pause.

  I shouldn’t have snapped at them like that. Keep your cool, Ray.

  “Listen guys, I know it’s not your fault. But could you see that it’s done today?” Powell said seconds later.

  “Will do, ambassador,” Justin replied.

  Powell knew that the six military police officers assigned to his detail were true professionals and recognized they were doing their best with the limited resources of the embassy. And if somebody understood how challenging it was to protect someone in hostile territory, it was Ray Powell. Prior to being named Canadian Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Algeria, Powell had served over thirty years in his country’s federal police force and had retired eighteen months ago as the officer in charge of the Prime Minister Protective Detail. For years, he’d traveled the world offering the PM the exact same service Eric and Justin were now providing him. Nevertheless, Powell’s nerves were now being tested like never before. If the intelligence he’d just received from the US ambassador was true—he had no reason to doubt its validity—it would be the last piece of the large puzzle he had worked on for months. A puzzle, if assembled correctly, that would lead directly to the Sheik. And since an hour ago, everything had become time sensitive.

  Dreadfully time sensitive is more like it.

  The Sheik. Nobody knew who he was. Until today, Powell even wondered if he truly existed. He had first taken an interest in the Sheik two years back, while still serving the PM. An intelligence report had mentioned the death of a Saudi prince whom the PM had hoped to meet during a future trip to the Middle East. Powell had followed through with an investigation and had discovered that the members of the terrorist group who’d claimed responsibility for the hit hadn’t actually done it. The tapes of their brutal interrogations conducted by Saudi Arabia’s Mabahith were forwarded to him. The first time he watched them, he’d tasted bile in his mouth, appalled at the violence used by the Saudi interrogators against their prisoners. The results were conclusive, though. They weren’t the ones. The pure terror emanating from the men being interrogated couldn’t be denied. Couldn’t be faked. Powell had felt it simply by looking at the screen in front of him. The screams. The damned screams. The same sound a tortured soul would make just before it died. What kind of man commanded such authority over other human beings that they wouldn’t say a word, except the ones they were told to say, against overwhelming physical pain? The only clues left by the dying members of the arrested terror cell were the two words they repeated over and over again: the Sheik.

  Hoping to find something the others had missed, Powell had spent hours in front of the computer watching the merciless interrogators do their work. Apart from the visions of the terrorists’ mutilated bodies that were still haunting him, he had come out as empty-handed as the other ones.

  Then for weeks nothing else. No more mention of the Sheik. It was like he had disappeared. But every time Powell was about to close the file, something happened. A known jeweler who specialized in blood diamonds found dead in Zurich, a Palestinian leader secretly negotiating a ceasefire with the Israelis assassinated in Cairo, a North Korean general executed in a Thailand brothel. And more recently, the death of an Islamist clergy. Powell sensed the momentum building. Something was in the wind. Of that he was sure. The proof was in the evidence he was holding in his briefcase. It was spectacular, maybe dangerous.

  Definitely dangerous.

  The more he thought about it, the more confident he became that he was holding the key to a problem that didn’t yet exist. So far the Sheik had never directly attacked a Western government or one of its institutions. It was time to take him out.

  Now.

  Powell doubted the Sheik would stay at the same location for a long
period of time. If the rumors about the Sheik were true, he had eyes and ears all over Africa and the Middle East. And noises on the street indicated he was about to make a bold move. That was why he had to communicate to his boss what he’d discovered during his meeting with a longtime friend at the American embassy.

  I still can’t believe this. No wonder my friend is afraid. I would be too if the Sheik had direct access to POTUS—the President of the United States. I wouldn’t know whom to trust around me.

  Once the minister learned about it, Powell hoped it would be enough to convince him to go to the PM and ask to place a JTF-2 strike team on alert, the Canadian Tier 1 special operations unit, to apprehend the Sheik before it was too late.

  Powell bent forward in his seat. “Would you mind contacting the military attaché, Justin? Tell him I’ll need to speak to the foreign affairs minister once I’m back at the embassy. Ask him to make the necessary arrangements.”

  “Yes, sir. No problem. Should I mention the subject matter?”

  Powell thought about it for a second. The minister was famously difficult to get on the phone. “Yes. Tell him it’s about the Sheik.”

  That should get his attention.

  Powell shook his head. The Sheik. So close. Here, in Algiers! Why? What was so important in Algiers? Why had he left so many breadcrumbs behind him after being so careful for so long?

  I’m missing something. But what?

  From the backseat of the SUV, Powell caught himself scanning the rooftops, looking for anything out of the ordinary. If I had known what the meeting would be about, I would have asked my friend to come to the Canadian embassy, not the other way around.

  “Traffic’s getting bad, sir,” Eric said.

  “Can you see what’s causing the delay?”

  Eric and Justin both turned and twisted in their seats, trying to get an angle on the source of the traffic jam.

  “Negative, sir,” Eric said after a while. “We’ll take an alternate route once we reach the next intersection.”

  With a sigh, Powell sank back in his leather seat and cranked up the air conditioning. With the digital display indicating an outside temperature of over 105 degrees Fahrenheit, he unbuttoned the top of his shirt and loosened his tie. He was well aware that the armored SUV he was riding in needed to move for the air conditioning to work properly and cool the stuffy air trapped inside. Powell felt perspiration forming on his forehead already. It wouldn’t take long before his shirt became damp with sweat, sticking to his skin. Algiers’s chronic traffic problem wasn’t helping.

  Powell reached behind his seat and grabbed three Gatorades from the cooler. He passed two of them up front before half-emptying his in one long swig.

  “Hydrate guys. Hydrate.”

  “Thanks much, sir,” Justin said.

  “No worries,” Powell replied absently, his mind already planning what he’d say to the minister.

  ―

  Less than a mile away, standing on the highest balcony of a nondescript apartment building, the Sheik, standing tall with a satellite phone pressed between his cheek and shoulder, watched the black SUV turn left in a futile attempt to escape the traffic jam he’d orchestrated.

  “Let the game begin, my dear friend,” he said to his interlocutor from the United States.

  “It’s our time now. Good luck,” was the reply before communication was terminated.

  “Only a few more minutes,” the Sheik mumbled to himself, binoculars in hand.

  After more than a decade spent inserting his peons and setting his traps, he was ready to start playing. And Ray Powell was the spark that would start it all.

  ―

  “I reached the attaché, sir,” Justin said. “He’ll be waiting for you in your office. He already spoke to the minister’s assistant.”

  “Good,” Powell replied. For his upcoming conversation with the minister, he’d written two pages of notes to help him with his arguments in favor of a preemptive strike on the Sheik’s location.

  Suspected location, Ray. Nothing’s been confirmed, yet. It may well be rubbish. All of it.

  “Ah, for God’s sake!” Eric said, bringing the SUV to a stop. He hit the horn twice.

  Powell looked up from his notes to see two cars blocking the road ahead of them. “What’s going on?”

  “I finally managed to get us off the main road, but these two clunkers just pulled up in front of us, and now they’ve stopped for no apparent reason.”

  Powell started scanning the rooftops again. “Something’s not right.” Over the years, he’d learned to trust his instincts. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Roger that, sir,” Eric said.

  “Back up, Eric. Back up,” Justin ordered a split second later. “One armed man. Our front, twenty meters. He’s sprinting across the street, left to right.”

  Shit.

  Powell felt the heavy SUV accelerating in reverse. Looking behind him, he couldn’t help notice that no other cars had followed them off the main road.

  Weird. Or lucky? It doesn’t matter. We have room.

  When the SUV reached a speed of about sixty kilometers an hour, Powell saw Eric let go of the gas pedal. Still holding on to the steering wheel in at seven and five, he brought his left hand to his right hand in a rapid movement, effectively transferring the momentum of the SUV, before bringing it back to the seven o’clock position. He then used his right hand to slam the transmission back into drive as soon as the nose of the SUV came about.

  Good J-turn, Eric. Now let’s get out of here.1

  The SUV accelerated quickly and was out of the danger zone in no time. Powell saw Justin reach in front of him for the MP5. He knew his detail carried with them in a specially designed backpack. Once the MP5 was out of its bag, Justin grabbed the radio.

  “XCA-31, this is Beaver 1 detail, Bingo, Bingo, Bingo. We’re presently at the corner of—RPG!”

  Powell didn’t actually see the warhead. All he saw before Eric punched the gas and broke right was a plume of white smoke. The HEAT—High Explosive Antitank—round hit the pavement less than one meter to the left of the SUV. The explosion propelled Powell hard against his seat belt at the same time the SUV rammed a parked vehicle at full speed. The SUV seemed to crush the smaller vehicle under its weight but embedded itself into the outside wall of a neighborhood supermarket.

  “He’s reloading!” Justin yelled. “I see the shooter. Back up! Now!”

  But the SUV wouldn’t move. Eric’s airbag had deployed, and he couldn’t reach the gear stick. Powell, still scanning the surrounding area, saw movement behind them. “Two guys approaching from the rear.”

  “Fuck this,” Justin said, opening his door and walking to the side of the truck.

  Powell glimpsed at Justin firing his MP5 at the two men he’d just mentioned. One of them fell while the other one returned fire. Rounds hit the back window, cracking it.

  AK-47. Shit. Things are getting worse.

  “Hand me your weapon,” Powell said to Eric.

  “I can’t move the damned gear stick,” Eric replied, now free of his airbag.

  More rounds hit the truck, adding cracks to two other windows.

  “Just hand me your fucking weapon!”

  “Negative, sir. You stay in the vehicle. Don’t move!” Eric said, exiting the relative safety of the armored SUV.

  Where do you think I’ll go? We’re surrounded, for Christ’s sake!

  Eric hadn’t made five steps out of the vehicle when Powell saw him crumble to the ground.

  More rounds. More cracks.

  ―

  Omar Al-Nashwan fired two rounds at the man who’d exited at the driver’s door. Al-Nashwan could have killed him as soon as he opened the door, but he had to make sure it wasn’t the ambassador. The Sheik’s orders were clear. Ray Powell was to be brought to him alive. As the
man fell, Al-Nashwan took an extra second to aim his third shot, then squeezed the trigger gently. The bullet entered the side of the man’s brain, killing him.

  “Two, this is One, sitrep,” he ordered his man in Arabic via their communication system.

  “One, this is Three. Two’s down,” Mohammad Alavi replied in the same language. “The shooter is using the vehicle as cover, and I’m pinned down on the other side of the street. I didn’t see the ambassador come out. He’s probably cowering inside the armored SUV.”

  “Not for long, Three. Not for long,” Al-Nashwan replied. The thick file the Sheik had prepared on Powell had said the ambassador wasn’t the type of man who’d be afraid of a gunfight. “He’ll come out soon enough. Be ready.”

  ―

  Seeing the pool of blood under Eric’s corpse becoming larger by the second, Powell knew he had to move. He had tried to see where the shots had come from but hadn’t been successful at doing so.

  I need to make contact with the embassy. He reached inside his suit pocket for his cell phone when Justin opened the door.

  “Follow me, sir. One bad guy’s down. There’s at least one more across the street, hidden behind the cement wall next to the red car. See it?”

  “I see the car, yes,” Powell said, running behind his bodyguard.

  They stopped behind an old Toyota fifty meters away. Justin unsnapped his holster and handed his pistol to Powell.

  “Fifteen in the mag plus one in the pipe.”

  “Roger that,” Powell said. He risked a peek through the Toyota’s windows. One of the armed men he had seen earlier dashed across the street. Powell fired twice but couldn’t say if he’d hit the man or not. “He’s behind the engine block of our SUV.”