Cartel: A Jason King Thriller (The Jason King Files Book 1) Read online

  His dream had finally been approved.

  Soon, he would be accomplishing great things.

  He could barely contain his excitement.

  He moved from the open public corridors of the Pentagon to the smaller, tighter maze of interlocked passageways that led to all manner of backrooms and private quarters. He had been told to report to a certain office — one he had never set foot in before. Nevertheless, he knew the Pentagon like the back of his hand — a feat few could boast about — and he had little trouble finding the right door. A photographic memory had certain advantages.

  It was an indiscriminate wood-panelled thing, set into the wall with no plate signifying what lay beyond. Lars twisted the handle and pushed it open and strode purposefully into the sweeping carpeted office.

  He came face to face with the General of the Army himself.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Lars muttered, before composing himself and offering a brief salute. The General extended a hand, and Lars shook it firmly.

  There were three other men in the room. Lars didn’t recognise any of them — despite his savant-level memory he wasted little time on becoming familiar with the upper echelon of the military — but the medals and ribbons adorning their uniforms said it all.

  They were important.

  ‘Is this about my request, sir?’ he said, unable to contain his hope.

  The General gestured to an empty chair. ‘Sit.’

  Lars sat.

  The General skirted around to the other side of the broad oak desk and took a seat. He was flanked by the other commissioned officers — two to the left and one on the right. He drummed his fingertips on the desk and stared at Lars with noticeable uneasiness flashing in his eyes.

  ‘We’ve only spoken over the phone,’ the General said.

  Lars nodded. ‘It’s an honour to finally meet you in the flesh, sir.’

  ‘You too. I had a look over your files. You’ve done excellent work so far. That’s half the reason you’re here.’

  Lars stifled a beam of joy. It was true — he had accomplished a lot during his years working for the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, more commonly known as DARPA. Much like the men in the division he was looking to create, he had been accelerated through the ranks of his organisation at an astonishing rate. He didn’t shy away from the promotions — they allowed him greater responsibility, and he appreciated the generous salary packages as a bonus.

  ‘I wish it didn’t have to come to this, to be frank,’ the General said. ‘Initially, I dismissed your proposal.’

  ‘Oh…?’

  ‘We have a rapidly escalating situation in Tijuana. Tensions are reaching a boiling point. I think the division you’re looking to form would be uniquely applicable to what’s going on.’

  ‘Mexico?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What are we doing in Mexico?’

  ‘We were keeping tabs on a radical new cartel that sprang to life in the area. They’re aggravating both the existing drug empire and local law enforcement alike. Muscling their way into the game by any means necessary. It seems to be working — despite the risk involved with their rapid growth.’

  ‘Is that our concern, sir?’

  ‘Not particularly. But ultimately most of the product ends up here. The coca’s grown in Colombia, and converted into cocaine in jungle labs in Guatemala and Honduras. It’s packaged and sent through to Mexico, and smuggled across the border at any number of crossings. It makes the border towns violent as all hell. You control the crossings, you control the game. We’ve always kept tabs on certain hotspots — places with the highest threat of descending into all-out war. It seems like things have kicked off in Tijuana. I gave the order to passively watch this newly-emerging cartel — to see if anything comes of it. I’m sure you can understand that we weren’t supposed to be anywhere near it.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘The two DEA agents we had on the ground in Tijuana are dead. Shot mercilessly in the basement of an abandoned factory. They responded to a distress call from our informant. He’s dead too. Killed by blunt force trauma, according to local authorities.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Precisely my thoughts,’ the General said.

  ‘Wait…’ Lars said. ‘Does this mean—?’

  The General nodded. ‘I’m reluctant to green-light your project, but something in the dossiers you sent over grabbed me. These circumstances presented themselves, and I’m relenting. You get a trial run.’

  ‘Is any of this official?’

  ‘Not a word. This is black operations. Nothing’s on the books, and nothing will be acknowledged by our country. Understood?’

  ‘Of course. I’ve spent months on this, sir.’

  ‘You get one shot. If this fails, it’ll be even more expensive than usual. You know how much it costs to keep a Navy SEAL in the field?’

  ‘Roughly a million dollars a year,’ Lars said.

  He knew that much.

  ‘Precisely. It takes half that to get them there in the first place, once you add close to a year of training. Underwater demolition, advanced skills, redeployment — not to mention all the basic Navy training. The elite of the elite are goddamn expensive.’

  ‘I thought black operations had access to all kinds of funds.’

  ‘They certainly do,’ the General said. ‘That doesn’t mean I want to waste them. You have a blank cheque, but what you do with it is of the utmost importance. Understood?’

  ‘Of course.’

  One of the officers — a surly fifty-something man with greying hair and hard lines creased into his forehead — piped up. ‘I don’t like this.’

  Lars hesitated. ‘I don’t think this kind of thing transpires from perfect situations, sir. It’s uncomfortable, but necessary.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ the man said. ‘I’ve read the dossiers. All your papers on reflexes, and all that other shit. None of it matters in the field. Solo operations don’t work.’

  ‘I think they can,’ Lars said. ‘With the right men. My vision for this project involves only a handful of soldiers. Selected from DEVGRU, SEALs — whoever has the best. Vetted, tested, their mental data recorded in ways that are only just developing.’

  ‘I’ve read it,’ the man said, interrupting. ‘Spare me. Sounds like a fairytale.’

  ‘Some men work better alone,’ Lars said.

  ‘I disagree.’

  ‘Prove us wrong,’ the General said. ‘I certainly want you to. I don’t want a team heading into Tijuana. This is close to the most sensitive operation I’ve approved in years. Use your screening process — see if it works. Select whoever you want from our ranks. If they accept, we’ll send them into Mexico. We need to come down hard on anyone who puts a finger on U.S. officials. There was an unspoken rule not to touch us, at risk of severe consequences. At least, I thought there was. The existing cartel in Tijuana have wordlessly followed it for years.’

  ‘Are we on their side?’

  ‘We’re on our own side. Cartels are cruel, malicious entities — all of them. It’s the nature of the drug trade. But we can’t win that war quickly. We can, however, send a message that the DEA — or any U.S. officials — are not to be interfered with, under any circumstances.’

  Lars nodded.

  ‘Lars,’ the General said, boring into him with a fixed gaze. ‘My reputation is on the line here. Do not fuck this up.’

  ‘Understood, sir.’

  ‘You’re green-lit. Get to work.’

  Lars reached a hand across the table, struggling to prevent his fingers from trembling with anticipation. The General locked it once again in a vice-like grip. ‘I’m going to fly out to the facility you set up. If this pays off, it might just be the greatest development in the history of secret operations.’

  ‘I agree,’ Lars said. ‘That’s why I proposed it.’

  ‘You’re sending a man to his death,’ the surly officer said. ‘You’ll be wasting a prodigy. The SEALs focus on co-operation
for a reason.’

  ‘Because they’ve been set in their ways,’ Lars said. ‘I’m looking for the new breed. Lone warriors.’

  ‘Like I said, fairytale bullshit.’

  The General said, ‘Do you have anyone in mind so far?’

  Lars paused. ‘Have you heard of Jason King?’

  3

  Curt Gowdy State Park, Wyoming

  June 26, 2007

  In a rundown log cabin on the edge of a vast field of green, Jason King jolted awake, torn from unconsciousness by the distant howling of a siren.

  It was his third day in the isolation camp, and the experience so far had been close to hell.

  He rolled off the mattress — thin as shit and barely able to provide a shred of comfort — and tugged a thin, long-sleeved cotton shirt over his frame. Three strands of thick brown hair drooped over his eyes. He tucked them behind his ears and swept the rest of his hair back off his forehead.

  Even though the two had never met, King had similarly little regard for official military uniform as Lars Crawford.

  Delta Force operatives seldom did.

  He had come to learn that many of the rigorous disciplines and practices instilled in him from an accelerated SEAL training course were disregarded when one reached this level of the game. Delta operatives grew their hair and beards as they liked. They wore what they liked.

  They armed themselves with what they liked.

  During his two-year stint in the unit, he had also come to learn that youth was seen as an irreconcilable black mark in the Delta Force.

  He was twenty-two years old. Through either sheer dumb luck or actual talent, he had made it into Operational Detachment-D — someone had told him he was the youngest recruit in the organisation’s history. He had six months of basic Navy training and a year and a half of SEAL training under his belt. For reasons unbeknownst to him, he had been thrust from division to division with little patience, accelerated to greater heights with each passing month.

  He chalked it up to a mixture of a strong build, natural athleticism, a sharp mind, and unwavering self-discipline that had provided him with the results he’d achieved.

  There was movement in the bunk above his head, and a moment later a man dropped onto the wood-panelled floor of the cabin. This man also took full advantage of the allowances Delta operatives were offered — his hair was dreadlocked, tied back in a thick ponytail at all times.

  His name was Dirk Wiggins.

  He was King’s only friend in the unit.

  ‘How’d you sleep?’ King said, still bleary-eyed and half-asleep.

  ‘Could have been better,’ Dirk said. ‘But at least we’re not in the barracks.’

  King nodded understandingly.

  Dirk was twenty-nine, and one of the youngest men in the Force apart from King. The pair had been separated from the rest of the unit for the extent of this isolation camp after tensions had risen the previous evening.

  Truth was, King lived in an almost perpetual state of stress.

  He’d done so since he was first invited to join the ranks of Operational Detachment-D.

  Special Forces soldiers were often touted as a brotherhood in all the media King had ever seen on the subject. It couldn’t have felt further from the truth. It was a result of the age barrier — King was separated from the rest of the squadron by at least ten years. They were collectively older, more experienced, hardened to the stoic nature of an operative’s life. They functioned as a collective hive-mind, in tune with each other and able to effortlessly co-ordinate as a tight-knit unit.

  King never let his weakness and inexperience show — but that didn’t matter.

  Whether they intended to create it or not, a noticeable barrier had formed, preventing acceptance into the ranks.

  An event that spelled disaster in the upper echelon of the Special Forces.

  King wondered how long it would take before they kicked him out.

  Frankly, he wondered why that decision hadn’t been made already.

  Subconsciously, he knew why.

  None of them could touch him in a fight. He posted the most consistent results in the rigorous firearms testing. Maybe that was why they shunned him — whether they liked to admit it or not, he was damn good at his job. At twenty-two, that was likely to infuriate plenty of them — especially since it was easy to ascribe King’s results to God-given ability and natural talent rather than sheer hard work.

  They rarely let their disgruntlement show.

  There was no room for petty competition at this level of the game.

  But they shut him out all the same.

  The alarm petered out, replaced by an eerie silence. The piercing shrill had scared off the flocks of birds that usually milled around the woods. They stayed quiet in the aftermath of the racket. King listened to the wood cabin softly creaking all around him as he stepped into heavy-duty combat boots and shuffled out into the morning fog.

  It was barely light.

  He looked out over the clearing, tucked into an off-limits section of Curt Gowdy State Park. Francis E. Warren Air Force Base lay twenty miles to the east, but the thick woodland provided more seclusion than the dry, roiling plains of Cheyenne. Delta Force operatives were trained separately to ordinary soldiers, for obvious reasons.

  The isolation camp had been designed to test their physical and mental limits, but despite the gruelling exercise and training that came along with such a program, King found solace in the actions. His squad had returned from the Middle-East three weeks previously, and he wanted to put everything that had happened behind him.

  As if reading his thoughts, Dirk piped up next to him. ‘Has anyone questioned you about Ramadi yet?’

  Ramadi, Iran.

  A city he would love to tuck away in the deepest, darkest hole of his memory. He was still conflicted about what had unfolded.

  ‘No,’ King said.

  ‘You think they will?’

  ‘I assume so. I broke protocol.’

  ‘Not really…’

  ‘You were there, Dirk.’

  The man nodded. ‘You think they’ll chew you out?’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  The pair made their way across the grassy field, their boots crunching through dew and flakes of ice. Winter in Wyoming was ruthless in its chill. King exhaled, watching as a thick cloud wafted out in front of his face. He bowed his head and made for the soft beacon of light coming from the other side of the clearing.

  Exterior lights along the front of a long lodge-style building flickered into life, piercing through the gloom of dawn. King entered the building first, shoving a set of double doors inwards and stepping through into a rudimentary mess hall. Seven burly men spread across a handful of rickety trestle tables looked up from their chow.

  All eyes on King.

  He shrugged off their piercing glares and snatched up a plate to heap with chicken and rice and beans. They were taken care of in the culinary department. Their diets during the isolation camp had been set at four thousand calories a day in order to compensate for the unforgiving intensity of the training. King took care to always eat a little more. He had the frame for it.

  As he crossed to an empty table, the hostility was palpable in the air.

  ‘Bit late, brother,’ David shot from across the room.

  King looked up from his plate. The man was thirty-three. He’d been a Delta Force operative for five years. He used the same colloquialisms with King as he did the rest of the unit, but they felt oddly hollow when addressed to the young pup of the group.

  King didn’t imagine the man really thought of him as a brother.

  ‘Sorry,’ King said, and kept eating.

  Long ago, he’d found that ignoring the subtle digs fared easier than reacting to them. He knew that the mental walls he’d erected weren’t healthy, especially given the nature of his occupation. But he didn’t care. He was sick of catering to the wit of the other operatives, deciding to replace his attempts to fit in wit
h reserved silence.

  He was drawing into himself, and he didn’t know how to reverse it.

  Especially after Iran.

  He thought his actions might have brought the squad closer together, but in hindsight the only result that could have come from such a brash decision was disapproval.

  Dirk dropped onto the bench next to him and tucked into his meal, ducking his head and employing full concentration on the food before him. King did the same. He’d come to appreciate the silence. It meant no-one was grilling him. It meant momentary calm.

  From outside, the sharp barking of a pissed-off instructor tore through the reserved quiet of the mess hall. All nine of them abandoned their plates and dropped them back off at the kitchen counter, receiving curt nods from the chef as they returned their dishes. They shuffled out the door wordlessly, King and Dirk hanging back to allow the seven older members to pass through first.

  Just another nuance that King had grown aware of.

  Anything to make the day flow smoother.

  The source of the harsh commands that had separated them from their breakfast was a five-foot-six drill instructor with a receding hairline and a horrible temper. Ironic, given that his specialty was yoga.

  King had been through the routine for close to two years now. He knew the vinyasas and the sun salutations and the warrior poses off by heart, to the point where he took himself through the sixty-minute session on autopilot. It didn’t take long to warm up. At first the icy grass underneath his palms chilled him to the core, but as the positions grew more difficult the sweat began to leech from his pores, materialising in unison with the piercing Wyoming sun.

  By the time they finished the session, King guessed that he had shed close to a pound in bodyweight. When he’d first been promoted to Delta Force, he’d found the concept of yoga just as ridiculous as the other members had when they first joined. It posed a humorous sight to any onlookers — nine of the toughest, meanest men on the planet carrying themselves through a routine ordinarily reserved for middle-aged women in hot bikram studios.

  But the benefits were astounding. After two years of relentless consistency in the practice, King had first-hand experience in its advantages — his muscles recovered faster, he could move in ways he’d never imagined, his dexterity had heightened considerably…