1 - A Dark Night
Idlib Province, Syria – November 2019
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Before the chopper had settled amid the churning, brown dust, a tall, muscular man with short dark hair, tanned skin, and a distinctive square jawline jumped out. He sprinted into the dark, followed closely by an equally tall, powerfully framed black man. As two other black-painted helicopters landed nearby, a small Delta Force team joined the two men in the race. Their mission demanded urgency. Their target was ISIS leader Abū Bakr al-Baghdadi.1
A quick note on my Substack footnotes: Footnotes are there to add background info + additional links for real life events embedded within my story. If you want to know more, click on the footnote number. Once you've read it, click the footnote number to return to the story. If you're reading The Phisherman in a web browser, simply hover your mouse pointer over a footnote number and the footnote will appear. 01 FEB 2023 UPDATE: FOOTNOTES CURRENTLY ONLY WORK VIA WEB OR EMAIL - THEY'VE HAVE CEASED WORKING IN SUBSTACK'S APP (They can still be found at the end of the chapter).Under cover of a moonless night, Nick Davies, the CIA’s top black ops field agent from the legendary Special Activities Center2, aka SAC, led the Special Forces team silently but speedily through the bare countryside. It wasn’t long before they saw the thick concrete wall surrounding the compound that sheltered their prey.
Dropping to the ground, Nick waited as his dark-skinned Texan accomplice scanned the starlit wall through his scope. SAC’s top scout scrutinized every shadow, ready to remove anyone who threatened their mission’s success. Satisfied the path was clear, Jaime gestured for Johnny to go.
Without hesitation, their slight, thirty-year-old demolitions expert from Chicago silently sprinted forward and did his thing.
Time stood still. The team collectively held their breaths, waiting, hoping Johnny would remain undiscovered.
Suddenly, the little Italian appeared out of the darkness. Dropping to the hard ground next to Jaime, he declared, ‘Ready to blow.’
Then, with a wicked smile, he pressed the control.
The signal reached the transceiver in less than a microsecond, igniting the explosive compound adhered to the helpless masonry fifty feet away.
There was no time for stealth now. Everyone within a mile would have heard the semi-muffled blast.
Before the first jagged concrete hailstone landed, Nick had rushed through the gap with a semi-automatic in hand, ready for action. He lived for such moments. They gave his life meaning and purpose.
Muffled shouts of fear sounded amid the smoke and dust choking the atmosphere. It was the way Nick preferred. He hated stealth missions where the terrorist scum and the weasels sheltering them were unaware their life had ended as they slept. He wanted the SOBs to know he was coming for them. They needed to see, hear and feel his wrath.
Five extremists armed with rifles took cover behind a few date palms on his right, firing in panic toward the breach he had already penetrated.
Time was critical. He had to be in there before they organized themselves.
Nick raced from his position while lobbing a grenade with precision. Within moments of the hand-propelled bomb exploding, he was among his frantic foes, his two razor-sharp hunting knives slicing and piercing any flesh they could reach. It only took him five seconds to obliterate all five adversaries.
While the last corpse from his initial onslaught was still dropping to the ground, several more ISIS troops hastily positioned themselves behind a couple of vehicles on Nick’s left. The fanatics opened fire on his Delta team as they rushed through the gap in the wall and sought cover. Fortunately, the zealots hadn’t realized Nick was already in the compound and in the ideal spot to take them out.
He rapidly lobbed two grenades in the direction of the remaining ISIS bullies. As the grenades exploded, Nick launched himself across the short gap to where his next blood-covered victims stumbled in confusion and pain.
Nick was amongst the extremists before they knew what was happening. He laughed fearlessly as his steel blades slashed at any and every piece of flesh they could find. Seven seconds later, six more brutalized bodies lay in the reddening dirt. The only downside for Nick was that it happened too fast for him to savor the experience.
He was a hero to the rest of the squad, though often a reckless one. However, after what they had seen him do countless times, there was no disputing the living legend known as Nick Davies.
When Jaime rushed over and asked if he was okay, Nick grinned.
‘Never better, my brother.’
Jaime stared at Nick for a few seconds, his face conveying a sense of awe as he shook his head.
Looking over the rest of his team, Nick yelled, ‘Find Baghdadi,’ then raced over and kicked in the enormous wooden double door of the impressive building dominating the compound. Eagerly, he ran inside, his gun ready. The ever-alert Jaime raced alongside, striving to keep up and protect Nick from himself.
Nick knew he was expected to wait in the background once the fight began. However, that never had and never would work for Nick. Every time he was sent out on such a mission, he returned with blood on his hands.
And over most of his uniform.
After directing Jaime to search the ground floor with Jones, one of the two Deltas who’d joined them inside, Nick sped up the wide concrete stairs with Defries, an eager twenty-five-year-old redhead keen to prove himself in front of the infamous Nick Davies.
They’d reached the top of the stairwell when Jaime shouted, ‘He’s here, Nick,’ followed by a loud chorus of bullets being fired and ricocheting off concrete walls.
Nick rushed downstairs and turned into the dark corridor Jaime had disappeared into less than a minute before. It was impossible to ignore the painful sound of a man screaming through the unremitting noise of automatic weapons discharging a hailstorm of lead.
It was only a short dash for Nick and Defries to reach an enormous, open-air atrium. A magnificent garden with date palms as tall as the second-story rooftop occupied most of its space. A glance revealed Jaime pinned behind one of the palms, the red blood of the seasoned Delta Jones splattered across his dark-skinned face.
‘There’s at least two in the second-floor windows,’ Jaime yelled at Nick.
Less than a second later, a burst of bullets sprayed across the concrete wall within a foot of Nick’s head.
Nick stepped back to safety, his mind instantly filling with potential responses. He was number one in SAC’s Counter-Terrorism Team in the Special Operations Group’s Ground branch for a reason. Nick was not merely a killing machine. He was the most efficient and effective dealer in death the Agency had.
Realizing the concrete walls enclosing the atrium created an echo that would make it difficult to determine a noise’s source, Nick projected his voice into the enclosed courtyard, yelling in Arabic, ‘He’s behind you.’
Taking a deep breath to focus, he half-stepped into the open and saw what he expected. Two heads in upstairs windows overlooking the exposed atrium had turned to deal with the apparent threat behind them.
That was all Nick needed.
Two shots and the subversive snipers were down before they could turn back and gaze into Nick’s emotionless, brown eyes.
Rushing into the open space, he pulled his brother from another mother to his feet.
‘Where’s Baghdadi, Buzz?’
‘I saw him run through there with a couple of bodyguards,’ Jaime responded, pointing to a doorway on the other side as he stood to his full six and a half feet.
Placing his hand on Nick’s shoulder, Jaime whispered, ‘I’m sorry, Nick.’ Then, gazing down at Jones’ blood-splattered body, he explained, ‘Baghdadi used himself as bait to draw us into the open.’
After directing Defries to carry his fallen brother back to the extraction point, Nick stared intently into Jaime’s eyes as he said, ‘Then let’s make the asshole pay in blood.’
Before Jaime could remind Nick that they were supposed to catch Baghdadi alive, if possible, Nick had rushed into the next dimly lit corridor in search of his quarry.
He knew he was close when he heard another firefight ahead.
Nick and Jaime raced through a large, galley-style kitchen into an ancient storeroom with an open door revealing the darkness outside. Without hesitation, Nick stepped into the doorway to assess the situation.
Johnny and several Deltas had made their way around the house where they’d come across Baghdadi emerging from the building’s storeroom. Unfortunately, two of the ISIS bodyguards held Nick’s team at bay as Baghdadi disappeared around another building.
One of Baghdadi’s bodyguards fell as Johnny and his Delta buddies fired a relentless stream of bullets. It was a mere matter of time until they downed the other. Nick preferred that time to be now.
He took one step into the open air. It gave him sufficient room to lob his final grenade. The bodyguard was preoccupied with the Delta team, so he didn’t see it coming. Nick wondered if the dark-bearded man heard the dull thud as the bomb landed in the dust a mere foot away from where he crouched behind a large urn. Even if he did, there was nothing he could do. The grenade exploded one second later, turning him and the concrete barrel into a million pieces of red-colored cement.
As broken masonry and flesh rained from above, Nick sprinted toward where Baghdadi had fled.
He turned the corner and stopped.
Baghdadi had vanished.
Nick started scouting the ground as Jaime and the remaining Delta troops joined him.
‘The son of a bitch has gotta be here somewhere. Find him,’ Nick demanded.
Within a minute, a Delta found a well-disguised trapdoor.
Nick lifted the trap door and stared down into the black abyss. It was pointless dropping a grenade that might destroy any evidence of their success. They would never know if Baghdadi escaped any subterranean collapse an explosion might trigger until he masterminded another evil plot that cost countless innocent lives.
The only way to complete the mission required pursuing the target into his burrow.
After glancing at Jaime and shrugging his shoulders, Nick grabbed the polished sides of the metallic rungs and started his dangerous descent, sliding down as fast as he dared.
He sighed when he reached the bottom without being attacked.
He quietly let the others know he was safe, waiting as Jaime and two more Deltas joined him. The others remained above ground to check through the compound for any valuable intel.
The four of them cautiously advanced through the cavern. Nick was amazed at its size. The many scuff marks on the dirt-covered floor proved it was regularly used. He wondered what for until he saw the large wooden crates.
He was about to open one when the young Delta called Jackson hissed, ‘Over here.’
Nick ran toward the slightly high-pitched voice on his right.
‘I saw someone run down there,’ Jackson said as he pointed to the left side of a large fork where the cave turned into two tunnels.
‘Well, I guess you get to come hunting with me then, don’t you?’ Nick responded with an evil grin.
Turning to Jaime, he said, ‘Hey, Buzz, make sure the son of a bitch isn’t hiding anywhere else while we check this out. And find out what’s in those crates.’
Without waiting for Jaime’s response, Nick turned and headed down the tunnel on his left, Jackson following closely behind.
Cautiously, the two of them made their way down the dark abyss, the eerie green glow of their night-vision goggles revealing nothing.
They’d progressed fifty yards when Nick heard a slight movement to his right.
He spun in time to see an adult holding two young children appear from a hidden cleft in the rock wall. As Baghdadi took a small step out of the shadows toward Nick and his Delta accomplice, it was hard to miss the evil calm on the terrorist’s face. He was oblivious to the two small children who trustingly gazed up at their father, though Nick was sure their eyes were filled with uncertainty.
Before Nick could react, a flash of dazzling white blinded him as his ears filled with the roar of an explosion.
And then, the darkness came.
As Nick’s world abruptly faded, somewhere in cyberspace, a shadow opened a private chat that had remained dormant for many years. It was a distant connection to one of only a few hackers the KingPhisher3 regarded as near-peers.
Unfortunately, the greatest of them, the Russian who called himself koshmar – The Nightmare – would never work with the KingPhisher again.
However, the one known across the darknet4 as Vengador owed the king because of past deeds. The hour had come for the debt to be repaid.
Rumors were spreading across the tangled web the king controlled – terrible tales of a cyber weapon with ominous outcomes. The whispers alone were too incredible to believe. And though a vast army of keyboard warriors awaited the king’s command, the task at hand required someone of greater skill and cunning than the king’s troop of packet monkeys5 scattered across the globe.
Accordingly, the ruler of the digital abyss transmitted a brief yet direct message elaborating how the skilled American hacker was to repay his debt.
And maybe this will be Vengador’s first step back to the cause.
Thanks for reading my online serial. I hope you enjoyed this chapter enough to click the heart-shaped LIKE button below. And if you have any suggestions to help make the story better or want to encourage me as a storyteller (either would be nice), please leave a comment.Abū Bakr al-Baghdadi ran ISIS for a while. This chapter is based on his attempted capture in Syria in November 2019. Sadly, he killed his two children when he blew himself up to prevent his capture by the special forces who’d invaded his compound.
The CIA’s Special Activities Center (SAC) is real. And the Special Operations Groups (SOGs) within SAC are regarded as the best black ops groups in the world – fyi, the fictitious Jason Bourne is intertwined with them. Most SOG members are the cream of the US Special Forces, such as Seals and Delta Force. Apparently, some of these peeps landed in Afghanistan in the afternoon of 9/11. And when Bin Laden was killed, guess who supposedly found him and was directing the Seal team that night? Yep – these guys.
Phishing is where a hacker doesn’t need to hack you – you hack yourself! All the hacker does is feed you the bait. Phishermen require their victims to simply swallow the bait, such as clicking the link in an email, and then you are their next meal ticket. Most people think they’re too smart to be phished. However, recent surveys show that many people are susceptible to what is called spear-phishing, where an attack is targeted explicitly at YOU. For more information, refer to phishing.org And if you want to see if you are easy to phish, check out how-phish-prone-are-you
The darknet refers to concealed internet-accessible resources that can only be accessed by using specialized tools, such as the TOR browser (that’s explained in a later chapter). The darknet is a hotbed for hackers, terrorists and cyber-crims. However, it is also a haven for minority people facing regional persecution, providing them with a means to have a voice while protecting their identity and, more importantly, their location. To learn more, see deep-web [kaspersky]
Packet monkeys is a derogatory term (similar to script kiddies) that refers to unskilled hackers who rely upon others to develop the tools they use. Packet monkeys specifically get their name from hackers who send innumerable packets of data to websites to perform a Denial of Service (DoS) attack. A website may get overwhelmed when receiving lots of packets, preventing regular users from accessing it – hence the term “Denial of Service.” For more information, see packet-monkey [techopedia]
A fast paced start, which has left me intrigued to read the rest of this cyber thriller.