American Sniper

by Ian Patterson

  Disconnecting with Mathias, Berkshire pondered if he’d overplayed his advantage. Then, No.

  Clearly, it wasn’t an army of outlaw bikers responsible for the rampage at the Mathias home. Or the abduction of Tara McDonald.

  So, how had Bohannon escaped from New York, made his way cross-country undetected, arrived at the remote ranch even before Mathias? Proceeded to put down a three-man, CIA-trained security detail before abducting and extracting McDonald from her own bed?

  Clearly, Bohannon had help. Berkshire would cast the net wider.

  In the meantime, to satisfy Mathias, Berkshire ordered up a replacement chopper. The new he-lo was part of a global fleet available on 24/7 standby notice from private contractors doing scutwork off-the-books for the Agency. The helicopter was state-of-the-art, an ultra-light three-seat model with a range of one thousand miles traveling at three hundred twenty miles per. Though powerful, the engines ran virtually silent. The rotor was compact, allowing for touch-down in tight spaces. Silent-running, the chopper was a stealth machine able to insert into hostile territory unseen and unheard, extract a hit-team just as quickly.

  In addition to logistics support, Mathias demanded Berkshire access the U.S. satellite ground station operated by the National Reconnaissance Office at Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado. The facility assumes command and control of reconnaissance satellites involved in the collection of global intelligence information. It delivers radio signals and mobile telephone voice and data communications intelligence to the CIA and NSA, among other U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies.

  The facility can track wheels-up, wheels-down, and global positioning coordinates for all aircraft and military drones on earth, provide ground-level imagery, video, facial recognition, and even audio recordings via satellite for any location or person of interest on the planet.

  “It will take hours to finalize the request, let alone the approvals, Mathias,” Berkshire complained of the request.

  “Tara doesn’t have hours.”

  “Bohannon has no incentive to harm her. It won’t help Tara for you to go cowboy.”

  “Bohannon may not want to harm her, but not knowing who they are, I won’t vouch for his team.”

  After a while, Berkshire said, “Listen to me, Mathias. I’ll do this for you on one condition.”

  “Bohannon has Tara; no such conditions can be made.”

  “Be that as it may, if you will assure me Tara is your top and only priority, you’ll have what you need within the hour. You make it personal between Bohannon and yourself, I’ll kneecap you out in the field. You’ll be on your own.”

  “You’ll only have my word.”

  “Of course. Your word is all you have left.”

  Mathias’s turn to go silent.

  “Don’t test me on this, Mathias,” Berkshire said, throwing Mathias’s words back at him.

  After two minutes, Mathias said, “You have it. I will not make it personal between Bohannon and me.”

  Still skeptical, Berkshire nonetheless agreed. “Sit tight. You’ll be wheels up within the hour with a flight path and a destination. You’ll make one stop en route, wherever it may be.”

  “Time is at a premium.”

  “So are munitions, Mathias.”

  “I have an arsenal at my disposal here at the ranch.”

  “Pop-guns compared to what Bohannon and his men are packing.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Brave talk considering it’s Tara’s life on the line.”

  Silence.

  “Thought you’d see it my way,” Berkshire said before disconnecting.

  From a pot on the countertop in the kitchen, Berkshire poured a fourth cup of coffee. Outside the window, he admired his blossoming garden, awash in the morning sunlight. Dew glistened like teardrops on the leaves. Bumblebees feasted on a thicket of fragrant lavender. Chipmunks and squirrels rooted for nuts among a small patch of green lawn. A squawking Jay came from nowhere to disrupt a gathering of chickadees swarming a hanging feeder. The smaller birds scattered. The Jay ruffled its feathers triumphantly.

  In nature, as in life, the strong triumph, the weak are conscripted.

  Berkshire mused: Bohannon portrayed in the media as an ex-SEAL Commanding Officer gone mad and out for revenge; Mathias the former SEAL and subordinate contracted to put him down.

  Perhaps all was not lost. Ultimately, Congress would see the futility of a volunteer military, would cede to the notion of a government-funded private armed force free from the shackles of political oversight and public opinion using intelligence to know what the bad guys would do next even before they knew, themselves.

  This was Dabney Berkshire’s dream, Dabney Berkshire’s plan until derailed by the Blackwater fiasco in Iraq. If his old buddy Dick Cheney had screwed things up, Dabney Berkshire would un-screw them.

  In the kitchen, Berkshire poured a fifth cup of coffee. Outside the window, the Jay preened.

  ONE HUNDRED SEVEN

  Antimony, Utah

  “I HAVE WHAT YOU REQUESTED, Mathias.”

  “Send it to my mobile.”

  “I prefer to deliver it in person.”

  A moment of silence. Then, “This is a one-man operation.”

  “Bohannon is working with a team of at least two more men. I believe I’ve retrieved their files. If I’m right, you’ll need backup.”

  “Ghosts of the past?”

  Berkshire chuckled. “Dead men walking.”

  Two thousand miles away, Mathias paced room-to-room restlessly throughout the ranch hoping to uncover a clue as to Tara’s current whereabouts, anything to reassure himself she’d come to no physical harm.

  In the kitchen, he poured coffee from the pot, still warm after…how many hours? For whom had Tara brewed coffee? Bohannon and his men? Or had Tara risen early of her own accord expecting Mathias’s return? Was she woken by intruders busting down the doors?

  And who was this third man? The man now less one ear and one forefinger? Mathias didn’t honestly care about the second hostage, only what it meant for Tara that she could be likewise treated by Bohannon and the men under his control.

  “Send me the files,” Mathias repeated.

  “You don’t need files, I have names.”

  Anticipating, Mathias remained silent.

  “William Chan and Rodney Hathaway, AKA Terrence Cornelius.”

  “Jackie Chan and Mad Max Hathaway? Last I heard, Hathaway was MIA, presumed dead, and Chan was in prison.”

  “Chan was released; something about good behavior. Should have faced a firing squad, far as I’m concerned.”

  “Rodney?”

  “Rodney? You’re on a first name basis?”

  Mathias pinched the bridge of his nose. “These men saved my life more than once, Berkshire. More than once, I returned the favor.”

  “You do not owe them anything. You’d be wise to remember it.”

  Tone flat, Mathias said, “Rest assured, Berkshire; Tara comes to any harm, I do them the way I promise to do you. Now send me the files.”

  “Don’t be tedious, Mathias. I get it, Tara gets hurt, you flay me. Maybe I deserve it.”

  “Every strip of skin, every fiber of muscle, every tendon, ligament, ounce of blood. You’ve earned it, alright. Even so, it doesn’t amount to squat against what men like Bohannon, Chan, Hathaway, and me sacrificed for this country.”

  “You sympathize with Bohannon and his cause?”

  “Don’t know, yet, what his cause is.”

  Becoming impatient, Berkshire said, “Suit yourself if you want to fly solo.”

  “The chopper has arrived and is sitting on my doorstep. Now the files.”

  “The chopper costs ten grand a day.”

  “You can afford it.”

  “But the files are priceless.”

  “You sound like a Mastercard commercial.”

  “Are we done, Mathias?”

  ONE HUNDRED EIGHT

  Antimony, Utah


  UNINTERESTED IN WHAT had happened inside the home, the pilot sat outside waiting. Berkshire had told him nothing except to follow instructions. It was all the same to him; at a thousand-dollars-an-hour, he was happy to mark time in the mountains the entire week. When the man from the house finally did appear, the pilot knew better than to ask questions. Having had experience serving in Afghanistan and Iraq himself, one look at his passenger’s patchwork face was enough to discourage curiosity.

  According to FAA data, only five private jets capable of making the speedy trans-continental passage from New York City had touched down at airports in the vicinity of Provo in the last forty-eight hours. Of those five, four were discounted outright; three, bona fide business travelers, the fourth transporting an elder with the Mormon Church.

  The fifth, a Gulfstream G550, was registered to Lucky Strike Industries, a New York State private company. The company imported flat screen television sets from China, distributing them throughout the northeast States. Founded in nineteen ninety-three, Lucky Strike turned fifty million in annual revenue. It had three corporate operating officers of Chinese descent, over a hundred full-time employees, three labor code violations, with all taxes paid up to date, local, State, and Federal. Despite all this, they remained on an FBI watchlist.

  Jackie Chan, after leaving prison, was known to have traveled east to New York City. There, authorities lost contact, a violation of his terms of release. It was thought Chan joined a gang of local Asian mobsters to who he offered a prized set of war-time/prison-time skills in return for full-time employment. It was decided to leave Chan in place until he could be put to better use.

  Rodney Hathaway resurfaced Stateside as Terrence Cornelius in two-thousand-ten only after the passage of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act in two-thousand-four. The Act permitted the NSA to lawfully listen-in on all conversations conducted within the Continental USA. (For Dabney Berkshire, the Act was an all-you-can-eat buffet.)

  Having quit drugs, it was believed the former sexual predator, addict, deserter, and executioner-for-hire posed no immediate threat to domestic security. Despite facing a Court Martial and death by lethal injection, it was decided to leave Hathaway in place until he could be put to better use.

  Next, Mathias reviewed overhead satellite reconnaissance imagery from the past twenty-four hours. Analysis showed a significant heat signature approaching the ranch in Antimony from the north at a high rate of speed. At four-forty-two and thirty-six seconds on the morning of the same day, hovering stationary above the ranch, the heat signature of the unidentified flying object noticeably cooled.

  The analysis confirmed the UFO to be a chopper, make and model TBD, but with a payload capacity greater than four thousand pounds. Enough, Mathias knew, to extract Bohannon, his team fully armed, Tara, and the unknown hostage to a secure location, if not a waypoint leading to such a destination.

  The problem for Mathias was: Where?

  ONE HUNDRED NINE

  New York City, New York

  THE DAMP OFF THE EAST RIVER settled in like a London fog, coating the surface of the windshield outside, steaming the surface in. It forced him to power on the vehicle at regular intervals to run the wipers and the defog to keep his line of sight to the building clear. Though he’d spotted security cameras, he’d encountered no security.

  Yet.

  Ten-fifteen; doubtful his luck would hold. The longer he waited, the more likely someone would die. He was less troubled at the loss of human life than he was for the effort to achieve it.

  At ten-forty-two, a man exited the building from a rear door marked Employees Only! The man was Asian, short but sturdy-looking wearing a cashmere topcoat over a business suit, collared shirt, and necktie.

  From a photo transmitted earlier by text, he recognized the well-dressed Asian as Liu Jianguo, Chief Financial Officer of Lucky Strike Industries and the man who cuts the checks.

  Liu, he was told, was a person who could arrange for a cross country trip New York City to Provo in a G550 Gulfstream. A person who could arrange for a chopper able to extract three well-armed mercenaries, two hostages and crew in the dead of night from a hostile environment to safety in a secure location.

  Knowing this, Mathias exited the vehicle. Approaching the man, he said, “Mr. Jianguo Liu? A moment of your time, if you please.”

  ONE HUNDRED TEN

  Antimony, Utah

  “SERIOUSLY? YOU’RE ASKING for my help? Now? After I said to you explicitly that I disagree with your hairbrained scheme to hold your girlfriend out as live bait? You ask me this, now?”

  “It’s the only way forward, Gloria.”

  Tone caustic, the Acting Director of the FBI disagreed. “As you see it. I see it differently. Share what you have with me, and I’ll have a fully-armed squad prepped and ready to go inside six hours. You’ll have boots on the ground by sun-up tomorrow.”

  “Do as I ask, in six hours I’ll have what I need.”

  “You’re asking me to go off-book, Mathias.”

  “By-the-book has cost you over fifty lives, Gloria.”

  Seven hours before landing in New York City, Mathias pleaded his case over the phone to Gloria Resnick in DC. Unwilling to tap Berkshire for further assistance, Mathias asked for the name and current known whereabouts of Lucky Strike Industry’s principal directors, specifically the man who cuts the checks.

  Relenting, Resnick said, “Quid pro quo, Mathias. How is this company connected? Connected with the systematic assassination of over fifty American citizens on U.S. soil and the attempted assassination of FBI Director Padgett, who remains in critical condition, you should know.”

  “I don’t know that they are directly. Only that Bohannon had help traveling New York to Antimony inside a day. Not to mention getting out of New York City in the first place. Or taking down a team of CIA operatives. To do so, he required financing. You said so yourself, you’d frozen his bank accounts.”

  “Tell me who he’s working with.”

  “According to Dabney Berkshire, the information is classified. I signed an oath of confidentiality in the military and again when I joined Brookbank. I don’t have a problem serving prison time, but I won’t do it on a technicality.”

  On the line, Mathias heard the frustration in Resnick’s tone. “You have to give me something, Mathias.”

  “I will. In due time. First, I get back Tara. If I don’t, fifty dead Americans on U.S. soil will be the least of your worries, Madam Deputy Director.”

  The formality of his response made the decision for her. “Fine, Mathias; you win. You’ll have what you need. But if this blows up in my face, I’ll see you in chains.”

  ONE HUNDRED ELEVEN

  New York City, New York

  THE RAIN FELL HARD in sheets, the pavement slick with runoff. The narrow alley was piled high with refuse either side. Rats the size of cats foraged, feasting on garbage. The alley was deserted. You’d need to be homeless, on drugs, or an idiot to be out on a night like this, in a place such as this.

  With his weapon, Mathias cuffed Liu Jianguo across the chin; hard enough to break skin, gentle enough not to render him unconscious.

  “You think you can scare me with that gun, mister?” Liu said defiant.

  “No,” replied Mathias. “But I can kill you with it.”

  Eyes glaring, Liu measured the seriousness of the threat. To Liu, this man was a common thug, a gangster from another organization seeking to claim Chinese turf.

  “You can kill me, but it won’t get you and your people what you want. My comrades will come at you hard. You won’t see it coming.”

  Mathias huffed, breath billowing from his lips like hot steam from a locomotive. “I work for no one, Liu. I’m not looking to steal your territory.”

  “If this is as you say, what is it you do want? What is it I can say to make you not pull that trigger?”

  Mathias had chosen this alleyway for its proximity to the East River. If things went sideways, it wou
ld be days before they fished Liu Jianguo’s body out of the water.

  “Recently,” Mathias explained in a measured voice, “You financed an expedition out west on behalf of a man named Jackie Chan.”

  “William?”

  “He calls himself that now?”

  “To me, he’s always been, William.”

  “Did William explain the purpose of this expedition?”

  Turning wary, Liu answered, “No. And I did not ask.”

  Mathias checked the time on his wristwatch and time was running out.

  “It’s put you in the crosshairs of the FBI, the CIA, The Department of Homeland Security, the ICE, and the IRS, Mr. Liu.”

  At the mention of the IRS, Liu Jianguo blanched.

  Calculating the cost of loyalty, Liu said, “Ask away. If I can answer, I will answer.”

  “A destination.”

  For the next five minutes, Liu detailed William Jackie Chan’s request for cash, transportation, and accommodation. Chan, being a useful resource, Liu did not refuse him when asked.

  When he’d finished with Liu Jianguo, Mathias cracked him on the skull; hard enough to break skin, hard enough to knock him unconscious, not hard enough to kill.

  ONE HUNDRED TWELVE

  South Padre Island, Texas

  BY THE TIME THEY reached South Padre Island, Jackie Chan wanted to do the journalist. By the time they reached South Padre Island, he wanted to do the McDonald woman, too, but in ways unlike the journalist. Brux, because he was a man-bitch who wouldn’t quit whining, McDonald, because the sight of a woman in chains made him hard as a full metal jacket.