by Dalton Fury
“We’ve also got”—another nod to Digger—“a semireliable source inside the Presidential Protective Division who can supply additional information about Secret Service coverage. The areas of greatest vulnerability will be at those scheduled public appearances, or during movement to them, so that’s where we’re going to focus our attention. Recon the routes and locations. Find the weaknesses. Look for places where someone … say an expert sniper, like the guy who made the hit in Greece, might set up. If in the course of this training exercise you become aware of an actual immediate threat … well, use your best judgment.”
Barnes stood up. “Uh, sir, you do realize that we are prohibited by federal law from acting in a law enforcement capacity.”
“Is this even legal, boss?” another operator said.
Slapshot leaned close to Raynor and spoke in a stage whisper. “I could have sworn you just talked about this.”
Hawk, who was sitting a couple seats away from her troop leader, now stood up as well. “We all know the law. And we all get that you’re tiptoeing around it, but if you want us to get the job done, cut out the bullshit and just tell us what we’re supposed to do.”
There were cheers, but Raynor noticed that the reaction was not unanimous. Barnes sat back down, his cheeks going red under his five-o’clock shadow. Some of the others scowled. Their apprehension was understandable. Raynor was asking them to walk a fine line, to potentially jeopardize their careers by joining in what was essentially a vigilante action thinly disguised as a training exercise.
He had anticipated something like this. The Posse Comitatus Act did prohibit the army from conducting law enforcement activities on U.S. soil, but there were exclusions that allowed JSOC to operate in certain specific roles, which could include VIP protection. However, without official support from higher, Raynor knew he couldn’t spin things that way, and he wasn’t going to lie to his operators.
“Sit down, Hawk.” He waited a moment for the din to die down. “Let me make this clear again. This is a training exercise. You will conduct yourselves accordingly. That said, there is a specific potential real-world threat to POTUS. The Secret Service has been made aware of this threat. They may or may not call upon us for additional manpower, but if they do, I want to be able to hit the ground running.”
“And if they don’t, sir?” Barnes asked.
“Let me worry about that.”
TWELVE
Patience was the greatest asset of both the chess master and the sniper. Patience was essential to winning the long game, and the greatest test of patience came when the end was finally in sight, when the temptation to rush toward the finish became almost overwhelming. For the sniper, patience often meant waiting motionless for many hours, as Rasim Miric had done on Mount Lycabettus and dozens of times before that on battlefields around the world, and the time for that kind of patient waiting was drawing close. He knew when and where the target would appear. But there was still much to do first. Preparations to make. Pieces that needed to be moved, and moves that could not be rushed.
He found lodging at an extended-stay hotel within walking distance of the target zone, and then spent the rest of the week reconnoitering the area: verifying lines of sight and confirming his range estimates, studying traffic flow and potential escape routes. He scouted several possible shooting positions, settling on the rooftop of a twenty-three-story brick condominium property almost three-quarters of a mile away.
He also worked on establishing his cover. People were quick to notice even small changes in their environment, such as the appearance of someone unfamiliar, but after a few days the novelty wore off and they stopped noticing. The former stranger became just one more unremarkable face in the background. Each day, he bought coffee and a newspaper from the same corner store, then proceeded to a public park near the target area. Following that, he would don a polyester jacket and ball cap emblazoned with the logo of the courier service he ostensibly worked for, and with a few packages tucked under his arm, head for the apartment building. His disguise got him past the front desk, and while his initial appearance garnered a few curious looks from tenants, by the third day, he had free run of the building.
When the weekend came, he rented a car and drove back to Michigan for a prearranged meeting with Lyle “Lizard” Dooley. Developing an asset was another part of the game that could not be rushed. Young men like Dooley, and the Revolutionary Struggle cell he had similarly recruited in Athens, were often eager to be part of a heroic struggle, but by the same token were wary to the point of paranoia. Miric made the eight-hour drive without certain knowledge that Dooley would show for their scheduled rendezvous, but the young man was there, waiting for him at a truck stop along the interstate, and they headed into the backcountry to practice movement techniques and shooting. Miric had brought the young man a gift, a Leupold Mark 4 3.5-10×40mm LR/T illuminated-reticle scope, along with enough ammunition for both of them to zero the weapon.
Throughout the day, Dooley urged him to reveal more about the special mission for which he had been selected, but Miric demurred. “Not yet. It is safer for both of us if you do not have that information.”
“I can keep a secret, Mr. Khavin.”
“I’m sure that you can,” Miric lied. “But you must trust me. Compartmentalization of information is essential to the success of our mission.”
“Yeah,” Dooley muttered. “I know.”
“All I can tell you is that our mission will be very dangerous. We may not survive.”
The warning—a bit of simple reverse psychology—had the intended effect. “I’d rather die fighting,” Dooley replied solemnly, “than live under tyranny.”
“No matter what happens,” Miric said with equal gravity, “history will remember you.”
“Damn straight. When are we gonna do it?”
“Soon.”
* * *
He spent the second week much as the first, moving through his daily routine, alert to the possibility that he might have unknowingly attracted unwanted attention, although there was no sign of any surveillance. His visits to the rooftop where he was setting up his shooting blind went completely unnoticed by the building’s tenants, even though the parcels he carried were now larger and heavier, and the interval between his arrival and departure increased a little more each day.
The blind, constructed of aluminum sheets brought up in three separate trips and held together with a strong adhesive, resembled a large rectangular industrial exhaust fan housing. While not identical to the units already installed on the rooftop, the facsimile was close enough to withstand a cursory examination, and certainly good enough to fool the city’s aerial surveillance cameras.
At midweek, he began to see increased activity at the target site. Uniformed policemen and official-looking men in suits, possibly police detectives but more likely government agents, walked the site conducting their own reconnaissance, assessing potential danger areas.
Right on schedule.
He watched them work as he ate his lunch in the park, and then from the rooftop blind through his spotter’s scope. He took note of the surveillance airplanes that were now circling overhead with greater frequency. They were looking for him even though they did not realize it, but they were looking in the wrong place.
On Wednesday evening, he called Lyle Dooley. “It’s time,” he said.
“Mr. Khavin?”
“No names,” Miric hissed angrily, as if the young man had committed a deadly breach of protocol. “It is time,” he repeated, and gave Dooley brief directions to a truck stop off the Pennsylvania Turnpike near New Stanton—roughly the halfway point. “I will meet you there tonight. Leave immediately. Tell no one. Bring your equipment. You know what I am talking about.”
“Wait, I can’t just drop everything and take off. I got a shift tomorrow.”
Miric sucked in his breath sharply. This time, his displeasure was genuine. “I thought that you were dedicated to the cause of freedom. A true warr
ior. Did I misjudge you?”
“No. I am. It’s just … I mean, I’ve got a life here. Responsibilities.”
“A life under tyranny?” Miric countered, throwing Dooley’s earlier declaration back at him. “How will history remember you?”
There was a long silence on the line. Finally, Dooley said, “This is really it? It’s happening?”
There was a nervous quaver in the young man’s voice, but Miric knew he was already hooked. “It is,” he said. “I will see you in a few hours.”
Dooley’s last-minute hesitancy was probably a good sign, Miric decided. If he had been turned and was now cooperating with some law enforcement agency, he would have been eager to comply, not the least bit tentative.
That did not mean, of course, that the authorities weren’t watching Dooley and his fellow militiamen.
He removed the battery and SIM card from his phone and then headed out. It was a four-hour drive to the truck stop and he needed to get there ahead of Dooley to make sure that the location was safe. If Dooley was compromised in any way, Miric would simply cut him loose. The young man’s part in the game was important, but not critically so.
His caution, while warranted, proved unnecessary. There was no indication of surveillance in place at the truck stop, and no sign that Dooley was being followed. Miric observed the young man waiting pensively in his pickup for a full thirty minutes before making his move, pulling his rental car up behind the truck. He honked the horn to get the other man’s attention.
Dooley climbed out and started toward him. “I tried to call you—”
“No more calls,” Miric said, cutting him off. “Give me your phone.”
The young militiaman frowned, but complied, handing over his mobile device.
Miric took it from him and popped out the battery and SIM card. He would dispose of the pieces later, but for the moment he didn’t need any more questions from Dooley. “You brought your gun?”
“Dude, I brought all my guns.”
Miric managed to hide his elation at this bit of news. “Bring them. And then lock up your truck. You’ll ride with me from here.”
The young man frowned but did not protest. He retrieved a large duffel bag and a long Pelican case from the bed of the truck and stowed both in the backseat of the rental car before climbing into the passenger seat.
“We have a long drive ahead of us,” Miric told him. “And long days to come. You should sleep now if you are able.”
Dooley shook his head, visibly jittery. “No way. I’m too wired to sleep.”
“I understand.” Miric let off the brakes and began steering toward the exit. “I know you must have many questions. I will answer them now if I can.”
“Where are we going?”
“Baltimore.”
* * *
Miric’s next “delivery” to the residential building consisted of several large parcels, which would have explained the presence of a second employee from the courier service, had anyone in the building cared enough to inquire. No one did.
He led Dooley up to the roof and, working quickly, they transferred the contents of the cardboard boxes, which consisted of heavy sandbags and flats of bottled water, into the camouflaged shooting blind. With that task complete, Miric invited the young militiaman to climb inside and have a look.
There was just barely enough room for the two men inside, and when Miric closed the panel shutting them in, the dark interior quickly became hot and stifling.
“Damn,” Dooley whispered. “It’s like a coffin in here.”
“We will have to spend many hours here in order to complete our mission,” Miric said. “Can you do that?”
Dooley’s reply was an unenthusiastic “Yeah.”
Miric tilted open a hinged port on a side panel, allowing a narrow band of daylight into the cramped blind, and then set up his spotter’s scope on a mini-tripod, focusing it on the distant target zone. “Here. Have a look.”
With some difficulty they exchanged places within the blind, and then Dooley peered through the eyepiece. He let out a whistle of disbelief. “That’s … How far is that?”
“Approximately one thousand two hundred thirty meters. They will not think to look for us this far away.”
“That’s impossible. No way. Not with .308. Maybe with .50 cal or a custom load, but not with the shit I bought at Walmart.”
“It is possible. An American soldier in Iraq recorded a kill at over twelve hundred and fifty meters using NATO 7.62×51 millimeter round.”
“Yeah, I know about that. Staff Sergeant Jim Gilliland, USMC. He said it was a fluke. A one-in-a-million shot.”
“Then you will make it two in a million,” Miric assured him.
“Me?”
“Of course. Why else do you think you are here? This blow must be struck by a true American patriot.”
“What if I miss?”
Miric smiled in the darkness. “Trust me, Lizard. You will not fail.”
* * *
They returned the following day, Friday, with a final delivery that included a long box containing Dooley’s Remington Model 700 with the attached Leupold scope. At Miric’s urging, Dooley also carried one of the pistols from the small arsenal he’d brought along—a Taurus 24/7 G2 .40 caliber. They made their way discreetly to the roof, climbed into the ersatz vent housing, and settled in for a long wait. Dooley set up the rifle, bracing it with sandbags, and Miric positioned his spotter scope right beside him, but beyond that, they spoke little and moved less.
The interior of the blind was like a sauna. To stave off heat exhaustion they drank copious amounts of water, urinating the excess into the empty bottles. There were resealable plastic bags to use in the event that it was necessary to defecate, but Miric knew from experience that they would probably not need them. At night the outside air temperature dropped to a tolerable level, but Miric had lined the thin aluminum panels with insulating blankets in order to avoid giving off a distinctive heat signature, which might have been visible to the aerial surveillance planes that he knew were watching, so darkness brought only a little relief. Miric had endured far worse, but convincing Dooley to remain still was a challenge that only got harder as the Saturday sun rose into the sky.
“Keep watching the target area,” he urged. “Practice aiming your weapon at different targets. Try to predict how the bullet will drop or be affected by the wind.”
Miric followed his own advice, keeping watch on the increased security presence at the target zone. He could not distinguish faces, but he recognized familiar articles of clothing worn by people who seemed to be spending a great deal of time in the area captured by his scope. On Sunday, with just over twenty-four hours before the target’s scheduled arrival, there was a further uptick in the security presence. Miric spotted men surreptitiously patrolling the streets, and agents in black tactical gear establishing lookout positions on rooftops and balconies closer to the objective. They would not set up a position here, nearly three-quarters of a mile away.
As the last few hours ticked away, Miric closed his one good eye and began mentally rehearsing the final stages of the plan. Several different things would have to be done in a very short period of time, and in a very specific sequence, if he was to both succeed and survive. He visualized the steps, flexing his muscles to ensure that, when the time came, he would be able to move with the necessary quickness.
“Are you sure they won’t look here?” Dooley whispered.
Miric frowned at the interruption. “Not until it’s too late.” Then, curious despite himself, he opened his eye. “Why do you ask, now?”
“It’s just … That chick down there. It’s like she’s looking right at me.”
THIRTEEN
Cindy Bird didn’t just trust Kolt Raynor, she believed in him. Which was why that nagging voice in her head, telling her what a waste of time the so-called training exercise was, felt like such a betrayal.
It wasn’t that she doubted Raynor’s identification o
f the sniper who had killed the Greek prime minister—a Bosnian named Rasim Miric, though Racer called him “Shiner”—or even the somewhat wilder claim that the man was still alive and presently stalking POTUS. She could take all that on faith. The problem was that protecting the president, and attempting to do so in a discreet manner, without official sanction, was damn near impossible.
In the two weeks since being recalled from their various training activities, the operators of Noble Squadron had mostly cooled their heels at the rented building in the Arlington business park, waiting for some last-minute announcement about an unscheduled presidential appearance. POTUS seemed to be conducting the affairs of state entirely from within the walls of the White House, or in locations accessible via the network of secure underground tunnels that connected the executive residence to the Capitol and other official locations. He met with lawmakers and advisers, and gave press conferences in the White House briefing room, but nothing he did would have exposed him as a target for Raynor’s mythical undead sniper. The only item on the public schedule was a visit to Baltimore to talk about a new community policing initiative, kicking off with a very public meeting with the mayor on the front steps of city hall.
The prolonged inactivity was taking a toll on morale. Everyone knew that the training exercise was just a cover story—a pretty thin one at that—for Raynor’s search for Shiner, and discontent was growing even among Racer’s most ardent supporters. His detractors were walking the fine line between mere disrespect and insubordination, and it seemed only a matter of time before Barnes or one of the boys went over the boss’s head and spilled the beans to Colonel Webber.
Maybe that had already happened. Maybe Webber was giving Raynor a little more rope to hang himself with.
Hawk had a feeling that if something didn’t happen—if Shiner was a no-show—Raynor would have to admit defeat and try to salvage what was left of their training cycle. But they were here now, on the ground in Baltimore, and she was going to do as instructed and give it her all.
