by Ward Larsen
“Think about it. If you could somehow remove the ruling family from the picture, all at once … what would happen?”
Coltrane saw what she was getting at. “A complete power vacuum across the kingdom.”
“Exactly. Cut off the head, and all their fighter jets and tanks might as well be stuck in sand. If the government were to go rudderless in an instant, a committed rebel force of a few thousand with a good supply of weapons could wreak havoc. They might not take over the peninsula, but they could easily turn it into the next Syria.”
For Coltrane the revelation was like a light flicking on. He saw not the maps on the monitors in front of him, but one in his head. Saudi Arabia, a bastion of regional order, surrounded by some of the most unstable regimes on earth. Sudan and Somalia to the south. Yemen, Lebanon, and Syria on the shoulders. Archenemy Iran to the north. The House of Saud had its faults, but remove that iron hand, and the entire Middle East would fall to chaos. Kuwait, the Gulf States, an already divided Iraq—none could possibly fill such a void. “This is finally starting to make sense. The three ships that were sunk, multiple fingerprints of Russian involvement—this is Petrov making a play to destabilize the region. It could drive up energy prices for decades.”
“Possibly,” Sorensen said hesitantly, clearly not having taken things to a strategic level. “Whatever the objective, we have to figure out where the Saudis are meeting and warn them.”
“Wouldn’t it be at one of their palaces?” Coltrane asked.
“It has been in the past. But I’ve been getting stonewalled here. Security is extreme.”
“As it should be. The problem is, that kind of bunker mentality can backfire. The only way we’re going to get answers is from my end,” Coltrane said. “I’ll talk to the king himself if that’s what it takes.”
* * *
Slaton moved fast up the steep grade. Behind him, a hundred feet below, the Atlantic beat its endless greeting, swells rising up in the shallows and hurtling over the rock-strewn beach. Nearing the top of the cliff, at the seaside tip of the point, he paused for a cautious look up the promontory. There was no sign of the man. He had to be near, but stands of brush and rock outcroppings obscured Slaton’s view. The clear area at the narrow waist of the point—where he guessed the man was heading based on the rectangular case he’d seen in the photo—was roughly eighty yards distant.
He began moving again, fast and quiet, lacing between trees and boulders. The UMP was in front again, ready in a two-handed grip. Amid the dense undergrowth sound became more important than sight. He paused at intervals, straining to capture anything. He heard only the battering sea below, the occasional cry of a gull. With an estimated forty yards to go, Slaton got his first glimpse of the clearing. He saw the rectangular box—it remained on the ground next to a jagged stump.
In a crouch he shifted to his right, behind a fallen tree, to get a better view. Finally he saw the dark figure. He was a few steps left of the box, facing away. The gun case was resting against a nearby sapling. Slaton evaluated the man for other weapons, but saw no obvious holster or strap. Even so, if he was what Slaton presumed—an elite operator—there would be something else. He also saw no bulkiness to suggest body armor, only a natural musculature under his thin brown shirt.
For Slaton there was never any question of fair play. No urge to shout a warning or make an offer of surrender. No more than this man had given Pyotr Ivanovic or Alexei Romanov, and probably many others. A bullet in the back … as Slaton knew better than most, it was all too often an assassin’s destiny.
Yet he did take pause.
His hesitation had to do with his own weapon. Slaton had checked the UMP thoroughly, but had not yet fired it. The .45 had excellent stopping power, but every gun had its quirks. He could conceivably spray wide from where he stood. Ever the perfectionist, Slaton wanted to be sure. Wanted to give himself every advantage.
Which meant getting closer.
He began to move, with no choice but to close the gap across open ground. With the man still facing away, each step became a process. A glance down at each projected footfall. Avoid twigs and loose stones. Avoid any sound whatsoever.
Thirty yards.
The man suddenly moved. Slaton froze, the UMP poised with his finger tense on the trigger. He held steady as the man leaned down toward the box. Slaton watched him unlock two latches and lift the lid.
Slaton began moving again.
At twenty yards, success was all but guaranteed.
The man stood still. He was staring into the box thoughtfully … or … as if he were perplexed?
For the second time Slaton heard an old and trusted voice. Something isn’t right. He never had time to process that warning.
It might have been the smallest of sounds. Perhaps motion in his periphery. Possibly even a scent carrying on the wind. Whatever the source, the man sensed Slaton’s presence like a good operator would.
He whipped to his right, his hand reaching for his beltline. Slaton didn’t hesitate. Three rounds later his earlier doubts were erased. The Heckler & Koch in his hands was a faultless specimen of the weapon.
It shot perfectly straight and true.
* * *
The MiG rolled down the runway in full afterburner, shattering the desert morning. The sleek jet rotated upward and lifted into the air. As it gained speed, the takeoff controller on the roof of the van worked his joystick furiously. He was one of the Russian technicians, and on most flights ran the mission truck. Today, for reasons he didn’t understand, the lead engineer had taken that seat.
He adjusted his microphone and spoke to Tikhonov over their dedicated comm link. “Prepare for transfer.”
“Ready to accept control,” came Tikhonov’s distant response.
“On my mark. Three … two … one … execute.”
The technician watched the MiG carefully. Already two miles distant, it flew on straight and true.
“I have the aircraft,” Tikhonov confirmed from the mission truck.
The technician watched the airplane fade from view. Soon it was little more than a thin shadow with wings. Then he noticed something peculiar. Instead of turning east toward the test ranges, the jet banked very distinctly to the west.
“Mobile,” he said into his microphone, “confirm you have control?”
No response.
“Mobile, this is runway local! I am watching the aircraft and it appears to be making an unexpected turn. Confirm you have control!”
Still no reply.
The technician was about to make a third call when his thoughts were interrupted. He heard a metallic creak behind him.
He turned and saw a man at the top of the van’s ladder. He recognized him as the visitor who’d been milling about the hangar this morning. Everyone had been told his name was Ivan, and that he was an official from RosAvia. They’d been instructed to answer any questions he might have. He’d never asked a single one. Now, as Ivan reached the roof and stood clear of the umbrella a few steps away, the technician knew he wasn’t going to ask any here either.
He knew because the man had a large silenced handgun pointed squarely at his head.
* * *
The 747 carrying the Saudi royal family began a gradual descent.
The king had loved airplanes since he was a child, and while he’d never bothered to learn how to fly, he always enjoyed visiting the cockpit to mingle with the pilots—one of the many perks of royalty.
“We will begin our flyby in thirty-one minutes,” the captain said.
The king looked out the left window, just behind the captain’s shoulder, and saw the Moroccan coastline gliding past. In the early light the tan landscape looked strikingly familiar, accentuated nicely by an azure sea.
“Will the weather be favorable?” he asked.
“A beautiful day,” the smiling copilot said. “We will make a memorable entrance.”
The king beamed. He’d decided it would be spectacular to watch the proceedings
from here—the best seat in the house.
“Your Highness?”
The king turned and saw General Abdullah. “What is it?”
“We have received a message from the director of America’s CIA. He wishes to arrange a call with you.”
The king flapped his hand as if waving away a bad smell.
“Forgive me,” said Abdullah, “but he claims it is very important.”
A heavy sigh. “The Americans have worked themselves into a lather over these arms shipments. Make arrangements for the call—we will put it through once we’ve landed. Tell him I’m very busy at the moment.”
Abdullah seemed about to protest.
The king gave him a glare that sent him on his way.
SIXTY-FOUR
Slaton walked slowly toward his target, the UMP still poised. Not that there was any doubt as to his fate. Two of the bullets had struck center of mass in his chest, the third in his neck. The big .45 rounds left no room for error.
Three steps away Slaton paused. The man had come to rest on his side, his left arm twisted beneath. On the blood-soaked ground near his right hand was a Sig Sauer 9mm. All as expected. All according to plan.
In the next few moments, however, everything went wrong.
The first problem was the man’s face. Slaton recalled the words of the salesman in Davos. There was a younger man with an accent—I thought he might be Russian, or perhaps Latvian. This man wasn’t young at all—he was easily mid-forties. More damningly, Slaton realized he’d seen the face before in a series of photographs. Standing on the balcony of a dacha with three oligarchs. Hunting with the president of Russia. The dead man on the ground before him was none other than Viktor Zhukov. Former Spetsnaz, 45th Guards.
His unease growing, Slaton looked at the metal container. That was what had first drawn his focus to this clearing on the windswept point. In his final moments, Zhukov had lifted the lid. It remained open now, and Slaton saw why the Russian had seemed so perplexed—the box was completely empty. The gun case leaning against the sapling? Slaton knew there was no need to look inside. A wooden crutch, or perhaps a tree branch—it would contain anything but a Barrett fifty.
The voice in his head was now screaming.
In that critical moment, and for reasons he didn’t understand, Slaton shifted his gaze upward. He looked down the southern coastline for the first time, searching for a villa he’d seen before only in photographs—the place where Vladimir Ovechkin had purportedly taken refuge. As he did, disjointed thoughts surged through his head. An empty case on a wind-whipped clearing. A gravedigger named Smith in Marrakesh. A sat-phone that had inexplicably stopped working. The thoughts swirled mercilessly, but there was no time for them. Not here. Not now.
Slaton picked out the villa easily, and in the next instant he saw a distinct flicker of light from a balcony.
He knew instantly what it was: through the morning’s shadows, he’d just witnessed the most fateful sight a man could see. The last vision of a million soldiers in a hundred wars. It was the muzzle flash of a rifle. Which meant a bullet was flying toward him at greater than the speed of sound.
A guided bullet that could track any target.
Sent by an expert shooter.
Slaton stood absolutely still.
* * *
The sergeant took the brunt of the Barrett’s recoil in his shoulder, his firm two-handed grip mitigating the jolt. He reacquired his target through the special optics.
He had spotted Slaton the instant he’d emerged from the tree line. Then he’d watched him stalk Zhukov silently. All as predicted. Colonel Zhukov had reacted, but of course not fast enough. The colonel had been good in his day, but he was getting old. Getting soft. Slaton had finished him effortlessly, then eased closer to survey his work.
It was in the next moments that the sergeant had taken the slightest of liberties. In that tiny window of opportunity he should have taken his shot, no quarter given while Slaton was distracted. Yet he’d waited just a beat, watching through the optics for a reaction—he wanted the kidon, in his last earthly thoughts, to realize he’d been outwitted. And the sergeant had seen it in his face, in the instant the Barrett’s trigger had given way—the legendary assassin knew what was coming.
The sergeant saw the bullet hit—of that there was no doubt. Slaton was lifted completely off his feet and thrown backward. There was an awkward half roll before the only unforeseen outcome—he went tumbling over the side of the cliff.
He pulled away from the optic. That hadn’t been in the plan—the loss of the body. He realized his miscalculation—Slaton had been wearing a vest. It was no defense against a fifty-cal round, but clearly had absorbed a great deal of energy. Instead of a straight-through shot to the chest, the projectile’s momentum had translated widely across the victim’s torso, throwing him ten feet back and over the precipice.
The sergeant decided it hardly mattered.
Dead was dead. The police would recover the body at some point.
Lesson learned.
SIXTY-FIVE
Slaton was hanging by his right hand. Hanging on for dear life.
His fingertips strained to keep the barest of grips on an exposed root. His left shoulder screamed in pain, and when he tried to raise that hand to grasp the root, a bolt of lightning shot through his arm. Feeling his fingers slipping, he explored blindly with his feet and found one slight toehold in the sheer rock wall. The sound of the ocean thundered from below. Slaton glanced down, ignoring the sea for the face of the cliff. He had to get better purchase.
The UMP was still with him, hanging in front and digging into his ribs—in that moment, no more than added weight. He looked down and saw a second root by his left shin. It looked old and rotted—from what he remembered, there wasn’t a living tree within twenty yards of the spot where he’d gone over.
He bent his left knee, and managed to twist his foot onto the root. He tested it with a bit of weight, and there was a momentary slip. He heard clots of dirt tumble down the cliffside, but then, thankfully, things seemed to hold. It gave him three points of contact. Progress of sorts.
He wanted to look at his left shoulder, but couldn’t turn his head in that direction. It had to be dislocated. Writing off any chance of using that arm, he surveyed his predicament. Climbing back up wasn’t an option given his limited mobility. It also failed from a tactical viewpoint—staying below the crest of the cliff kept him out of the sniper’s gunsight. He saw a few possible holds to his right, and ten yards in that direction, slightly below, was a narrow ledge. If he could reach that, he might get a reprieve.
What began as desperation evolved into a process. With two feet and one good hand, he began inching along the sheer rock wall. Another attempt to use his left arm brought blinding pain. Afraid he might pass out, he stopped trying altogether. Slaton tested every cleft that looked promising. He moved as slowly as he dared—even seasoned stonemasons had limits to the endurance of their grip. After clawing across the stone face for five painful minutes, and with his right hand beginning to tremble, he fell the last two feet to the ledge.
He came to rest in a heap, rolling carelessly on his injured shoulder. The lightning struck again. The ledge was less than a yard in width, and with his back against the cliff his folded right knee was out over the edge. He didn’t move for a time, laying motionless as he took stock of things. His shoulder was the biggest problem. His vest was ripped from bottom to top, a longitudinal tear that ended in a graze of the soft flesh near his collarbone. Aside from that, he noticed nothing beyond a few scrapes and contusions.
It could have been far worse.
When he’d seen the muzzle flash, there had been an overwhelming urge to hit the dirt. That’s what soldiers did for incoming fire. Yet something had held Slaton in place. Something based more on instinct than reason. And it had saved his life.
Only now did he have time to weigh all the variables. He remembered his first thought being that the flash had come from a fi
fty cal—a pessimist’s view, he supposed, since any round from a smaller-caliber weapon would never have reached him. But it had turned out to be accurate. Notwithstanding the tremendous muzzle velocity, he knew it would take a ballistic eternity for the round to cover two and a half miles. Now, having time to calculate, he reckoned something near seven seconds. More or less. Yet in that critical moment, Slaton hadn’t tried to crunch numbers or count Mississippis. He’d only understood that if he dropped immediately, any steerable bullet—assuming that’s what was being used at such extreme range—would have time to alter its course. It would have struck him dead center as he lay on the ground.
So Slaton had stood waiting for a bullet with his name, knowing his only chance was to remain statue-like until the last instant. If played perfectly, the round might not have time to react if he moved in the final milliseconds. Slaton had done some nervy things in his day. Standing perfectly still, waiting for a bullet to arrive, was perhaps a new personal best. Yet that was what he’d done.
He’d stood motionless.
And waited.
Waited until he couldn’t take it anymore.
Now, looking at his vest, he realized he couldn’t have called it any closer. If he’d waited even a few more hundredths of a second, the bullet would have ripped him from belly to shoulder. Game over. He’d tried to throw himself down and to the right, but before he hit the ground, when he was practically horizontal, the bullet had ripped into his vest. The vest did its job in a sideways fashion—it absorbed much of the big round’s kinetic energy, only from bottom to top. That energy translated directly to his body, propelling him back toward the cliff. Somewhere in that tumultuous fall he’d landed awkwardly on his shoulder, throwing it out of joint. Problematic as that was, Slaton saw only success.
He had, quite literally, dodged a bullet.
He tried again to look at his shoulder. This time he managed it and saw the unnatural set. It had happened once before in training, so the pain was not unfamiliar. Yet on that day he’d had the benefit of medical attention, a doctor who’d set the joint right within minutes. Today—on a windswept precipice in a foreign country, with a killer lurking nearby—that level of care was an unattainable luxury. He looked seaward along the cliff. His best chance at safety lay twenty yards distant—a gulley carved into the vertical wall. From there, he thought, he might be able to climb to the top. But how could he reach it with his shoulder in agony?
