In the Crosshairs: A Sniper Novel

by Sgt. Jack Coughlin

  Swanson opened a bottle of water; thought it over. “Basically the same thing that happened to me. Neither was a serious attack.”

  “Then it was an intentional wake-up call for all of us,” Atkins interjected. “Why this man would openly reveal his existence to us is beyond comprehension.”

  “Maybe he wants us to chase him rather than going after Marks.” Gibson had a sudden desire for a cigarette. “We would be running in circles.”

  Atkins went over to the window. The world outside looked normal, but there in his office things seemed upside down. He stretched. “I want you guys out of the country ASAP. We’ll lay on an escort to take you directly out to Andrews, and hook you up with whatever big bird the Air Force has heading across the Atlantic; I’ll have somebody meet you on the other end to forward you on to Afghanistan. I’ll get the ball rolling to unmask this Prince. You guys still go and find Marks. Unlock this thing before it blows up in our faces.”

  * * *

  THE PRINCE WAS ENJOYING himself as his plan unfolded. It was all so easy, with more little events yet to come. Let them hunt all they wanted. He was always a lap or two ahead, and was tying the mighty Central Intelligence Agency into knots.

  Tomorrow morning, his latest coup, Congresswoman Veronica Keenan of Nebraska, would arrive at her desk in the Longworth House Office Building and breeze into the day’s ritual of being among the power élite. A priority envelope would be delivered to her. Prince figured that she might have bolstered her courage since meeting with him, and he didn’t want her drifting off task, so he had sent a reminder via a set of photographs. The instruction was: CHECK REGISTRATION & AREA —PRINCE

  There was a small airplane sitting on a dirt runway. Three men and one woman, all in casual work clothes, were clustered around the tail, examining something that dangled downward. The set of letters and numbers N988QQ were in barely visible faint black paint that was hard to see against the gray stripe on the tail of the aircraft.

  The congresswoman would share it with her top aide, who would assign another aide to start burrowing into the open electronic files of the U.S. government, including the Federal Aviation Administration. If the assistant had a brain, she would also run a routine Google search and learn that the plane was a DHC Dash-8 multiprop with a checkered history. It had once been seized by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration after being forced to land in Florida, when it ran out of gas on a run up from Colombia. It was carrying four tons of cocaine at the time, and the DEA tracked it back through Immigration and Customs Enforcement and back even further through two private front companies. Bottom-line owner was the CIA.

  By lunchtime, Ms. Keenan would start putting two and two together again. Apparently, the plane had been rehabilitated. The aide would identify the place by simply reading a handwritten sign the photographer had placed on a rock in the foreground. She had never heard of Girdiwal, Afghanistan. Neither had her boss. A CIA airplane sitting on a remote airstrip in Afghanistan wasn’t really earthshaking news, but combined with the earlier tip from Mr. Prince and the plane’s bad history of running drugs, maybe there was something there. She would see.

  According to the Prince’s timetable, the gentlelady from Nebraska would instruct her aide to set up a private meeting by that afternoon with the vice chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. She wouldn’t go straight to the chairman, who was an important figure in the opposition party, without notifying her own team first.

  With his puppet dancing, the Prince relaxed, thinking great thoughts. The illegal retail sale of heroin and cocaine was worth about $10 billion in today’s market, just in the United States. That figure was dwarfed by the worldwide trade, estimated to be as high as $750 billion annually. He didn’t want it all, just a share, because he wasn’t a greedy man financially. What he craved was recognition as the man with a chokehold on the trafficking. He was the best. With a turn of his wrist, the drug faucet could be closed and a world filled with addicts would explode into turmoil. To them, their drugs were more important than their lives, or the lives of others.

  * * *

  BETH LEDFORD, JANNA ECKLUND, and Lucky Sharif shrugged off the news when Kyle called from Andrews in Maryland to let them know that he wouldn’t be going back home that night. In fact, the schedule was wide open. He gave no details. “He’s out of here,” Janna said.

  They were in Swanson’s town house in the exclusive Georgetown area of the nation’s capital, ready to work in the middle of the night, but uncertain of what to do to silently investigate Luke Gibson without raising suspicions. Logging into a law-enforcement database might trigger an alarm, since the CIA would be on the alert for any inquiries regarding one of its special operators. After all, the guy had twice been the target of presumed terrorists in recent days.

  “Original sources,” said Lucky. “We want a hard trail so Kyle can be certain that his partner is as good as advertised.”

  “Personally, I think dodging a grenade and a bullet are pretty good evidence that Luke Gibson is at risk, too.” Coastie kicked off her shoes and flexed her toes.

  “We hope for the best and assume nothing,” Lucky said, nodding toward the shoes. “We do old-fashioned shoe leatherwork. Real cop stuff.”

  Janna smiled at her husband. “Just the facts, ma’am.”

  Coastie looked over at her. “What has Kyle told you about Luke? Who are his mommy and daddy, what was his high-school mascot, anything personal at all?”

  “No, he’s got a good reputation in the agency. That’s about it.”

  “Facts: Luke Gibson was born. He was given a name. He went to school. Somewhere along the way, probably early on, he was recruited by the CIA. That is our framework.”

  Lucky asked, “Where did he get his military training? Kyle mention that at all? Army or Marine? Obviously, he got good at the game, but where did he learn it?”

  Coastie shook her head and Janna did the same, then said, “Wait, wait, wait. Kyle did mention that he once kidded Luke about his military bearing and Luke answered that it was an old habit left over from his misspent youth at VMI.”

  Lucky clapped his hands. “That’s where we start, then. VMI is in Lexington, Virginia, which is only about two hundred miles from here. I can drive down there tomorrow and check it out.”

  “Okay,” Coastie said in a slow voice. “Only can you tell me first what’s a VMI?”

  OVER THE ATLANTIC OCEAN

  THE FOUR PRATT & WHITNEY jet engines on the C-17 Globemaster III had settled into a harmonic moan once the aircraft reached its cruising altitude of 28,000 feet, heading east. The old U.S. Air Force transport workhorse was carrying a monster M1A2 Abrams main battle tank, pallets of miscellaneous gear, and two passengers: Luke Gibson and Kyle Swanson. A routine puddle jump for the biggest cargo plane in the world, and the seventy-ton tank in its belly was being ferried to the European stockpile that needed to be reinforced because Russian president Vladimir Pushkin was making noise again. The last U.S. tank units had officially left Germany years earlier, but a pre-positioned source of heavy armor was always kept tuned up and ready for battle, if necessary.

  Both men had been given olive-drab USAF flight suits with no insignia and settled into an upper-deck compartment for the long flight to Ramstein as easily as commuters taking a train from Connecticut to Manhattan. Swanson uploaded a game on a laptop, while Gibson plugged in the buds of his iPhone and closed his eyes. Swanson soon shut down the computer and pushed it away, dimmed the overhead light, and also began to doze.

  Only three crewmen were on board for the routine hop, and the loadmaster looked in on the passengers, saw they were fine, and shut the hatch. “Our spooks are already asleep,” he reported to the pilot.

  “Wonder what they’re up to. We had to hold takeoff for half an hour to let them get aboard,” the co-pilot said.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know,” answered the pilot. “Let’s put this bird on automatic and get us all to Germany.”

&n
bsp; “They don’t look like James Bonds to me,” said the loadmaster.

  “Staff Sergeant Baxter?”

  “Sir?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Yes, sir. Awesome advice, sir.”

  12

  KAISERSLAUTERN, GERMANY

  MARGUERITE DEL CODA, SIXTEEN years with the agency, met them at planeside, heavy sunglasses tilted low on her nose. “I might have known,” she said when Swanson and Gibson stepped onto the tarmac. “I received a strange message from Langley that two ‘representatives’ from the office of the director of intelligence would be arriving. No names, no details other than to arrange transport onward. Welcome back to my little slice of America, guys. Get in the car.” She got into the front passenger seat, and the two operatives, groggy from the long flight, climbed into the rear. “Back to the office,” she told the driver.

  No one spoke during the ride as the driver expertly wove through the complex of roads at the air base in southern Germany. Ramstein was home to the entire USAF headquarters in Europe and teemed with some fifty thousand Americans of various services. Because it was a central NATO point, thousands more rolled in the count. What had started almost a century earlier, when the Hitler regime cleared an airstrip out of dense forests, had grown into a modern military metropolis.

  Riding del Coda’s pass, they cleared the checkpoints and she led them to her private office. She peeled off a gray jacket and put a big corner desk between them and her. It wasn’t neat, and the place smelled of stress. The CIA regional administrator dropped into a chair and fiddled with her dark hair for a moment while staring at them.

  “This has something to do with all the scuttlebutt going around, I guess? You guys are being targeted by some fool?” Little stayed secret within the CIA itself, for despite restrictions they were, after all, spies.

  Swanson sat in one of the two facing easy chairs, while Gibson took a place on the sofa. “Yup,” he said. “We might as well start our hunt by asking you some questions, Marguerite. You’ve been over here forever.”

  “Fire away,” she said. Her brown eyes were looking past them, as if she were already thinking about other things. Del Coda flexed her hands, folded them on the desk, and brought her eyes back down. She had known both of these operators for a long time, because Ramstein was a central clearinghouse in the war-on-terror intelligence business.

  “We’re looking for one of our former contractors who went over to the dark side.” Gibson thought she seemed a bit off her game. “Name of Nicky Marks.”

  “Only thing I know is that he was a shooter,” she replied. “One of your recruits, as I recall.”

  “Don’t remind me.” Gibson flushed. “Anyway, have you picked up anything about him lately?”

  She shifted in the chair and the navy-blue shirt she wore tightened on her figure. “Nope, other than he killed some woman in Paris. You’re telling me that Marks is behind all this noise?”

  Swanson shrugged. “We don’t know much of anything right now, Marguerite, except that he’s causing us a lot of trouble.”

  She unconsciously chewed on her lower lip, her eyes drifting to a computer screen on one side of the desk. “Want me to run him through the system?”

  Swanson looked over at his partner. “Sure, light him up. He has to know that the French and Interpol are looking for him on the homicide. No harm in us adding him to the watch list, which he would expect. Just don’t use our names at all.”

  “We think he has a source inside the agency. That’s why we’re moving quietly. Nobody but you and Marty Atkins know we’re here.” Gibson looked serious, then flashed an ironic grin. “Maybe two or three hundred others.”

  “Well, god damn it all!” She exploded out of her seat, picked up a plastic ballpoint pen, and broke it in half, flinging the pieces across the office. “I’ve got the drone program raising my blood pressure, the rendition flights still come through here, and thousands of Kraut demonstrators outside the fence line want to close us down. I do not need this!”

  Gibson laughed at her outburst. The woman was famous for her volatility. “None of us do. Chill out.”

  The regional station chief stomped around the room, following a faint track in the old Afghan maroon carpet, her mind whirling. “Okay, okay. I’m all right. Is there anything else I can do?”

  “Pass the word, person to person, that we want to keep Marks as isolated from fresh information as possible,” Swanson said. “The less he knows, the better. You contact Marty directly on any developments.”

  “Okay. All mission comms will be handled here,” she said, making a note.

  The three agents fell silent while del Coda cooled down, then she asked, “Why are you going to Afghanistan, then? Why not Pakistan or Iraq?”

  Swanson stood up. “He’s going home, and he wants us to follow him.”

  “You realize that you may be walking straight into an ambush?” she said.

  “Most likely. It’s his turf, but it’s our turn, Marguerite. We’re getting closer by the day.”

  Her mental gears had begun turning, which was why she held such a high-ranking position in the agency. Del Coda had the uncanny ability to work multiple complex problems simultaneously, and she was considering options. “Okay, I’ll put Marks’s name out there, which will make him step carefully, but how about this, too? We tag the two of you for a drone strike?”

  Gibson raised his eyebrows. “Offhand, I can think of about a million good reasons why I don’t want a drone falling on my head.”

  “Let the lady talk, Luke,” Swanson said, realizing that he was beginning to think of Gibson as an equal, a workable partner. “Why a drone?”

  She went back to the desk and brought the computer to life as she flipped through several screens, referring to the latest list of official passwords. “Most of the birds used in strikes in the Middle East, Africa, and Afghanistan are parked here. The pilots are back in Nowhere, Nevada, but we have the hardware and launch the missions. You know all that, right?” They nodded. It was public knowledge, because a couple of whistle-blowers had wanted their fifteen minutes of fame.

  “If I can get clearance from Director Atkins, we can outfit each of you with a transponder to track your movements, and until this thing is done I can earmark a drone for your call. We’ll have it circling overhead when you finally move in on Nicky Marks.” Del Coda clicked the computer and the screen went black again. “Because of the protests, I got drones to spare, boys. Want one?”

  The men looked at each other and nodded. “Okay, thanks,” Swanson said.

  “Good idea,” Gibson conceded. Inside, he brightened a bit at the memory of how a Reaper smart bomb had blown away the home of Mahfouz al-Rashidi right before his eyes not so long ago. This might come in handy.

  Del Coda was on her feet again, seeming to drop the stress she’d complained of like an old blanket. She liked actually doing something again rather than being an administrator. “Come on. We’ll have some dinner, get you geared up, and you’ll be out of here tomorrow morning.”

  LEXINGTON, VIRGINIA

  FOG AND RAIN SLID across the Shenandoah Valley like moving curtains on a stage, forcing Lucky Sharif to keep the wipers going almost all the way as he drove from Washington to the stately layout of the Virginia Military Institute. He did the math in his head on the way down. If Luke Gibson was in his early thirties, as Kyle estimated, then he would have been at VMI between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one, which would put him in a graduating class between 1998 and 2000, give or take a year. The problem was that Sharif didn’t want to mention the name by itself, so he would have to plant some misdirection.

  The state-run military college prided itself on a long history that had produced such leaders as George Marshall and George Patton. Stonewall Jackson was a professor there before the Civil War. Among the throngs of spit-shined young men and women moving with determined purpose around the grounds today were future officers who might carve their own niches in history, or fall in the line o
f duty.

  Sharif didn’t seek out the superintendent—not yet—but made his way to the offices of the archivist, an efficient woman drinking a cup of tea at her desk. He showed his badge, which she examined closely, as if identifying the metal, then took a good look at the identity card.

  “This is the surprise of my day, Special Agent Sharif. My name is Clara Cooper.” She got up and extended her hand. The mop of red hair was showing signs of gray, and Sharif believed it was due for another henna rinse. “Are we in trouble with the FBI?”

  Sharif gave a soft laugh. “No, Ms. Cooper. Not at all. I’m just doing some routine background checks. I would like to see some Bombs.”

  “Why, you could have saved yourself a trip, sir. The yearbooks are all posted online. We have a wonderful electronic archive.”

  “I’m sure you do. But we prefer not to rely only on electronic copies. You’d be surprised what hackers can and will do. So we double-source whenever possible.”

  “Certainly, certainly,” she clucked like a mama hen. The idea of some hacker rudely disrupting her archives turned her mouth into a firm, straight line. “What year would you like to see?”

  “How about 1988, ’89, and 2000? Can you do that?”

  “Of course. You can look at them right here in my office if you wish privacy. Make yourself at home while I fetch them. Please, have some tea.”