In the Crosshairs: A Sniper Novel

by Sgt. Jack Coughlin

  But the money and, more important, his father’s influence, kept flowing like a running faucet. The best prep school in town, Benedictine Military, started him down the military road, and he excelled in all things, as if touched by destiny, and was the cadet colonel brigade commander in his senior year.

  Mrs. Boykin said the boy became insufferable around the neighborhood, strutting as if he was better than everybody else. The other kids shunned him, and he withdrew into the country-club life of his richer friends. In a sad tone, she related that the death of Luke’s stepfather during his junior year at Benedictine devastated his mother but almost put a skip in the boy’s step. A real little bastard, Sharif thought, seeing it unfold in his mind. He pushed the remains of the meal away and called for the check. A hotel room down on the waterfront was waiting, and he was tired, so he would call Janna and then hit the pillows. The puzzle that was Luke Gibson could wait another few hours.

  CLARKE, VERMONT

  AT ABOUT ELEVEN O’CLOCK, Coastie once again cadged the Land Rover from Double-Oh Dawkins, saying that she just wanted to drive around with Nero for a while, maybe along the lake, and do some alone-time thinking. She tossed a cushy down sleeping bag into the back, Nero took the passenger seat, and they headed out, stopping briefly near the bell to retrieve the AR-15.

  The dog stuck his head out the window to get the wind in his face as Coastie headed toward the lake. Few places were as dark and haunting as the Vermont North Woods in the middle of the night, and they were alone on what felt like a silent, foreign planet that was both forbidding and comfortable at the same time. Nero’s ears were up, the nose busy, the eyes piercing the woods. She felt better with him around.

  They picked up the main road, and after ten minutes of traveling north a steeple of light tore away the gloom and a red neon sign marked the oasis of Trapper’s Bar & Grill. She drove by slowly, taking a look. The main building was long and low, with a broad parking lot of packed dirt off to the right. She could hear the sounds of music and people inside. Nero watched impassively. His owner wasn’t stressed, so neither was he.

  Coastie drove for another mile, turned around at a crossroads, went back, and entered the lot. Trapper’s was busy tonight, but the dinner crowd was already gone. The night people were taking their turn, chasing away the blues in a variety of ways. She parked nose first in the back row, left the windows partially open to contain the dog, told Nero to stay, and gave him an ear scratch. “Be right back, big guy.”

  Even in faded jeans and a hoodie sweatshirt, with a billed Toronto Blue Jays cap pulled over her upswept hair, she still turned heads when she walked in. Eyes were on her. Several couples were dancing to a country song, groups of men and women congregated at tables, and there was hardly an empty spot at the bar. She stepped to the side, and a waitress found her. “Can I help you, sister?”

  “Do you have a place for just one person? I want to get a burger.”

  The waitress, a round woman who had seen a lot of people, detected sorrow in the new customer. “Sure, I got a small table back by the kitchen. The guys won’t bother you much back there. C’mon.”

  “Thanks.” Coastie followed her, conscious that she was being examined as a stranger intruding into a familiar environment. “Cheeseburger with no onion. A cold draft beer.”

  The first pickup artist ambled over before the beer even got there. He had on his best blue Walmart T-shirt, made in China, and jeans that were tattered at the heels of his workboots. His eyes were deep and a bit unfocused. “Hey, you,” he said. “I’m Steve.”

  “I’m Marie,” she replied softly, looking directly at the triangular face. “Where can a girl score some dope around here?”

  Steve sat down uninvited, and the waitress returned with the beer. “That didn’t take long. If this asshole starts to be a problem, you let me know.” She went back to the bar.

  “You a cop?” Steve wasn’t a stupid man. At least, he thought so.

  “Absolutely. You got me,” Coastie said, and blinked a smile. “I’m working undercover for the government, and I’m here to take your guns.”

  “You ain’t really, are you?” Steve was in love. “Can I buy you a drink?”

  She lifted the full mug of beer. “I have a drink, you idiot. What I need is some good dope. Not marijuana. Coke. H. The sort with a heavy kick. You got any, or do I move on to somebody else?”

  He screwed up his face in puzzlement. This conversation wasn’t going as he’d hoped. “How about trading for sex?”

  “How about I stick this fork in your eyeball?” Coastie used the table knife to slowly saw the burger in half. She took a bite and a sip. “I got the money. You got product?”

  Steve slowly looked around the bar. “See that big guy in the camo jacket? Looks like a fuckin’ dogwood tree? That’s Moose, and he’s a gooood friend of mine. He’s the best dealer around here. Me and him can meet you out by his truck—big black Dodge, left side of the lot—in ten minutes. You bring the money and he’ll give you whatever you need. Good shit, too. But what do I get for all this help?”

  Coastie had another sip of beer. “Okay. After I get the heroin, I’ll flash my boobs. Good enough?”

  Steve was thinking that, once out of sight, out there in the dark with the woods for cover, out there with his big pal Moose, more than that might happen with this smart-mouthed girl. Coastie was thinking that it was too bad she was going to have to kill this one, too.

  She finished half the burger and half the beer, dropped two twenties on the table, and left through the kitchen door. Back at the SUV, Nero was waiting, smiling his toothy dog smile. Coastie got in, gave him a smooch, and they drove to a better parking spot on the opposite side of the parking lot from the big Dodge, shut down the engine again, and climbed into the back. With the seats out of the way, there was more than enough room for her to roll out the sleeping bag, and she used the space to give the rifle a final check. The grip and stock were a bit oversized for her, and it wouldn’t have been her weapon of choice, but it was okay. She racked in a thirty-round Magpul magazine.

  She rolled half of the sleeping bag over her and called Nero, who came and lay beside her. Rifle ready, she pushed the button to lower the back window. The sight line from her to the Dodge was clear. Any expended cartridge would be contained within the truck bed. Coastie took a deep breath, rested her face on the rifle for a moment, thought of Mickey, then said, “Easy, Nero. This won’t take long.”

  Two men came out of the bar, down the stairs, and walked, laughing, toward the truck. Steve was on the right, and a fat guy was on the left. Coastie could see the bulge of a pistol beneath his tight jacket. They went to the rear, and Moose unlocked and lifted the lid, then propped it open. He had a wagon full of dope, she concluded.

  She breathed easily, let her heartbeat slow, clicked off the safety. Moose filled the sight picture of the scope. Nero whined softly and turned his head just as a big hand reached in, grabbed the barrel of the AR-15, and yanked it aside.

  In his deep voice, Double-Oh Dawkins said, “Coastie, my friend, the bad news is that I can’t allow my guests to roam around murdering people on my turf, even if the targets are ignorant scumbuckets like Moose and Stevie. How long do you think it would take for the cops to figure out how a real sniper might have come into our midst? I would have to turn you in, testify against you in a murder trial, and send you to prison.” He gave Nero an easy head rub. “The good news is that you passed the test. Let’s go home.”

  17

  ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN

  9 AM, WEDNESDAY

  0500 ZULU

  HURRY UP AND WAIT. It was a military mantra that everyone hated but no one could avoid. That, plus Murphy’s Law: If something can go wrong it will go wrong, and at the worst possible time. So a daring plan that had seemed so possible only a few hours earlier—Gibson’s idea for a lightning-strike parachute drop onto the likely hiding place of Nicky Marks—had eventually come to a jarring, complete stop, like a drunk walking into a lamp
post. The arrival of the dawn forced a scrub.

  Kyle Swanson stared into the cloudless blue morning sky above yet another runway. Perfect visibility for miles. Adjusted his sunglasses. “It ain’t going to happen, Luke. A daylight drop would be suicide.”

  Gibson took a deep drag on his cigarette, then agreed. “Shit happens, but this mission is still worth doing. We’ll try again tonight.” For the first time, Swanson detected a note of urgency in Gibson’s voice, as if he were under some new pressure.

  The CIA logistician, who had been having hourly heart attacks as the wheels fell off the original plan, asked, “Why don’t we just drone the sumbitch and be done with it?”

  “We need to take him alive to answer a bunch of questions. Who’s he working for, why are they doing such lunatic things? I want those answers.” Swanson removed his sunglasses and wiped them on the tail of his T-shirt. Smears and scratches.

  The frustrated CIA man chomped on a wad of gum. “Answer me this, Swanson. We’re stuck here in a puddle of Gorilla Glue and you get a FedEx package from London via overnight delivery. How the hell does that happen?”

  “My company is very efficient.”

  “I thought we were, too.”

  “Both Excalibur and FedEx have to make profits, so they outperform any government better on routine stuff like on-time deliveries. I called and they answered.”

  “What’s in it?”

  Swanson lifted the lid on the long box that lay on the metal table. A titanium gun case winked in the sun. Opening that, too, he lifted out the latest version of the Excalibur sniper rifle and matching scope, hefted the lightweight .50-caliber weapon a few times, whipped it up to his cheek, then back down. “My personal weapon, molded and balanced to my features and grip, with electronic sensors to make sure only I can fire it. Wrong fingerprints or optical features and it won’t shoot.”

  Gibson laughed. “He’s got a Death Star and I get a stick that goes bang. Doesn’t seem fair,” he said nervously, and flicked away his cigarette. “I want to get this show on the road. We’re running out of time, and the longer it waits the harder it’s going to be on the other end.”

  “I know,” sympathized the CIA man. “We’re working on it.”

  AZAD, KASHMIR

  PAKISTAN

  NOON

  0800 ZULU

  “SO ARE YOU KEEPING the baby?”

  “He’s two years old, you moron.” Ingmar Thompson kept his eyes in the game, watching the doorway of a multistory apartment house a mile away through a pair of binos.

  “You going to marry the girl, then, are you?” Bruce Brandt was watching the same portal, only through the 25x scope above the long barrel of a big rifle.

  “Been married coming on three years now. You were at the wedding. Several gentlemen exiting and taking defensive positions.”

  “Right,” Brandt confirmed. “The guards. I’m just making some conversation to pass the lonely hours, Ingmar.”

  Commanders had learned long ago that an élite sniper team was a terrible thing to waste on an ordinary terrorist. Pick off one and the victim would be hauled away for a glorious burial beneath a flag, with a lot of chest-beating, and some other guy would pick up the gun and carry on. Brandt and Thompson were helping change that equation. The two-man CIA sniper team were specialists, and dealt only with high-value targets.

  While terrorist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda don’t have traditional military ranks or organization, somebody has to be in charge of the other fighters. Religious zeal isn’t enough to ensure sustained operations that are sometimes years in the making. Even the most dedicated terrorist needs shelter, food, training, communications, and intelligence, no matter how screwed up an organizational chart might be. There are always leaders and followers, and the CIA team was a go-to pairing for use against insurgents whose standing was equivalent to that of a colonel or better. Killing someone in such a position left a hole that was much harder to fill.

  “I count three dudes down there, all with weapons out of sight,” Brandt said, devoid of emotion. “The fourth must be bringing out the car. They seem relaxed enough. No sign of He Who Must Not Be Named.”

  “He will be right along.” Ingmar glassed the busy street, which appeared totally normal. “Everything looks good.”

  This was the payoff for months of hard intelligence work that had identified and tracked down Mohammed al-Jaboun, an ISIS supply master who roamed about making deals for beans and bullets. Kashmir was one of his frequent stops, since the city had long been a key trading route on the Pakistani border with India. The world came to make deals in Kashmir, and some of the negotiations ended in gunfire when the parties couldn’t agree. In a total security lapse, the ISIS merchant of death had made the mistake of establishing a regular apartment in the city, with a regular routine.

  Brandt and Thompson had found it easy to come into the area, thanks to the lingering influence of the British Raj, which had left its imprint on both sides of the border. Everyone of worth spoke English, trade was normal, and the little office of a couple of British lawyers drew no special attention when it was established two months ago. The lawyers, who were actually veteran counterterrorism operatives, left last week and the snipers moved in, wearing business suits. The office had been outfitted properly, with facilities for tea and toilet, cell phones, food, and cots. Thompson was the larger of the two, an enormously strong man who stood six feet even and weighed two hundred pounds, with arms and legs that seemed to have been carved from tree trunks. He carried in the large suitcase containing an L118A1 rifle, scope, and suppressor.

  “Mary, is it? Her name?” Brandt was on the gun now, feeling comfortable, letting it tell him it was ready. At five feet nine, he was as lithe and purposeful as a panther, and usually wore some sort of cap on missions to cover his bright-ginger hair. At a party, Thompson would anchor a table with pitchers of beer while Bruce freely went after every girl in sight, knowing that if it came to a brawl he had the strongest guy in the bar at his back. In the field, they worked together like twins wired to the same brain. After moving into the office, the pair had spent a lot of time out in the open, mixing with people of every nationality, eating at European and local restaurants, hiding in plain sight by becoming familiar faces in the community.

  They had laser-ranged the target property and had even mounted a small flag atop an adjoining building to read the wind. The doorway was exactly 310 meters away, and the guards had conveniently shooed foot traffic to the far sidewalk. The space was clear.

  “Here comes the car, turning now.” A black SUV maneuvered smoothly up to one of the guards who was holding a space for it. “No, her name is Laura. Tend to business.”

  “On it.” Bruce checked the settings and the wind and the scene and the sun, factored in time, motion, and angle of fire, and logged them into his busy brain, then extended his right index finger to caress the trigger. “This guy is a real dirtbag.”

  Mohammed al-Jaboun came through the door with confidence, without a care in the world. He was wearing dark slacks, an open-necked white shirt, and a blue sports coat; he had luncheon reservations at an upscale restaurant on Residency Road, where he usually ordered mutton curry. As he pulled a pair of sunglasses from his jacket pocket, he turned slightly to say something to the young woman behind him and, in doing so, presented the back of his head to Bruce Brandt and Ingmar Thompson. A good sniper never hesitates to shoot a target in the back. The focus was so razor-sharp that Brandt could see the brush marks in the thick black hair.

  “Fire, fire, fire,” Thompson whispered.

  Brandt was already exhaling, and he pulled back steadily on the trigger until the rifle barked and slapped his shoulder with a hard recoil. The ISIS man’s head exploded forward in a spray of blood, brain, and bone; the body stayed upright for a moment, then spun lazily to the sidewalk while his companion screamed and the stunned guards froze in their tracks.

  The gunshot was still echoing around the streets, but it wasn’t attracting
much attention. This was, after all, Pakistan. The guard detail started to freak out, caught between trying to protect their leader, who was already dead, dealing with the screeching and blood-soaked woman, and looking for the origin of the single lethal shot.

  By then, Brandt and Thompson had finished a quick breakdown of the weapon, stowed it in the carrying case, and slid it into the closet. They put on their suit jackets, adjusted their ties and briefcases, and walked away from the scene, just two more people working to make a deal in Kashmir.

  “You do know that I’m not married and that I have no children, don’t you?” Thompson asked. “Or are you just getting senile at an early age.”

  Brandt shrugged. “Just makin’ conversation, man. Let’s get some lunch.”

  PAKISTAN

  2 PM LOCAL

  1000 ZULU

  THE PRINCE DRUMMED HIS fingers rhythmically on the tabletop. Time was running out. Was it his fault? Not really. He couldn’t preordain every single detail in such a complex scheme, but perhaps he could have built in a little more time, more of a cushion.

  Still, he was confident that Nicky Marks would size up the situation and make an appropriate adjustment in the field. Just be patient, he told himself. It will all work out, then he could do his own part and snatch the prize he most wanted. Swanson would die, and the CIA would go into a death spiral of its own.

  It would be a beautiful thing to watch unfold on the news channels. Like an evil magician, the Prince would disappear—poof—and exit into an entirely new life. His intricate empire of drugs, intrigue, and violence would collapse and he wouldn’t give a damn, because it had always been only a vehicle to prove to himself, over and over, that he could succeed with such an audacious plot. In the months to come, his contacts would start wondering where he had gone. In a few years, he would be a legend, a name to be whispered in conspiracies.