In the Crosshairs: A Sniper Novel
Page 16
That stung. She hadn’t seen anybody trailing, and Nero had been a lousy guard dog because he knew everybody who was following her. “Oh.”
“Yeah, ‘Oh.’ So no more freelancing.” He leaned forward and put his big hands on his knees. “Do you think Kyle and I have forgotten about Mickey Castillo? Can you really be that dumb? We wanted you to come with us, train up, and eventually we’ll make whoever was responsible for that abomination pay in full. Think about landing the whale, not the minnows.”
Beth Ledford willed herself not to cry. Nobody would make her cry, ever again. “Nero, come on,” she said. The big dog wheeled around and loped over to her. “Okay, Orville. Maybe I just needed to purge some demons from down there, you know? No more minnows, I promise.”
“You wanted to know about the test? Well, Kyle and I wanted to see if you had the guts to still pull the trigger and take life. You answered that.” He polished off the last sip of coffee and screwed the lid back on the thermos, unwrapped the bone, and tossed it to Nero. “But you’re a lying little bitch right now, lying straight to my face, pulling your pretty little lost-girl act. If we can’t believe you, we sure as hell won’t trust our lives to you. So you go somewhere else and run your little scams and get over yourself, Beth. Anyway, Kyle already has a guy who looks like he might make a good partner. Too bad it couldn’t have been you.”
19
OVER AFGHANISTAN
7:55 PM LOCAL, WEDNESDAY
1555 ZULU
THE SENIOR JUMPMASTER WAS in constant radio contact with the aircraft commander as he worked the ramp-control panel to open the paratroop door, and the 120-pound hatch slid back on its rails to expose the night sky beyond. When all systems had stabilized, a hard wind hammered through the door, whipping against Kyle Swanson, who was firmly in the grasp of another jumpmaster. Luke Gibson was right behind, held by a third crew member.
Both snipers were weighed down with equipment, but in a few seconds that would no longer matter. The senior jumpmaster stepped aside and snapped his hand toward the door, and Swanson stepped into the profound abyss, ten thousand feet up and ten miles east of the target landing zone.
He clamped his arms at his sides and tightened his legs together to knife forward at terminal velocity, as fast as he could fall, counting off fifteen seconds before adjusting to bleed off airspeed and pop the chute. The canopy of the RAPS gliding system came to life with a smooth flair instead of a jaw-breaking jerk after he gained control of the free fall. The plane had already disappeared from view, beyond any threat of detection, leaving two dark shapes falling through the inky sky. Swanson tugged on his risers to make a tight pivot, picked up the faint blinking red light attached to Gibson’s backpack, and flew toward it. Gibson was also successfully deployed under canopy, and they swung into a tandem glide toward the sprinkled lights of Girdiwal, passing through nine thousand feet and skittering along at about thirty miles an hour as gravity pulled them back toward the planet.
Swanson almost smiled in pleasure during the drift through the night sky, swinging like a pendulum beneath the silk, reading the compass, clock, and altimeter. Somewhere down there was Nicky Marks, who needed to die tonight after answering some questions. Swanson’s normally impassive face tightened into a grimace, despite himself. He knew some very creative ways of making men talk and wouldn’t hesitate to use them if Marks started getting brave with his answers.
Down through eight thousand feet, coasting over the Wakham valley. Getting ready.
SAVANNAH, GEORGIA
10:55 AM LOCAL, WEDNESDAY
1555 ZULU
THIS REMINDED LUCKY SHARIF of the “begats” in the first book of the Bible. By scraping away the details, the authors of Genesis were able to trace the big picture, starting with Adam and Eve and quickly begetting through many generations. In his own search, he now had Brigadier Sir Horatio Kingsley, who begat Horace Kingsley, who begat Royce Kingsley, who hadn’t begat anyone, because he stopped existing somewhere along the way.
“I want you to come home so we can try to begat a baby,” his wife, Janna, teased while he explained the search by telephone.
“You hear anything from Kyle?”
“Not a peep,” she said. “Chances are he’s gone dark on the job until it’s done.”
“I saw on the TV that Sir Jeff called the charges against Excalibur rubbish. That your work?”
She laughed, and the sound was the most pleasant thing he had heard all day. “It was all him, Lucky. Excalibur is clean and he knows it, so he’s going to have some fun with them. The Congress critter from Nebraska will rue the day. When you coming home, big guy?”
“I shouldn’t be more than another day. I got a hunch about Royce.”
“Tell me?”
“Not on this line. I really just called to hear your voice.”
There was a pause, and she said, “I’m always here for you. You know that.”
“Yeah.”
“Then go get ’em. Bye.”
His new theory in the Kingsley saga related to the changing times of World War II, when the look of the postwar world was being mapped alongside active battle plans from Salerno to Okinawa. West Point produced the generals, Harvard turned out the young government types, and Yale was the school for spooks. Sure enough, there was no Royce Kingsley among the Harvard graduating seniors, but there was a Roy King coming out of Yale with academic honors, and, like many of his fellow graduates, firmly plugged into the Office of Strategic Services, the the CIA’s predecessor. Royce returned to the Middle East, this time as Roy King, and took over the family spook business, and also begat a son of his own, Thomas.
That closed the loop, as far as Sharif was concerned. It was impossible for the King family not to succeed with so much backing from so many quarters. Royce steered it further into the shadows by not being a competitor for the lucrative contracts but gathering secrets and doing favors for individuals and governments and skimming a piece of the transactions. Father and son took the business through the Vietnam War and the Cold War years, expanded its fortune and its influence, and along the way Lucas was begat, to the new King was groomed from birth to someday lead the family firm.
Sharif found the old obituary of Thomas King in the International Herald Tribune, read it, printed it out, and suddenly knew that he had forgotten to ask an important question of the neighbor lady, Mrs. Boykin. He dialed and got the attending nurse, who gave the phone to the old woman. Lucky made his apologies for disturbing her, but Mrs. Boykin couldn’t be more pleased.
“When we spoke yesterday, you mentioned that Luke Gibson seemed almost happy when his stepfather died, right?”
“That is correct, Special Agent Sharif.” Her voice was crisp, her memory sharp as it was the previous day.
“Exactly how did Perry Gibson die, Mrs. Boykin?”
There was a momentary lull. “Why, we didn’t discuss that? How negligent. Shame on us both.”
“Was it anything unusual?”
“Quite so, Mr. Sharif. Mr. Gibson was killed in a hunting accident. The boy shot him.”
Now it was Sharif’s turn to be silent. “You sure about that, ma’am?” The copy of Tom King’s obit was shaking in his hand.
“Of course I am.” She didn’t like being challenged on something so obvious. “There was a police investigation, and they decided it was an accident during a quail hunt. The boy blew the back of Mr. Gibson’s head off with a double-barreled shotgun. You can look it up in the Savannah Morning News if you don’t believe me.”
“I believe you, Mrs. Boykin.” Sharif was on his feet, pacing. “I believe you. Thanks for your time.”
“I think Luke murdered him, but he was a juvenile, and it was all hushed up.”
“Okay. Thanks again. I have to go now.”
“Anytime, Special Agent Sharif. Goodbye.”
Sharif hit the speed dial to get Janna. “We need to get word to Kyle to get away from Gibson as fast as he can. The guy is a total fraud and a psycho.”
“He killed his stepfather in a hunting accident. He killed his VMI friend in a climbing accident. And he killed his real father in a shooting accident while hunting big game in Africa. I have the obit in the Herald Tribune. A double patricide. God knows how many people he’s killed legally for the CIA.”
“I’ll call Sir Jeff and Marty Atkins right away,” Janna said.
“Tell them I’m cold certain about this. The first two were written off as accidents, but the third one—Tom King in Africa—wasn’t. By that time, Gibson was a sniper for the CIA, and knew exactly what he was doing when he pulled the trigger. Removing his father gave him total control of the family’s riches. He’s a killer and a freakin’ psychopath, Janna. Get Kyle out of there!”
OVER AFGHANISTAN
8 PM LOCAL, WEDNESDAY
1600 ZULU
ALMOST DOWN, SLIDING EASILY under the whispering cones of the parachute, working the risers to keep the little red light Gibson wore in front and below him. Swanson had given him the lead because Luke had been to this section before and was heading toward a precise GPS pinpoint familiar to him. He was pleased that the private investigation of Gibson’s background hadn’t turned up anything, and Gibson had the seasoned attitude of a veteran. Apart from the man’s irritating sense of humor, they got along fine.
The bright array of village lights became clearer and more individualized as they navigated closer, stacked one behind the other. Swanson could see a few headlights moving on a road. He looked at the altimeter again and mentally ran through the checklist of gear—from ammo to food, guns to survival gear, and satellite phone. No surprises in the inventory. Nothing to do but pay attention to everything. He could feel the ground climbing up to greet him.
They were in a final gentle curve to get a better airflow, and at about two hundred feet up Swanson made out a rectangular field that reflected the overcast moonbeams and came together like a painting of soft colors. He adjusted for landing, dumped the air to kill all the speed, and dropped into a waist-high field of opium poppies. Gibson was about fifty feet away, already gathering his collapsed parachute.
“You okay?” Swanson asked.
“Best day of my life,” Gibson responded. “Let’s go do this thing.”
Swanson dug the sat phone from a cargo pocket and hit the Send key that would transmit a numerical code, meaning that the snipers were in position and proceeding with the mission. Then he turned it off. No one could contact them until the mission was done and he called for extraction.
KAISERSLAUTERN, GERMANY
8:15 PM LOCAL
1615 ZULU
A CIA ANALYST INVOLVED in drone targeting was seated at his messy desk deep in the bowels of the agency operation at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. When the machine began to flash an alert code, he was facing away and didn’t see it for a while. There were open books, sheaves of paper, and other screens vying for his attention, and in his job it was hard to assign priorities because everything was important, so at present, Ryan Winters was getting his butt kicked by a Rhydon in a Pokémon Go turf war.
The computer behind him clocked off the passing seconds, and when Swanson’s landing confirmation wasn’t recognized, the machine began a steady beep that broke through the game-brain trance and shook the analyst back to the real world. He called up the data and said to himself, “Weird.”
But CIA computers don’t often make mistakes in processing data, given that they’re very expensive electronic number crunchers. The landing alert had been expected, but a second alert had also begun to beep. It shifted him over to an identical set of GPS coordinates from an entirely different channel. That wasn’t normal. He banished the Rhydon game and started earning his paycheck again, did verifications, and printed out the results. He tossed the brown bag of chocolate M&M’s and tucked in his shirt. At the age of thirty-five, and with no life beyond his desk, Winters had started noticing how his belt was getting tighter.
“Got something for you, boss,” he grumped as he marched uninvited into the office of Marguerite del Coda.
“I was just leaving, Ryan. Can it wait?” She badly needed a glass of wine and some sleep.
“You better look at it.” He gave her the matched coordinates.
“What’s it mean?” she asked, and sat down again.
“Beats me, Marguerite” He put his finger on the top line. “This top one is from the GPS sky file on where emergency caches of equipment and gear for agents are located. We have them all over the world.”
“And…?”
“The second set is the precise location of the two operators who just went in. Same, same.”
Del Coda thought about Swanson and Gibson, who had passed through Ramstein only about a day ago, flown down to Pakistan and were now being inserted into Afghanistan. The team communications were monitored at Ramstein, codename “Checkerboard” for this mission. The landing zone had been designated by Gibson for the CIA liaison man in Pakistan who had been tasked to scramble up the covert insertion flight.
“So they have dropped right on one of our safe houses?” Winters asked.
“Looks like it.” She gathered her purse again.
“No shit? We’re attacking our own place? How cool is that? Now let me show you the kicker.” Winters dialed up a third piece of information, an automatic alert that was triggered when the secure safe containing all of the goodies was opened. “Someone was messing around in there just a little while ago,” Ryan said.
“Before our guys got there?” She knew that ordinary procedure would have dropped them some distance away to avoid exposing the exact location of the secret hideout. Instead, Gibson chose to land almost in the back yard. That was peculiar, but not a deal breaker. However, someone else being inside the target house and in the weapons storage area could not be just a coincidence.
“Dig out the background on this cache, then send everything we have back to Langley, with the addendum that we’re are running diagnostics to rule out a systems glitch. This exact match made me uncomfortable, and I definitely don’t like the unknown factor that is showing. After sending our data back home, try to contact our boys to make sure they both know what’s going on.”
“I’ll try, but they are probably in radio silence. You have a good night.”
“I will. You start losing some weight, my friend.”
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
11:20 AM LOCAL
1620 ZULU
MARTIN ATKINS WAS FLOORED by the call from Janna Ecklund over at Excalibur. They had run an independent background check on Luke Gibson, a longtime CIA operative, one of the best, and found things the agency’s own exhaustive background check years ago hadn’t turned up. Lucky Sharif of the FBI had sent a summary by email.
When Atkins had come to grips with this latest development, the Office of the Director called to tell him the big man was finally back in the building and wanted urgently to meet. Atkins took the elevator up to the top floor of CIA headquarters. Everything was going sour. He was waved directly into the office of Director Richard Burns, who was standing at the window, gulping down a glass of water.
“I’ve just spent more than an hour in a room with a bunch of people who jumped all over me about things I didn’t know. Are we really running drugs again?”
Atkins sat down uninvited. “Rick, the truth is that I don’t have any answer for you on that. I can’t believe that some renegade agents have started up a narcotics business on their own, but proving a negative is impossible.”
“It’s all over the news. Talking heads on the radio are howling for some scalps, Marty—our scalps.”
“About all we can do is stall for time and run an internal investigation—”
Rick Burns’s face flushed in anger. “Can’t even do that. Who would believe us? An independent counsel would have to be in charge, and that woman from Nebraska is pushing for open congressional hearings.”
“Which is impossible. Secrecy w
ould go out the window.”
“What’s so urgent that you have tracked me down? What else is going on?”
Atkins took in a deep breath. Exhaled. “That’s why I wanted to see you as much as you wanted to see me. I want to shut down an operation that’s just been launched. Kyle Swanson is on it, teamed up with Luke Gibson.”
“Aw, Jesus! Swanson is the drug lord? Sir Jeff was quoted as saying that it was all bullshit. I know Swanson is no traitor. Congress will want him back anyway. Can the termination of the assignment wait until it’s done? He and Gibson are after that Nicky Marks nutcase, right?”
“As of about twenty minutes ago, they reported being on the dirt in Afghanistan. And Swanson isn’t the problem—at least, not all of it. The other guy is. Luke Gibson. He’s been fooling us for years, Rick. At best he’s a crazy killer, and at worst he’s a traitor. Reading the tea leaves now, it looks like Marks works for Gibson and they have set a trap for Swanson.”
“Crazy? We both know Gibson is as smart as a fox, which is one of the reasons he works for us.”
“He’s also crazy enough to have killed both his father and his stepfather.”
The CIA chief rocked back, took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Not even lunchtime, and his world was crashing. “And Swanson may be walking into an ambush? We know all this how?”
“Sorry, Rick, but first things first here. I’ll give you everything I’ve got, but right now I need your permission to stop that operation, extract Swanson, and grab Gibson.”
Burns nodded emphatically in agreement. “Of course. Do it, do it now. Get the department heads into the conference room and fill us all in at the same time. We’ve got problems on our hands, brother.”
20
THE PAMIR MOUNTAINS ARE a surging upheaval of the earth that extend from the lowlands in Afghanistan into the steep ranges stretching across western Asia and up to the roof of the world. They were carved by aeons of earthquakes, storms, and mighty moving glaciers that shoved gouging boulders along riverbeds. The mountains are forbidding fortresses, but in the lower elevations lush valleys become fertile with the melting snow and ice before descending into the high desert. Every time Kyle Swanson experienced the area, he was startled that people lived in such a climate, not only as stubborn individualists but also as organized communities that were once way stations on the old Silk Road trade route. Such was this little speck on the map called Girdiwal.