Time to Kill: A Sniper Novel kss-6

by Jack Coughlin

  Swanson settled in for the ride. The seat was lumpy. “So bring me into the loop. What’s up?”

  She flicked her dark eyes at him for a microsecond, then back to the highway. The snow had been cleared, but patches of muck and ice hugged low places in frozen puddles. “Don’t know too much more than I told you on the phone. Sir Jeff said this guy, his name is … was … Norman Haynes, was an experienced auditor for one of the big accounting companies, with a lot of contracts abroad, including Sir Jeff and Excalibur Industries. Did you know him?”

  “No. I’m not involved in the day-to-day business stuff.”

  “So just what do you do as a senior vice president there, besides make a lot of money to spoil your surfer chicks?”

  “Sybelle, get back to this story. Please.” She was jabbing his ego. Kyle Swanson was already wealthy, and someday he would inherit the company, but he would not discuss that with anyone, even with himself. Talking about money embarrassed him, which was why Sybelle enjoyed doing it.

  “So this number cruncher Haynes dropped by London on his way back from Egypt and met privately with Sir Jeff. Said he had been spooked by his trip to Cairo,” she continued.

  “I imagine all of Egypt is a pretty spooky place right now. Revolutions are messy. People take their families and assets and run away to safe havens.”

  “Not necessarily.” Summers blew past a snowplow that was kicking up a thick storm of road gunk behind it. “Instead of being on the ropes financially, the company where he was running an audit, the Palm Group, had money pouring in.”

  “So what? Investors looking for an edge is nothing new. Make a bet on a developing nation that is in the shitter, and when the economy turns around, you make a fortune.”

  “This apparently went beyond risk-reward. Haynes found discrepancies and refused to approve the books. That’s a pretty big deal. Other companies and banks won’t do business with a firm blacklisted by its auditors. Bonds won’t sell, banks won’t lend, and customers won’t buy. One of the Palm Group vice presidents actually threatened him.”

  That got Kyle’s attention. “Threatened him? Most companies try to keep auditors happy. What the hell did he find?”

  “Iran. Big money coming in from Iran.”

  Swanson thought about that for a while as the snow danced before the headlights. “I don’t know much about the auditing game, except that accountants can face prison time for divulging the private results of their work or making money from their inside knowledge.” He shifted in his seat, but comfort was impossible. “So our boy Haynes went against the ethical code of his profession and confided that Iran is in the playpen. It would have taken a lot for him to put his career at risk. Meaning he may have stumbled upon a national security issue for the United States.”

  She nodded. “The bad news is that he would not say exactly what he knew. The Palm Group security people had taken his computer, his briefcase, and all of his notes and papers, claiming his access was voided by his refusal to sign off. Haynes, like most accountants, had a better than average memory, and he convinced Jeff that he recalled most of the important material and would divulge everything in a private meeting with an appropriate American authority. That was to be us.”

  “And now he’s dead.”

  “Yes. We had the Lizard start a file on Haynes and tag him in the system, so the 911 call from his wife pinged the Web, and cop radio chatter confirmed it was a homicide. They’ll already be at work by the time we get there. The background file is in your door pocket.”

  Swanson picked up the folder and punched on the visor light. As usual, the Lizard had put together a thick dossier on short notice. Norman Haynes grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Ohio, and was a good athlete and student who enlisted to be an Army grunt and earn money for college. He drove a 3rd Armored Division tank in Desert Storm. After that, he traded Army green for Yale blue and picked up a degree in economics. The man was totally clean, made good money over the years, and was a registered Republican, married with three children in college, and cleared to audit military contractors. A high security clearance.

  “How much longer?” Kyle asked.

  “Twenty minutes,” Sybelle replied.

  “I’m going to sleep. Wake me when we get there.” With that simple statement, he eased the lumpy seat back and closed his eyes. Hard years in the field had taught him how to sleep anytime, anywhere, whenever he could. The growling roar of the big V-8 engine was like a lullaby for him as it ripped along Highway 50 toward Annapolis, and he set his mental alarm clock for twenty mikes.

  “Know what I’m thinking?” Sybelle asked.

  “Nukes.” He did not even open his eyes.

  “Yeah.”

  * * *

  “We’re here,” Sybelle said as she steered onto Dietrich Way. Swanson opened his eyes and smelled saltwater. It was easy to identify the correct address, for every light was burning in a two-story white Cape Cod — style house and around the snow-covered grounds. Emergency vehicles of every sort were parked haphazardly, and Sybelle shut down her own flashers as she coasted to a stop at a checkpoint at the end of the long driveway.

  A young patrol cop with a plastic cover over his hat approached, his eyes sweeping the car, driver, and passenger.

  Sybelle had the window down and both of their creds extended as he arrived. “Lousy weather for standing post,” she said with a smile of sympathy.

  “Yes, ma’am. It truly is. Can I help you?”

  “We need to talk to whoever is heading the investigation. I see local and county cars, so who’s on top?”

  The policeman studied the badges. “You from Homeland Security? What’s your business here?”

  “Do you have Beyond Top Secret clearance?” It was a quick turf battle that she won by answering his question with one of her own. She retrieved the credential wallets and tossed them to Kyle, then laughed to break the tension. “Don’t worry, Officer, we come in peace, not to bigfoot your investigation. In fact, we just want to provide some off-the-record information to your detectives.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Follow the drive up to the house, park on the left, and I’ll radio Detective Payton that you’re on the way.”

  “We can find him,” she said. “Keep us off the radio. Thanks. In fact, you never even saw us tonight.” There was no “please,” the smile had vanished, and the window buzzed up again. The automobile ground on, following the ruts made by the earlier arrivals. She parked beside the band of yellow crime scene tape.

  Kyle hated to give up the warmth of the car but zipped up the unmarked blue aviator’s jacket he had brought from California, flipping up the fur collar around his ears. “Damn,” he muttered as he stepped out. “Colder than a witch’s tit.” So much time in the sun had made him soft.

  “Man up, Marine,” Summers said, leading the way to another patrolman who stood at an opening in the tape. Again she showed the creds, this time asking for Detective Payton. The cop pointed to a boathouse about fifty feet from the back door.

  “Quite a spread,” Kyle said as they crossed the broad lawn that sloped down to a long dock. “About an acre of prime waterfront property. Price must be more than a million bucks if it’s worth a dime.”

  “This channel feeds directly into the southwest side of the Chesapeake Bay. With the calmer water, there’s a lot of sailboat racing here in the summer.”

  Colorful small boats and kayaks were racked neatly in the boathouse, covered and safe from the weather, while the ropes, paddles, and other gear had been dumped outside to provide room for a police command center. Radios were popping, and video feeds were online, dumping information directly into computers in Annapolis. She asked, “Detective Payton?”

  A solid man in his midforties zipped up tight in stained khaki canvas overalls and work boots turned from a computer screen. He had narrow, busy eyes and a badge on a chain around his neck. “That would be me. Who are you?”

  They handed over the fake credentials once again, and he studied them, t
hen gave them back. “What’s up? We’re kind of busy here with a homicide, you know.” The tone was not hostile but suspicious. Locals never liked federal officers showing up unexpectedly.

  “Can we find somewhere private to talk?” Kyle nodded at all of the people jammed into the boathouse, which had grown warm with their combined body heat and the electronics.

  “Sure. Come on. Let’s go up to the porch, and I’ll introduce my partner. There’s hot coffee up there, and I’m going to tell him whatever you tell me anyway.”

  Kyle nodded, and soon they were under the roof of an enclosed deck jutting out from the house itself. Detective Allen Jones was sipping warm coffee. “Bitch of a night for murder,” said Payton. “The snow has fouled up any hope of tracks.”

  Sybelle accepted a coffee cup from Jones. “We know some basic information on the victim.”

  Jones, a thin man with light brown skin, frowned at that news. “How?”

  Swanson stirred some creamer into his own coffee. “The reason we’re here is that we had an appointment to meet Mr. Haynes tonight.”

  “Why would Homeland Security be meeting an accountant?” Payton asked.

  “Let’s trade a little more information first. All will become clear,” Swanson promised.

  Payton chewed his lip for a moment. “OK. A single large-caliber gunshot apparently was fired from the end of the dock, blew out a window, and nailed the vic right in the throat. Hell of a shot from a football field away.”

  “Anybody else hurt?” Kyle did not mention that a hundred yards was almost rock-throwing distance for any trained shooter.

  “No. The wife was right there in the room with him, and the kids were upstairs. The scumbag killer was apparently only interested in Mr. Haynes.”

  “Neighbors and witnesses have anything?”

  Payton finished his coffee and threw the paper cup in a trash can. “We’re not finished with the questioning, but some say they heard a loud gunshot, and then an outboard motor heading down the channel at high speed. Sometime between seven and nine o’clock for a preliminary time of death.” Payton paused. “Now it’s your turn. Until you tell us why we should be telling you anything at all, that’s as much as you’re going to get.”

  “Fair enough,” Sybelle said, removing a sanitized version of the Lizard’s background file on Haynes from her jacket. “This will save you trouble on putting together his background, and I can bring you up to speed while Detective Jones walks my guy through a quick look-see around the site. Then we’ll be out of your hair. This is a homicide; your case, not ours. All we know is that he wanted to report some sort of international financial scam.”

  “Hunh,” said Jones. It was not like Feds to give in so easily.

  “We’re not detectives,” Swanson said.

  “Exactly what are you, then?” Jones asked.

  “Little fish in a big net, Detective Jones, just like you. We have other specialties.”

  Jones examined Kyle. The smaller man had the build of one of those monsters who could run forever, then fight a dragon and not break a sweat. The gray-green eyes were colder than the weather, maybe colder than Antarctica. “I’ll just bet you do. Come on.”

  Jones led him outside until they stood side by side with their backs toward the house, where four broad windows faced the water. The lot had been graded at a gentle slope and was anchored at the water’s edge by a big oak tree that was bare of leaves. A picnic table was layered with snow like thick frosting on a cake. “The killer probably coasted in down there with his engine off, tied up, got out and lay down prone on the dock, and waited to take his shot. Blowing snow has erased the pressure images.”

  “But if it walks like a duck,” Kyle said.

  “It’s probably a fucking duck,” Jones responded, his face hunched inside his collar. “Back during the drug wars in Miami, rival mobs would send hit men in boats on home invasion missions to reach their targets. That stopped with more police water patrols. Somebody may be trying to revive the idea. Once away from here, he could have escaped in a car, or met a bigger boat out in the bay. Or have chartered a plane.”

  They turned around, and Jones said, “Here’s what’s left of the window.”

  Kyle looked inside the house, where forensic people were still at work, bagging and tagging. Morgue attendants had the lifeless body in a bag, lashed to a gurney, waiting for permission to move it.

  “Do you need to see the stiff?”

  “No. Do you have a caliber on the bullet?”

  “Not final. It looks military grade, probably a 7.62 millimeter round. The ghouls dug it out of the wall directly behind where it passed through Haynes. No brass has been found.”

  Inside, the walls were painted a teal green, and a ceiling fan rotated slowly beneath the off-white ceiling. The room was well decorated, with a long dark green sofa and a matching chair at right angles around a dark coffee table that seemed to be made from old wood. A wet bar with bottles of liquor and empty glasses dominated one corner; a huge potted plant with broad leaves owned the other. Everything was laid out for enjoying the water view.

  Jones pointed through the empty frame. “The kids were upstairs. Mrs. Haynes was in the chair, reading a magazine. The victim had poured a Scotch and was standing in front of the window, looking toward the water, when he was shot.”

  “There was no light at the end of the little pier? You know, to warn off boaters?”

  “Maybe that was what Haynes was looking at. He would have known there should be one shining out there but probably thought the bad weather may have knocked it out. We found that the wires had been cut, leaving the killer shielded by the dark.”

  Kyle snapped on a pair of latex gloves and knelt in the snow to take a closer look at the windowsill. He touched a couple of points of jagged glass that still protruded along the edge like the teeth of a saw blade. A carpet of shards had spread inside. “OK. Thanks, Detective.”

  By the time they were back on the porch, Summers had finished briefing Payton, telling him almost everything about the planned meeting. She was saying, “I’m not an accountant, so I don’t have any idea what Haynes wanted to tell us. We can’t rule out that this guy maybe had enemies on Wall Street, was about to drop the dime on a Ponzi scheme, or had pissed off a drug lord, discovered an international money-laundering racket, or whatever. I don’t even know enough to guess. We see no obvious evidence of a security threat, and that’s what I’ll pass back up my chain of command. The homicide part is all yours.” She looked at Swanson. “We done?”

  “Afraid not,” Kyle said. “This thing may just have jumped way above the pay grades of everybody here, including us.”

  “Whoa up. You found something!” Payton exclaimed. “I know when somebody gets a hunch about a murder.”

  Swanson looked at the cop. “This is a personal guess, with nothing to back it up, Detective Payton. Totally speculative, but based on my experience.”

  “Talk to me, son.”

  “You’ve got to make it plural now. There were two killers here tonight, not just one.”

  “How’s that? The neighbors heard only one shot.”

  “Glass does specific things to a bullet on impact,” Swanson said, falling unconsciously into his sniper-lecture mode. “It changes the trajectory, depending on the thickness of the glass, and causes the round to lose its point of aim. The first shot did nothing but blow out the window. Then a second shot was fired only a half second later. It would easily have blended into one noise for someone not paying attention. Witnesses really would believe they heard a single sound.”

  Detective Jones interrupted. “Only one bullet was found.”

  Kyle changed his angle to face the dock so he could use his hands to frame what happened. “A single bullet like a 7.62 would have just punched a hole in the glass before hitting the target, leaving the window intact. So Shooter One used a smaller round, like a 5.56 millimeter, to totally shatter the glass, which is why there are so many shards inside. That allowed a
clear path for Shooter Two’s 7.62 round to impact the victim. Your forensic people saw only a single wound, therefore expected to find one bullet, and they found it.”

  “Our crime scene people would not have missed something like that.” Jones put an edge on the comment.

  “No criticism intended, Detective,” said Kyle. “But did they really conduct a detailed study of the entire room? Most likely, they will find the second bullet in there somewhere, probably imbedded in the wall behind that fiddle-leaf and the other big plants in the corner. Shooter One would have aimed at a place where the bullet would do its job of taking out the window but would neither cause the target to shift nor be easily found.”

  “You know about this sort of thing?”

  “Seen it once or twice.”

  “So you think we’re dealing with some trained snipers?”

  “Not really, but they were obviously good enough as marksmen with military training. Shooter Two actually missed his target. No sniper aims for the throat, because the target zone is too narrow. That’s movie stuff. And the bad weather would have affected the bullet’s path.” Kyle pounded his fist into his palm for emphasis. “A big round right into center mass, the chest, is much easier, and death is just as certain.”

  “Jesus H. Christ,” said Jones, putting the picture together in his mind. “Suddenly, I’m wishing this was just a drug hit.”

  Payton gave a long look to Sybelle and Kyle, and seemed to deflate. “Shit. Now I gotta call the FBI. You two might as well stick around. It’s gonna be a while.” He stomped through the snow back out to the comm center that was set up in the boathouse, muttering to himself.

  3

  CAIRO, EGYPT

  Yahya Naqdi was running for his life. He was ten years old and scared. The sand and rock of the desert pulled at his sandals like a hungry thing holding him rooted to the spot, immobile on a plain of sudden, ugly death. Explosions and screams, shrapnel and fire, and dirt, dirt, dirt everywhere; it filled his nostrils and his eyes and his mouth. The voices of soldiers behind him were bellowing for him to run straight and hard at the enemy, for he was in the lead element of the Army of Twenty Million, and they were surging forward in a human wave attack against the entrenched Iraqis. Despite the religious cries of the mullahs, the threats of his own Iranian sergeants and the thrill of becoming a martyr and going to paradise, he had come to a halt in the middle of the screaming charge when his best friend, only twenty feet beyond, stepped on a land mind and was blown to pieces. The bloody head bounced back toward Naqdi like a soccer ball with white eyes. There was a thundering drum roll of explosions as dozens more mines were triggered. The concussion of another blast smacked the boy hard, knocking him to his knees. He bent forward and vomited, then fell into the bile when a piece of flying shrapnel knocked him on the back of the head and tore away a slice of scalp. More boys ran over him, calling at the top of their lungs that God was good. That was the plan: Thousands of boys would dash through the minefields to clear the way for the real attack. The last thing he had heard was the Iraqi artillery starting to fire to rain even more destruction on the charge of the children. While he lay unconscious on the battlefield, more sharp metal tore at his body.