Primary Target

by Jack Mars

  “Cole grew up in Philadelphia,” Trudy said. “Apparently, it was a game between the New York Rangers and the Philadelphia Flyers.”

  “That explains everything,” Mark Swann said.

  Luke was silent. This was the man who was supposed to get them in to see Edwin Parr. Luke didn’t mind the banter about him, but he also wanted to get to the meat of it.

  “What is he doing here?” he said.

  Trudy looked as the dossier. “He’s a former military contractor with Triple Canopy. How they hired him with his record is still an open question.”

  “It’s a war zone,” Newsam said. “Always room for more killers.”

  “Triple Canopy let him go in February of this year,” Trudy said. “He has been operating in Iraq under no one’s supervision for the past few months. It is possible that they released him because they discovered he was working with Parr.”

  “Why don’t we know these things?” Luke said. “We don’t talk to the contracting companies? They don’t answer us? It seems like they might want to respond to inquiries from the government, if they want to keep their contracts.”

  “Cole’s not arrested,” Trudy said. “Officially, he’s not here. No one has any reason to inquire about his employment history with Triple Canopy, because no one has him in custody.”

  Luke nodded. “Ah. That makes sense.”

  On the other side of the glass partition, a side door opened and a big man walked in. He was perfectly bald. He was shirtless and wore camouflage pants and combat boots. His upper body was huge—with a massive chest and shoulders, and a neck like the stump of an oak tree. Oddly, Cole had what looked like a metal collar around his neck. He also had one black eye—it was half shut and turning various shades of purple and sickly yellow. His lower lip had been busted open on the left side—it was swollen to three or four times its normal size, and someone had been kind enough to stitch it up for him. That seemed to be the only damage he had sustained.

  Luke knew that Big Daddy Cronin preferred to leave the scars on the inside.

  Big Daddy himself followed the man in. Cole wasn’t restrained in any way, and he was bigger than Cronin. Although they were about five years apart in age, Cole also seemed much younger than Big Daddy. Cole was muscle everywhere, muscles stacked on top of muscles, with hardly an ounce of fat on his body. Big Daddy was not.

  “Have a seat,” Big Daddy said.

  Cole sat in the chair at the table. On his left pectoral muscle, near his heart, was a tattoo of a Confederate flag. Well faded now, it looked like it had been bright full color at one time. Luke had also caught a glimpse of a black prison tattoo swastika on the guy’s right shoulder.

  Luke glanced at Newsam, but Newsam made no sign he’d seen any of it.

  “State your name,” Big Daddy said.

  “Davis Michael Cole,” the man said automatically in a deep voice. “First Marines Expeditionary—”

  Big Daddy slapped him hard across the back of his bald head. Cole flinched at the slap.

  “Shut up,” Big Daddy said. “You’re not in the Marines.”

  Cole’s mouth closed with a snap.

  Big Daddy pointed at the Confederate flag tattoo. Then he turned Cole’s arm toward the window to show the swastika tattoo. “You guys seeing this?”

  He shook his head. He looked down at Cole and took a deep breath.

  “You know something, Cole? You know what I’m going to tell you, right? I hate tattoos like that. I hate things like that. I HATE IT. It makes me hate you. No, that’s not true. I don’t hate you. I have a very strong urge to help you. To correct your thinking, even if that means I have to kill you to do it.”

  Big Daddy took a deep, slow breath. “Let me ask you a question. What country’s military were you supposedly in?”

  “The American military,” Cole said, his voice flat and automatic.

  “And the Confederates were what to the United States of America?”

  Cole didn’t answer.

  Suddenly Big Daddy punched him in the back of the head.

  “You better say it.”

  He punched Cole again.

  Cole gritted his teeth.

  Then Big Daddy had a gun in his hand—it appeared there as though he was a magician and making a gun appear was one of his easier tricks. It was a smallish .38 caliber revolver, like police officers carried once upon a time. He opened the gun and slid a single bullet into a chamber.

  Then he closed it and gave the wheel a spin.

  Trudy moved as if to stand up from her seat, but Luke put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Wait a minute,” he said.

  Big Daddy put the gun to Cole’s head.

  “Okay, so we’re going to play a little game here,” he said. “It’s called the history game. I’ll ask you a question about American history, and you answer it. Ready? Here goes. What were the Confederates?”

  Cole closed his eyes.

  Big Daddy pulled the trigger.

  Click.

  Cole’s entire body jerked, almost as if a bullet had gone through his head.

  “Where are you right now, Cole?”

  “Nowhere.”

  Big Daddy nodded. “Nowhere, that’s right. You’re not in American custody, are you? Or anyone’s custody?”

  Cole shook his head. “No.”

  “You could just die and no one would ever know, couldn’t you?”

  Cole nodded. His entire body was shaking now. “Yes.”

  Big Daddy placed the gun against Cole’s head again.

  “So what were the Confederates?”

  “You son of a bitch!” Cole shouted. But he made no move to stand up or defend himself. Tears began to stream down his face.

  Big Daddy didn’t seem excited or even all that interested. He calmly pulled the trigger again.

  Click.

  Cole made a moaning sound.

  “It’s coming, Cole. It’s going to be in there. I’ve already pulled that trigger twice. The odds are going south for you. The next chamber has the round, I can feel it. For the last time, what were the Confederates?”

  He put the muzzle to Cole’s temple. “Here it comes. What were the—”

  “Traitors!” Cole screamed. “They were traitors!”

  “Traitors, what?” Big Daddy said.

  “Traitors, sir,” Cole said. He took a deep breath.

  “You dumb bastard. If you were in the United States Marine Corps like you claim, what in God’s name are you doing with the flag of traitors on your chest?”

  Cole shook his head. “I don’t know… sir.”

  Big Daddy’s shoulders slumped, as though he was a teacher dealing with a particularly frustrating student. He looked through the glass wall at the observers and sighed. He shrugged.

  “It’s like pulling teeth sometimes. You know that? We’re not even going to get into what the Nazis were. We don’t have time for that lesson today.”

  The gun disappeared into wherever it had come from—a magic trick in reverse.

  “Good job, Cole,” Big Daddy said. “The Confederates were indeed traitors to America. They were the defenders of chattel slavery. They fought against the American military, and they invaded sovereign American territory. The American military defeated them, and humiliated them, and slaughtered them, in a victory for the United States of America, and for everything that is good and decent and right.”

  He smacked Cole across the top of the head again. Cole barely moved this time. He was resigned to this, Luke realized. In just a few days, Cronin had made this big, fierce killer resigned to this mistreatment.

  Big Daddy paused for a moment. “And what are you?” he said.

  “A dirtbag mercenary,” Cole said. He offered that answer without any hesitation at all. Davis Cole seemed to care more about what the Confederacy was than what he himself might be.

  “Good,” Big Daddy said. “What else?”

  Cole shrugged. “A pimp. A rapist.”

  “And?”


  “A disgrace to the American flag,” Cole said.

  Big Daddy sighed again, and then smiled. “Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. What are you going to do tomorrow morning?”

  Cole took a deep breath. “I’m going to drive two guys into Edwin Parr’s compound.”

  “Where is Parr’s compound, as far as you know?”

  “When I left, it was inside Al-Arabi Palace in Tikrit. The place is well protected, comfortable, and I have no reason to believe he’s moved during the past several days. Logistically, it would be very hard to do so because the locals are hostile to him, and they can’t reach him there. But if he leaves…” Cole shrugged. “He’ll be up for grabs.”

  “When you get those two guys inside, what are you going to do then?”

  “I’m going to assist them in arresting Parr, or killing him, whichever the case may be. Then I’m going to help them get out again.”

  “And if you don’t cooperate, or if you hesitate in carrying out your assigned tasks, or if you do anything funny at all?”

  “I’ll be killed.”

  “Good. And if you try to escape?”

  “I’ll be killed.”

  “What’s that around your neck?” Big Daddy said.

  Cole’s big hand reached up and reflexively touched the metal collar. His fingers followed it around in a circle.

  “It’s a GPS unit so you know where I am at all times.”

  “Very good. What else is it?”

  “It’s a bomb.”

  Trudy audibly gasped.

  “Your friend is a psychopath,” she said to Luke.

  Luke nodded. “Big Daddy? Yeah, maybe. I think so.”

  Big Daddy patted Cole on top of the head. “Good dog. It’s a small incendiary, with a remote detonator, isn’t it? It won’t make much of an explosion, just enough to take your head right off your shoulders. And who decides if that bomb goes off or not?”

  “You do.”

  Now Big Daddy’s grin was very wide. He looked into the mirrored window again. He put a proprietary hand on top of Cole’s head.

  “I predict that this very able combat veteran is going to make one heck of a good, cooperative guide for you guys tomorrow. He will give his very life to ensure the success of the operation. This is because he knows that if the operation fails, and he’s somehow alive afterwards, I’m going to kill him anyway.”

  He looked down at Cole’s face.

  “With pleasure.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  8:45 p.m. Central European Summer Time (2:45 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time)

  Bourg-de-Four-Square

  Old Town

  Geneva, Switzerland

  It’s happening, the text message read.

  The message was from his dear friend Rita Chadwick, the black sheep of a very old and very wealthy publishing family.

  Ahmet looked up from his flip cell phone at the action all around him. Night had come to the oldest place in Geneva. Legend had it that Romans had first built this place and that it had been an open air market for cattle trading.

  He sat at an outdoor café in the ancient square, nursing a cup of coffee. The night was cool, and the lights of the town, combined with the splashing of the medieval fountains and the cooing of the rich young lovers, made for a lovely setting. He was alone, just as he liked it.

  His tiny flat was a few blocks from here, along the narrow cobblestone streets of the Old Town. It befit the son of a banker that he lived in one of the most expensive neighborhoods, in one of the most expensive cities on the planet.

  His name was not Ahmet, although during the past year of living here, he had nearly forgotten that. He was not from Turkey, nor was he the son of a banker, or anything remotely like that. He was not twenty-one years old, as his friends believed. He was twenty-five, and his youthful good looks, his high degree of physical fitness (but not muscularity, no—muscularity was threatening, and Ahmet was anything but a threat) combined with fantastically subtle cosmetic surgery, gave him the impression of being a younger man.

  Also, his friends were not his friends. He had no friends here. Or, more accurately, there were people here who thought of him as a friend. They were his friends, but he was not their friend. To Ahmet, friends were a means to an end, a form of currency. They were also a tool of war.

  He was here for work, and for no other reason. But he was a convincing actor, and the people around him believed he was a rich young Turk, just hanging out here in Geneva, killing time and partying with the adult children of the global elite.

  No. That wasn’t him.

  He had been placed here when it became known, about a year ago, that the daughter of the President of the United States would attend one year of school at the Institut Le Rosey, just twenty miles outside the city.

  His job was to accomplish the impossible. He was somehow to meet the girl, Elizabeth Barrett, and despite the layers of security around her, he was to charm her, seduce her, and lure her off the campus and away from her security detail. That was his entire job—others would do the rest.

  He was to accomplish this without arousing suspicion or risking his cover story. Better for the operation to be a complete failure, and for him to waste an entire year hanging around in clubs and shops in Geneva, than to call any attention to himself. His job was to be a fisherman—cast his line and wait to see if the fish would bite.

  For a long time, it seemed that it would never happen. Indeed, the entire student body and faculty of the school relocated to Gstaad for three months during the winter. But Ahmet stayed here. Fishermen were not camp followers.

  In carrying out this task, the girl Rita had been very helpful. She was on a list he had been given early in this mission. He had targeted her, of course, and built up her trust over time. She was a rich party girl, a hedonist, and she had slept with two of Ahmet’s friends, who were not his friends. She would have almost certainly slept with Ahmet, but Ahmet was a gentleman, and did not think of Rita in that way. However, during a visit to the school’s campus, he caught sight of Rita’s friend Elizabeth.

  “She is so beautiful! I must meet her. Who is she?”

  “Oh,” Rita said. “I’m afraid she’s out of your reach, lover boy.”

  “She can’t be out of my reach. Who is she?”

  “She’s Elizabeth Barrett.”

  Ahmet made a face showing his confusion. The name meant nothing to him.

  “A celebrity of some kind in your country?”

  Rita nodded. “You might say that. She’s the daughter of the President.”

  “Still, if I can meet her… somewhere quiet, where we can talk… maybe she would like me.”

  “I think she’d fall head over heels for you, but you’d have to pry her out of the grip of the Secret Service.”

  “I might have some ideas about that.”

  Over time, he and Rita had concocted a plan. Rita would help Elizabeth escape the clutches of the school, and her security detail, for just one night. One night of fun, one night of talk, and dancing, and laughter. Ahmet and Elizabeth would get this one chance to meet, away from the prying eyes of the world.

  But time passed, and the school year was coming to a close. Soon, the students would all leave for their next carefully scripted and curated adventures. It seemed that young Elizabeth was not brave enough to carry out the plan. And that was where everything stood, in a holding pattern, until this very moment.

  He took a deep breath, and remained calm.

  Escape mode? he typed into his phone, and pressed SEND.

  He sipped his coffee and gazed out at the people in light jackets walking arm in arm through the square.

  A few moments passed, then his phone beeped with the reply.

  Yes.

  For several minutes, he stared down at that word. His breath seemed to have caught in his throat. Was it even possible?

  I don’t believe it. When?

  An eternity passed before Rita wrote him again.

  Believe it or
not. Tomorrow night.

  Ahmet felt his heart beating in his chest. Tomorrow night was very soon. His handlers had long ago become skeptical of his ability to carry out this operation. Now they would have to overcome their skepticism.

  They needed to act fast. Men needed to be brought into the city from far-flung places. Of course, there was a plan. There had always been a plan. But the plan had to be set in motion immediately, practically this instant.

  He knocked back the last of his coffee and threw some money on the table. Then he was up and moving through the square toward his flat. He had to get a coded message out, and hope that they could act in time. He also had to hope against hope that Rita was correct, and beautiful Elizabeth really was planning to make her escape.

  He typed into his phone as he walked.

  I’m very excited.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  May 7

  5:35 a.m. Arabian Standard Time

  Al-Arabi Palace

  Tikrit

  Saladin Governorate, Iraq

  “You gotta get that guy off my back,” Davis Cole said. “He wants to kill me.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll talk to him,” Luke said.

  It was just before sunrise. They drove quickly through the dusty, early morning streets of Tikrit, passing block after block of low stone buildings, many of them damaged, even half-destroyed, from combat.

  Few people were out. Here and there, they passed the silhouettes of skinny people moving through the darkness. They could be ghosts.

  This was Saddam Hussein country. Saddam had been born and raised here. The people were loyal to him, and many of his highest-ranking officials had been Tikritis. Earlier in the year, Saddam himself had been captured hiding in a hole in the ground on a farm not far outside town. The Americans still considered this hostile territory.

  Cole was driving the car, a beat-up black Mercedes. It was draped in after-market armor, and had smoked bulletproof glass. It wouldn’t stop a rocket attack, but garden-variety gunshots would bounce off it. Luke rode in the front passenger seat, MP5 submachine gun on his lap. Ed Newsam rode in the back, armed with another MP5 and an M-79 grenade launcher.