Targeted Killing

by Rick Jones

  There was a series of clicks. After ten seconds of silence, the phone on the other end began to ring.

  On the fifth chime Butrose picked up. “Butrose.”

  “Director Butrose, do you know who this is?”

  On the other end Butrose cleared his throat. “Yes, sir, Mr. President.”

  “Good. Now I’m going to ask you a series of questions. And don’t think for one minute that I’m on a need-to-know basis on this. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “There’re two things I want to know about: Kimball Hayden . . . And Operation Incite. And leave nothing out, Director. Trust me, if you do, not only will you be held accountable before members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, but charges of gross negligence as well. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  “Start with Senator Rhames and his nature in the scheme of operations that include Kimball Hayden and Operation Incite.”

  Butrose told him everything.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Valletta, Malta

  Cooper’s liquidation team exited from the rear and side exits of the hotel after Cooper used the cameras to locate Kimball, but found the areas clear.

  Though Kimball saw two, and recognizing one, the man he had shot in the shoulder, he knew there had to be others.

  Kimball waited in the shadows. But the new day was beginning to shed its morning light, which meant that his advantage of using the darkness was quickly fading. He had, at best, ten to fifteen minutes.

  Santomango and Rodgers moved into the street as tourists began to make their early-morning runs to the nearest cafes before the start of the festival. The members of the liquidation team looked up the avenues, each searching independently. And then one reached up to tap an earbud, making communication with someone outside the team.

  Kimball hung back and observed.

  But daylight was approaching, the once long shadows shortening against the rise of the sun.

  So he stepped out of the shadow and into the light.

  It was time to play.

  #

  Rodgers hit his earbud, opening shared communication with Cooper and Team Two, Maynard and Ripley.

  “Go.”

  “He’s out of sight,” said Rodgers. “Unless he’s east where Maynard and Ripley are.”

  “That’s negative,” reported Ripley. “No visual.”

  “Stay alert,” said Cooper. “He’s obviously watching you. Stay together and move west. Lead him out and let him follow. When I catch him on VisageWare, I’ll notify you.”

  “Copy that,” said Rodgers.

  Rodgers tapped the button to close the mic connection, but not the audio.

  About sixty yards away, Kimball stepped out from behind a copse of nicely trimmed trees, and stood his ground while drawing a bead on Rodgers and Santomango with narrowed eyes.

  “There’s our boy,” said Santomango, who was beginning to look a little pale with gray rings forming around his eyes. The wound in his shoulder was becoming infected, the result causing a low-grade fever that was steadily climbing.

  Rodgers took a step forward, all eyes locking. Then to Santomango: “He’s made us.” Rodgers tapped his earbud. “Base Command.”

  Cooper: “Yeah. I see him.”

  “Team Two?”

  “On their way.”

  Kimball continued to stand there, the man unflinching. Then as a crowd of people moved in front of him and passed him, he was gone.

  “Where the hell did he go?” Santomango commented.

  Rodgers hit his piece. “Base Command?”

  “He’s out of sight, Team One. Stay alert.”

  Rodgers and Santomango headed for the copse of trees. More people were beginning to mill about, some wearing their loud-colored touristy shirts.

  Rodgers had a hand on the stock of his firearm hidden beneath his shirt, as did Santomango, the men approaching with caution.

  Then Rodgers spoke into his bud with a sense of urgency. “Team Two. What’s your ETA?”

  “Seconds,” answered Maynard. “We have you in our sights. Approaching from the west.”

  “You see Hayden?”

  “Negative.”

  Rodgers and Santomango reached the line of trees. Behind them was a small courtyard and an ornamental fountain. Flower beds bloomed with colorful riots of reds and yellows and purples. And ornamentally pruned shrubbery, such as frutescent bushes and Italian cypresses, grew around paved pathways and benches.

  Rodgers pulled his weapon, as did Santomango, with each man taking a neighboring path to search the area, but remaining within ten feet of each another.

  Santomango was feeling the chill of a fever and the red-hot pain in his strong shoulder throbbing, causing the weapon in his primary hand to shake. Fixing on a target would be difficult. Rodgers, however, was quick on the draw. And in such close quarters Santomango knew that Rodgers would never miss his mark.

  Outside the courtyard, people began to talk in English and Maltese of the coming day, of the Santa Marija, the excitement hard to contain as their voices carried into the garden area.

  Rodgers took careful steps, as did Santomango.

  Team Two was coming up fast to join them and provide cover.

  From behind an Italian cypress, a hand slowly emerged from the wall. In its hand was a suppressed weapon. It held steady, its aim true.

  Instinctively, Rodgers felt its sight on him, turned, could see the boring of the weapon’s threading, and tried to respond by raising his own weapon.

  Two muted shots.

  . . . Phfttt . . .

  . . . Phfttt . . .

  Bullet holes appeared on Rodgers’ forehead, a puncture above each eye as bloodless ribbons of smoke curled from each wound, the smoky shapes curling like demonic horns before Rodgers finally went to his knees, dropped his gun, and fell sideways on the flagstone pavement.

  Santomango turned and raced toward the wall of cypresses while firing off his weapon in quick succession, the rounds smashing and tearing away at the bushes with green flying everywhere.

  Quiet.

  Santomango stood over Rodgers’ body with his weapon leveled at the wall of shrubbery. Maynard and Ripley joined his side, their weapons also raised.

  Silently, Santomango made a gesture with his hand for Maynard and Ripley to check behind the hedge row.

  Ripley took one end of the wall, Maynard the other, with Santomango holding his post as they checked behind the row of cypresses.

  There was nobody there.

  The assassin was gone.

  The only evidence of his existence were the two brass rounds that lay on the ground.

  Santomango tapped his bud. Then softly: “Base Command.”

  “Go.”

  “We lost Rodgers.”

  Silence.

  “Do you copy, Base Command?”

  “I copy.”

  “Target is missing.”

  “Not exactly,” said Cooper. “He’s standing in the middle of the square about thirty feet away from your position.”

  Santomango shot an incredulous look at the other two. “Come again?”

  After a pause, Cooper said. “I think he’s waiting for you.”

  #

  Kimball had eleven rounds left. So far he had seen a wetwork team of four, with one having been neutralized. But he knew there had to be more. The juicer who nearly took him out at the retreat center had yet to be seen, the consideration here to Kimball was that the large man captained a third team that had not yet reached the location.

  The sun was climbing.

  And his retreat of shadows were gone.

  He had killed a man, his hand driving slowly through the brush until the point of his weapon was less than a foot away. Then he saw the assassin’s eyes flare in mild surprise at the firearm’s closeness, the killer perhaps smelling the oil of the gun’s barrel the moment his life was taken.

  And then he withdrew li
ke something catlike as bullets shaved and cut through the cypresses around him, their leafy branches going everywhere.

  Then he saw the other two enter the garden area.

  Seeing his moment, Kimball took to the square and waited, making sure that the cameras had spotted him.

  From the edges of the courtyard, Cooper’s wetwork team came to the fringe of the tree line and spotted Kimball. Tourists and Malta folk were beginning to mill about in a carnival-like atmosphere with people passing in front of and behind Kimball, shielding him.

  When the SAD liquidation squad reached the tree line and looked right at him, Kimball knew they had been advised of his location. Apparently the cameras were watching his every move.

  And this was a good thing, Kimball told himself.

  From his point in the middle of the square, Kimball turned and headed west through the growing throngs, the former Vatican Knight wading through the masses and against the grain of the rush.

  From the tree line that led to the plush garden area, Cooper’s team quickly followed.

  Chapter Fifty

  Kimball Hayden made every possible attempt for the cameras to find and follow him.

  He didn’t go far. Maybe a few blocks. Now that he had lost the advantage of shadow and shade, he then sought the advantage of familiar terrain.

  The retreat center was strictly consigned to priests on sabbatical. No outsiders. So no one beyond the closed doors would know of the bodies inside.

  Kimball closed the entry door behind him.

  The air was suffused with the smell of death and body rot, the decay pungent and strong, which added to the sepulchral element and feel of the center. The residence was a mixture of small rooms with connecting doors, the rooms studio-like with community bathrooms located on every floor.

  Kimball went through the tiny lobby area, passed the shattered coffee table, and climbed the steps to the second tier. At the head of the stairway was the first of the three priests. His eyes were no longer glistening, but had a milky sheen to them. And his skin was mottled with different shades of purple.

  Kimball stepped around the body, knowing that there were three more on the level above him.

  He looked over the bannister.

  Soon the door would open and light would filter into the lobby area.

  Men would pour in.

  And then the light would be gone, the door closing with a barely perceptible click of the lock turning and barring anyone from leaving.

  The stage would be set.

  The retreat center would become the arena for gladiatorial battle.

  And people would die.

  Kimball eased away from the bannister and took to the shadows the retreat center provided.

  And with the patience of a saint . . . he waited.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  “He’s inside the retreat center,” Cooper stated over his team’s earbuds. “He’s attempting to draw you to his vantage point.”

  “Advice?” asked Santomango.

  “Can’t offer you anything different from what you already know. Standard protocol procedures regarding close-combat situations. One low and one high in tandem when moving down the hallways to clear areas. Do . . . not! . . . separate under any circumstances.”

  “Copy that.”

  Santomango kicked the door, which was marginally open as if in invitation, and stepped aside should a sudden burst of bullets go off. But it never happened. Not a single shot. One by one they entered the retreat center, with Ripley closing and locking the door behind him, just a slight snicker of the bolt turning.

  Pooling darkness and the stench of mild death. The retreat center was hardly a welcoming establishment, since it catered to priests on sabbatical. Instead, it appeared darkly depressing with the natural light seeming to be pushed away by the looming shadows.

  Santomango took lead, his fever escalating, the man now starting to shiver. Maynard was behind him, his weapon raised above Santomango’s shoulder, who hunkered before him. And Ripley stayed close to Maynard. They would move down the hallways with Santomango crouched, so that those behind him would have an unobstructed view.

  They had cleared the first floor.

  When they took the steps to the second level, the stench of death became stronger.

  At the top of the stairway laid the body of a priest as flies began to alight at the corners of his mouth. The man had been shot in the forehead.

  They moved ahead with the points of their weapons leading.

  Rooms connected with rooms with one door leading into another, the rooms connected like a maze, a labyrinth, a place—unless you knew its outlay—easy to get lost in, even though the area space was minimal.

  They opened doors to rooms, doors to closets—doors, doors, doors.

  Nothing.

  “Where the hell is he?” whispered Maynard.

  No one answered.

  As far as they were concerned and something everyone was wondering about, was that Kimball Hayden could have been moving one way when they were moving another.

  When they came to the stretch of the hallway that led to the stairway at the far end, it appeared extremely long in a funhouse sort of way, the corridor looking far too extensive for such a building.

  They moved along its length.

  On the ceiling, in what appeared to be ornamental designs, were actually small access panels built ages ago to get at the lines of antiquated lighting fixtures no longer in use. In between the ceiling and the upper floor was a crawlspace.

  Slowly, as Santomango led his team, a panel lifted and drew back.

  As the team passed underneath, a hand extended downward above Maynard’s head with the tip of the suppressor less than a foot away, and a single muted shot went off. A round smashed through the cap of Maynard’s skull and travelled downward along the length of his spine, killing him. Maynard’s legs buckled and his knees folded swiftly as he fell to the tiles, the man dead upon the moment of the bullet’s impact.

  Santomango and Ripley never knew what hit them until Maynard landed hard upon the floor as a heap, his limbs awkwardly askew.

  They looked down the hallway.

  Nothing.

  At the ceiling.

  All the panels were in place.

  A phantom round had taken out one of their own.

  Kimball could see them. But they couldn’t see him.

  Now the advantage was all Hayden’s.

  “Where is he?” asked Ripley, sounding apprehensive.

  Santomango checked one end of the hallway. Ripley the other.

  Nothing.

  Santomango hit his earbud.

  “Go.”

  Santomango whispered. “Maynard’s down. We need Ripper and Dill on this.”

  “They’re mission bound,” came the answer.

  “Draw them off.”

  “Maintain discipline,” came Cooper’s reply. “Keep your heads.”

  Santomango tapped the bud. Out!

  Then came a sound from the third level, something being dropped to the floor. An invite.

  “Guess who’s calling?” said Ripley.

  They moved up the stairway with their heads on a swivel and their suppressed firearms directed forward and above. As they reached the third tier they saw Dodge lying on the floor; one of Kimball Hayden’s victims from a previous run-in.

  More doors. Nothing but doors.

  Kimball Hayden had chosen well.

  They moved down the hallway. The stench of death and decay was getting stronger, more noticeable. Inside the room at the end of the hallway lay two priests, both dead from fatal gunshots to the backs of their heads. Blowflies were already gathering inside the cavities to lay their eggs.

  Another bang. This time at the opposite end of the corridor.

  Santomango nodded to Ripley to take lead.

  He did. His gun ready.

  Santomango stayed close behind, his fever brewing.

  A doorway. Halfway down the corridor and across from
the bannister.

  Ripley stood before it, took aim, and shot a diamond pattern into the door with high and low shots. Then he grabbed the knob and ripped the door open. Nothing but a broom closet. The victim: a bucket and a mop handle.

  When Ripley shut the door, Kimball was standing in the hallway.

  As Kimball brought the point of his weapon up and directed it to Ripley’s center mass, his features remained neutral. Whatever sentiments he might have held at one time as a man seeking hope and redemption had been buried until there was little left besides machine-like fortitude.

  Their eyes locked. The moment between them frozen in time.

  Somewhere a wall clock ticked, perhaps counting off the last seconds of a man’s life.

  Then Kimball pulled the trigger three times, three loud spits, the rounds smashing through Ripley’s chest with the impacts sending him into Santomango with the momentum of Ripley’s body driving them both to the floor.

  Santomango, with his wounded shoulder, was too slow and weak to maneuver Ripley off of him. But he didn’t have to. Kimball hoisted the man’s body off him and cast the dead weight aside. As Santomango raised his weapon Kimball knocked it aside, delivered a hard blow that caused the assassin to see a starburst of light, then lifted Santomango to his feet, the man still dazed.

  The moment the fog appeared to completely lift from Santomango, their eyes locked. Santomango’s was filled with a heated anger to fight back. Kimball’s appeared empty and soulless, nothing but darkness.

  Kimball then lifted Santomango off his feet, about six inches off the ground.

  There was no facial expression; there were no words of condemnation or questions asking the ‘who, what, where or why’ of things; Kimball responded by carrying Santomango to the edge of the bannister, three flights up, and pushed him over the edge.

  Santomango pin-wheeled his arms, the man screaming as he seemed to fall with the slowness of a bad dream until he hit the floor. At the moment of impact that sounded like a splash, a halo of blood fanned out explosively around his head.

  Santomango laid there unmoving with one of his legs awkwardly bent.