Patriot Dream

by Stephen Templin

  “I don’t know.”

  “Please,” Hannah said weakly.

  Ozzie gazed at her. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  OZZIE SET UP A RENDEZVOUS for dinner a week later at Nicole. Sonny was the early bird again, already there with a meal when Chris and Hannah arrived precisely on time, 7:00 PM, but there was no sign of Ozzie or Falcon. This time, a different waitress greeted them.

  “Could we have a table away from the window, please?” Chris asked.

  “Yes, of course,” the waitress said. After seating them, she brought menus and asked, “Would you like something to drink?”

  “No, thank you,” Hannah said.

  Minutes ticked by, and Chris checked his phone for a text message from Ozzie, but there was none. The waitress returned and asked kindly, “Are you ready to order?”

  Chris had no idea how late Ozzie would be, and he didn’t want to finish eating before he arrived, so he stalled for time. There were only two courses on the menu, but he said, “Could we have some more time, please?”

  “Certainly,” she said before disappearing again.

  More minutes went by.

  “He’s late,” Hannah said.

  “Yep.”

  The waitress returned. “Ready?” she asked.

  “We’re waiting for a friend,” Chris said.

  “Do you have any nonalcoholic drinks?” Hannah asked the waitress.

  “We have ayran,” she said.

  “Two, please,” Hannah said.

  The waitress left.

  Chris smiled.

  “What?” Hannah asked.

  “I just remembered the last time we were in Turkey,” he said.

  Hannah’s eyes were bright and glossy. “When we were placed under arrest by our own consulate?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m glad you can smile about it,” she said.

  “I can smile about it now, but I couldn’t smile about it then.”

  “Insurgents torched the place. We were lucky to get out alive.”

  Chris remembered the brave men and women who died, and he stopped smiling. “Sonny saved us from that one.” Chris glanced over at their buddy, who seemed blissfully lost in his dessert.

  Ozzie walked through the door with a lean, hatchet-faced guy who had steely eyes and a hook nose that looked like it’d been broken more than once. Falcon. A waitress seated them.

  Chris and Hannah pretended not to notice. Ozzie spotted them, too, but ignored them. Then Chris and Hannah’s waitress brought their yogurt-flavored waters, and they ordered. After Ozzie and Falcon placed their orders, too, Ozzie said something to Falcon, and he looked at Chris and Hannah. Again, Chris and Hannah acted oblivious.

  Sonny pretended to text on his phone, but he was taking photos of Ozzie’s friend.

  Then Ozzie and Falcon stood and came Chris and Hannah’s way. Ozzie’s walk was unsteady and unassertive. “Hannah, is that you?” Ozzie asked.

  They looked up. “Ozzie!”

  “This is my friend, Falcon,” Ozzie said.

  Falcon nodded courteously.

  “I’m Chris, and this is Hannah.”

  “Hi,” Hannah said.

  Before anyone could say anything else, Falcon said something quietly in Turkish to Ozzie, who forced a smile at Chris and Hannah and said, “Bye.” Then Ozzie and Falcon returned to their table.

  Hannah sipped her ayran. “That was quick.”

  Chris took a drink, too. “I don’t think Ozzie will pop the question.”

  “Even if he does, this guy doesn’t seem the type to help out a stranger,” Hannah said.

  “We should put Falcon under surveillance.”

  Hannah nodded.

  “I’ll collect his DNA,” Chris said.

  The waitress brought their meal, and Chris and Hannah ate leisurely, waiting for Ozzie and Falcon to leave so Chris could collect a DNA sample from Falcon’s dinnerware, and Sonny could follow him.

  Falcon was a fast eater, and he finished his meal well before Ozzie did. Ozzie stopped eating and paid their check.

  Chris had to collect the dinnerware after Ozzie and Falcon were gone but before a waitress cleared the table. His heart beat faster. Falcon sauntered through the exit with Ozzie in tow. Sonny followed them out, keeping his distance.

  Chris stood and removed an empty envelope from his pocket. His heart hammered harder, and he strolled up to Ozzie and Falcon’s empty seats. At the other tables, diners were focused on each other and their meals, and waiters and waitresses busily took orders and served customers. Chris swiped Falcon’s spoon and fork, placed them in the paper envelope, pocketed it, and kept walking.

  Chapter Six

  In the dark hours of the Damascus morning, Max and his brother Tom rode in the back seat of a black Toyota Land Cruiser, popular with both NATO and terrorists for its reliability and sturdiness. Their driver was a long-bearded Free Syrian Army (FSA) man named Sami, who asked in fluent English, “You want to go directly to the position where our man got shot? It is one of the sniper’s areas.”

  “Yes,” Max said. “The closer we are to the sniper’s location, the easier it’ll be for us to hear and see him when he takes another shot.”

  Sami accelerated. “Can’t you hear him and see him if you’re farther away?”

  “Not as well.”

  “We’ve been hunting for this sniper for a year,” Sami said. “He has killed thirty warriors from my tribe. We call him the Ghost. He’ll kill you, too.”

  I’m not your tribe, Max thought.

  Sami wrapped his fingers around his long beard, as if trying to wrap his head around these counter-sniper tactics. “My men will set up in a two-story building. One of them is already there. You want to be in the building?”

  Tom supported his brother: “In the building.”

  “What if the sniper shoots you?” Sami asked.

  Max shrugged his shoulders. “There’s always a downside.” He and Tom had promised Sami’s boss, a powerful local chieftain named Azrael, that they would rid him of a sniper if Azrael could give them information about a new assassination drug the Syrian government was working on. Azrael had provided good intel to CIA before, and Max hoped he’d provide good intel again. The Agency had received reports that such a drug would be used on a high-level target. Another team was working on the identities of the assassin and target, and Max and Tom were tasked with finding out about the drug.

  Sami pulled off the road and skidded to a halt behind a drab two-story concrete building. “This is it,” he said.

  Max hopped out with his rucksack full of gear and hustled to the building. Tom’s running footsteps sounded behind him. The Syrian sniper wouldn’t begin work until sunrise, but Max didn’t want to be surprised if the sniper clocked in early. Sami seemed to be of the same mind; he hustled, too.

  A small young man opened the door for them. Max, Tom, and Sami hastened inside. The only light in the house came from moonlight through dingy curtains. They were in an unfurnished kitchen, and at the far end was a living room, also unfurnished, with some bedrolls rolled up against the wall. The plaster on the walls was chipped and cracked, and there were holes in the west wall that let in morning moonbeams. Off to the side was a bathroom.

  Sami introduced the young man who’d let them in, “This is Jack. He’s one of my men.”

  Max smiled at hearing the American name—or nickname. They shook hands, and Jack returned the smile.

  Sami and Jack went to the far corner of the living room and discussed something. In the kitchen, Tom asked quietly, “What’s wrong?”

  “I want you up on the second floor with me sniping, but I don’t trust these two guys to secure the first floor.”

  Tom bounced on his toes, ready to get to it. “I’ll help them secure the first floor.”

  “If any of them even look sideways at you or seem the least bit squirrelly, you let me know, and we’re out of here pronto. And if I see anything squirrelly, no discussions—we grab our kit a
nd go.” Kit was what they called their gear.

  “You don’t trust them.”

  “Not with my life,” Max said. “And certainly not with yours.”

  Tom nodded.

  Armed with a highly customized AK, Max hauled his sniper rifle and kit upstairs. He would use the AK for close-in fighting if needed and the sniper rifle for longer distances. His gear included a small SE (Site Exploitation) kit—a Q-tip and collection bag with which to obtain the target’s DNA. He could use his phone to take a photograph of the body.

  He checked out his digs. The deck leaned to one side and sagged in spots. He spotted one empty room—then another. Similar to downstairs, there were holes in the west wall here, too—big like a .50-caliber machine gun with ADD had been making Swiss cheese before becoming distracted and moving on to something else.

  Max lay down and looked through one hole that caught his eye. It was wide enough for him to see through with his scope and shoot straight through. The more he backed away from the orifice, the more wall he could see and the less outdoors he could observe. He’d have to keep his muzzle close to the hole to maximize his view of the city. However, the wall was thick—even with his muzzle fixed in one spot, he couldn’t pivot the neck of the barrel left, right, up, or down without plaster blocking his movement. He decided to leave the edges of the outdoors side of the hole as is but widen his side of the hole. He took out his mini-tool knife and unfolded the blade. Then he picked, hacked, and carved away at the plaster until his side of the hole became bigger.

  Next, he laid down his AK and unpacked a Russian SVD sniper rifle. Without the bipod attached, the weapon would be too low to shoot through the hole, and with a bipod attached, it’d sit too high. He could knock out another hole in the wall at the correct height, and maybe the enemy sniper wouldn’t recognize a new hole—but maybe he would.

  Footsteps sounded from the stairway and Sami came in the room. “Is everything okay?”

  Max remembered the bedrolls downstairs. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” he said in English.

  Sami had fluent English, but maybe he hadn’t learned all the American idioms. He stared at Max blankly.

  Max translated into Arabic: Hayth hunak ‘iiradat hunak wasila.

  Sami’s eyes brightened, and he nodded.

  Max went downstairs, grabbed two bedrolls, and dragged them upstairs. He laid one down on the deck for him to lie on and folded the other until it supported his aim, sans bipod.

  He peered through his scope. The sky had turned from the black of the void to dark gray, and shadows materialized into buildings and cars.

  Vehicles rumbled outside and stopped near their building. Max’s heart seemed to skip a beat, and his breathing paused.

  “My guys are here,” Sami said.

  Max’s heart rate and breathing became normal again.

  Sami hurried downstairs. The door unlocked and opened. Feet trampled inside, and men’s voices chattered loudly as if they were on a vacation. Max was pissed at their lack of professionalism. Then came the bittersweet smell of tobacco. If the sniper couldn’t hear these morons, he could see the glow of their cigarettes. But getting all worked up wouldn’t help Max do his job, so he searched for a silver lining. On the positive side, if the sniper was out there, he’d certainly take a shot at one of these yahoos. Then Max would take his shot. Sniper bait.

  Some of the men stayed downstairs, smoking and chatting, and a few others climbed the stairs. “We’re going to set up an observation post on the roof,” Sami said.

  “Knock yourselves out,” Max said.

  Sami’s buddies stomped around on the roof like a small herd of cattle. Then they quieted down a bit but not completely—if one guy wasn’t moving up there, another was talking. These guys will never win the war against Assad.

  Two of a sniper’s greatest considerations are wind and distance. There was no wind, so Max didn’t have to worry about that. He did have to worry about distance. From his pocket, he pulled out his iPhone, which contained his sniper data. He reached into his rucksack and took out a pair of Leica Vector binoculars. Training them on the distant terrain, he noted a road about a hundred meters away. A cargo truck stopped, and Max used the range finder of his binoculars to bounce a laser off the broad side of it. He read the digital readout in his binoculars—ninety-five meters. Then he entered the data into his iPhone. Farther out, he lazed a clump of houses—two hundred and eight meters. A little farther was a neighborhood mosque with a good view of its surroundings—an obvious choice for a sniper, though probably too obvious—two hundred and sixty-eight meters. At five hundred and thirty-six meters was a hospital. Fifty meters beyond that was a soccer stadium, which would make an excellent sniper platform—especially with a labyrinth of entrances and exits for the sniper’s escape. Max couldn’t imagine a Syrian sniper engaging from farther away than the soccer stadium. If Max were the sniper, he’d use the stadium.

  While he waited for the sniper to make his next move, he simulated acquiring a target in one of the arches of the soccer stadium. He held high to compensate for the distance. Instead of waiting for the natural stillness between exhaling and inhaling, Max paused his breathing and squeezed—steady and straight. Click. Then he switched it up—imagining a car stop beside the road and the flash of a sniper’s scope. Max held low to compensate for the closeness. Click. Satisfied with his quick dry-fire exercise, he chambered a round and waited.

  The sun broke the horizon, and calls to prayer rang from loudspeakers at mosques throughout Damascus, creating an abstract song. Smack! A bullet struck something, or someone, on the roof. Though startled, Max’s training and experience kicked in, and he began counting off seconds between the impact upstairs and the report of the rifle. Before he finished counting off one second, the rifle went bang. Because each second between the shot hitting near him and the report of the rifle equaled three hundred meters, this sniper was a bit less than three hundred meters away. Close. It came from the direction of the mosque.

  Max pivoted his rifle in the direction of the mosque and methodically examined each opening and nook. No sniper. He checked the surrounding area. A man wearing black Adidas sweatpants and a black T-shirt and holding a rifle down to his side ran from the building. Max tried to get his crosshairs on him, but he disappeared behind another structure—like an apparition. Damn!

  Sami and the herd of men upstairs ran and stumbled downstairs, hollering all the way down to the first floor, except for Sami, who stopped in Max’s room.

  “Is anyone shot?” Max asked.

  “No,” Sami said. “Did you get the sniper?”

  Max was embarrassed. “No.”

  The sun heated the city, and the rest of the day Max took turns watching with Tom. When sunset neared, they became especially vigilant, but there were no more signs of the sniper.

  Before dawn the next morning, Sami and his buddies returned to the roof. This time they crept up stealthily.

  Max’s father, a Marine Force Recon sniper, had taught Max and Tom the finer points of camouflage, stalking, and shooting at a young age. Later, Max became a SEAL, and after he deployed to Ramadi, Iraq with SEAL Team Three, he returned to the States and graduated from SEAL sniper school. When he earned a spot in Development Group, one of a growing list of aliases for SEAL Team Six, the Team’s sniper slots were full, so he served as an assaulter. After a combat tour with DEVGRU, he left the Navy and joined CIA Special Activities Division/Special Operations Group, the tip of the tip of the spear. When the US wanted to send their best, they sent SEAL Team Six or Delta Force, but when they wanted to send their best and deny any knowledge of it, they sent Special Operations Group. In spite of all of Max’s training and combat experience, he’d never killed an enemy sniper.

  He scanned the mosque’s gray silhouette and its surrounding area, checking to see if the sniper would press his luck enough to show up there again. After several minutes of patient scanning, he noticed movement in the minaret. Max aimed. The view i
n his scope showed a man wearing a black T-shirt. Is this the sniper? Or some harmless cleric? Then Max spotted a long rifle mounted with a scope aimed in his direction.

  Adrenaline dumped into Max’s system, threatening to throw him off balance. In the faint light of dawn and from this distance, the sniper’s chest presented the biggest target. Max took a long, deep breath to return to Happy Valley and aimed. He must feel like king of the hill in his sniper hide. It was time to overthrow the king, and the king had no idea it was coming. Max aligned his crosshairs on the man’s chest. The sniper’s muzzle flashed. Max squeezed the trigger. Max’s brain couldn’t process the sound of the sniper’s shot or his own, but he recognized the satisfying recoil of his rifle butt into his shoulder. The sniper sank out of view. This time, the sniper didn’t run out of the building. Au revoir.

  The upstairs herd ran downstairs again, except for Sami, who stopped to see Max again.

  “Anyone shot?” Max asked.

  “No. Did you get him?” Sami asked.

  Max nodded.

  “Praise to Allah!” Sami cheered. “Praise to Allah.” Then he ran downstairs and spread the news.

  “Allah’s got nothing to do with it,” Max grumbled, but Sami was gone. Max packed his sniper rifle away and picked up his AK assault rifle.

  On loudspeakers throughout the city, the cacophony of calls to morning prayer went out.

  Max descended the steps to the first floor. Sami and his men jumped up and down and shouted praise to Allah. Tom high-fived Max, who smiled so hard that his face felt as if it might crack.

  Tom leaned forward. “We should go ID the sniper.”

  “Yeah, before his buddies get to him and remove the body,” Max said. He turned to Sami. “We’re going to gather some intel from the sniper’s body. You and your guys stand by here in case we need backup. If there are no problems, we’ll return. We’ll say ‘Sami and Jack,’ and you’ll know it’s us before you open the door.”

  Sami was still bouncing up and down and smiling. “Yes, yes, Sami and Jack. Praise Allah.”