Kill Zone

by Jack Coughlin

  “Me?”

  “Yes. You can’t go back to work until this thing is settled. And when you don’t show up, they are going to pull out all stops to find you and get what you know. Guaranteed they will discover your relationship with Kyle. We have to assume that Buchanan, with all of his intel assets, will have the NSA recording this call.”

  “They won’t bother me. I’m a serving naval officer.”

  “That will be no protection whatsoever. Trust me on that. You and I both have to disappear before Buchanan can get his hands on us, Shari. Hang up this phone and dump it, then get to somewhere safe. Not your apartment.”

  “Orville, I can’t just leave! If I don’t show up for work, it will be an unauthorized absence.”

  “Take it from me, honey,” said Double-Oh. “Right now, that is the least of your worries. When the house is burning down, your first job is to save yourself, then worry about the house. You get out to Quantico right now and contact the duty NCO, and he will stash you in the VIP lodgings… until I can contact you on an encrypted line.” He emphasized the word.

  Shari almost dropped the phone when she realized that Dawkins was right. The NSA would be listening to her call, particularly since it was being made within an invisible listening cone that surrounded the White House. “Right. The duty NCO at Quantico will be expecting me.”

  “We’ll talk soon.” Double-Oh broke the connection and threw his cell phone overboard, watching until it splashed into the Mediterranean Sea. There would be no sleep for him tonight.

  In Washington, Shari Towne moved quickly. She put her phone into the same trash can as her coffee, stepped to the curb, and hailed a taxi.

  By the time the cab drove away, a supercomputer at the National Security Agency had recorded the call and traced it from Lieutenant Commander Towne to a number assigned to Marine Master Sergeant Orville Oliver Dawkins.

  Instead of racing down to Quantico, Shari Towne had the cab driver turn right and head toward the Hashemite Kingdom.

  CHAPTER 35

  GERALD BUCHANAN AND THE secretary of state had a private meeting with the President following the NSC session, but as soon as he returned to his office, he called for Sam Shafer. “What the HELL was that all about with Towne? The world is coming apart and one of my staff members interrupts an important meeting by dropping her schoolbooks? In front of the President of the United States? For God’s sake!”

  “Commander Towne has been under a lot of pressure, sir. She was the one we brought back from leave to work on the crisis.”

  “The woman is supposed to be a professional!” He spun his chair around to stare out the window. “Her action today reflected directly on me. Everybody will think I hire morons who can’t take the pressure.”

  Shafer ran a hand through the hair, a finger comb. “I don’t think that’s what happened.”

  Buchanan turned back around, his anger replaced by curiosity. “Talk to me, Sam.”

  “I’ve worked with Shari Towne for a long time, sir, and nobody has a cooler head in a crisis. That damned brain of hers goes so fast it throws off sparks, and I have never seen her rattled. If a situation is really going to hell, she might squint an eye in thought. Nothing more.”

  “So why was she dropping Top Secret files all over the President’s expensive rug?”

  “She saw something in that folder of the dead Marines, sir. I gave it to her to review while I took notes on the meeting. She was going through the meat shots when it happened. I thought at first that it might be because the pictures are pretty gruesome.”

  “So what? Pictures of dead people usually are.”

  “I agree. She had not yet reached the pages of text, so all she had seen were the photographs. Right before she dropped the file, she was looking at the picture of one of those poor faceless bastards. More than looking at it, she was studying it hard, almost breaking it down into pixels. When everything else hit the floor, she held that picture so tightly her knuckles were turning white.”

  Buchanan shook his head. So what? “ Several people, including me, have looked at the file and none of us had that kind of reaction.”

  “That’s just my point, sir. But how many of us who examined it were trained intelligence eyes? Shari Towne is one of the best analysts in the building, and she doesn’t work here because she misses things. No one else apparently picked up on whatever it was she spotted. It’s not the first time she’s done that. Remember how she pegged the Libyan missiles that Gadhafi claimed he had destroyed?”

  “So she saw something.” Buchanan had found the file to be exactly what he had expected. Bunch of dead guys. It was supposed to be nothing more than an impressive visual prop to demonstrate the abilities of the Gates Global operators. He did not like the idea that Towne had picked up a detail he had missed, something that might be important.

  Shafer crossed his arms. “Whatever was in there made the stone-cold lieutenant commander lose her cool, for maybe the first time in her life, outside of an orgasm.”

  “Wait a minute, Sam. She didn’t tell you what it was after the meeting?” Buchanan leaned forward, elbows on the desk blotter. “Get her ass in here. Right now!”

  “Can’t do it, sir. She grabbed her purse and left the building. Told a secretary she was going for a walk and hasn’t come back.” Shafer glanced at his watch. Seven o’clock. “She left about thirty minutes ago. I called her cell phone. No answer.”

  “The bitch is keeping a secret from me?” Buchanan’s anger flared so hard that he broke his pencil.

  “It gets worse, sir. I had the White House operator call Towne’s secure beeper ten minutes ago. All White House staff must answer such a page immediately, without exception. Nothing. For whatever reason, the commander is choosing not to communicate.”

  “Damn! We have to find her, Sam.” Buchanan’s mind churned. “Meanwhile, put some of our other intel people on the file and see what they can get. And I want to know more about Miz Towne. Put the bitch under a microscope.”

  “Just here in the office?”

  “No. I don’t think she’s coming back,” said Buchanan, making a guess, then a decision. “Do the full package. FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, and the National Intelligence Center. Pull her Secret Service background check. Yank the computer hard drive from her office and have the NSA crack it. Wiretaps, computer scans, the full audio-video surveillance package, pictures, financial information, the whole nine yards, including interviews with people who know her. I want to know everything she does, everybody she knows, where she buys her damned groceries, who she is screwing, and the name of her third-grade teacher’s pet canary. Everything!”

  “Warrants?”

  The National Security Advisor leaned back and dodged the question. It had been proven too many times that White House walls have ears. “Sam, as I recall, isn’t Lieutenant Commander Towne of Middle Eastern extraction?”

  “Her mother is Jordanian, father was an American diplomat. He died in a plane crash when she was a child.”

  “An Arab, then. So considering the seriousness of her withholding vital security information during an international crisis, I must direct that Lieutenant Commander Towne be considered a terrorist mole who somehow infiltrated the White House. She may be aiding our enemies.”

  Shafer broke into a big grin. Buchanan amazed him. Nothing was beyond the man. “Yes, sir. A possible al Qaeda connection would be a very serious matter. I’ll get the file.”

  ‘And Sam?”

  “Sir?”

  “Have Towne in custody before dawn.”

  CHAPTER 36

  COLONEL RALPH SIMS DEPLANED from the luxurious C-20 executive jet at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland with some reluctance. He was freshly shaved, in a pressed uniform with shined shoes, and although somewhat tired from the long journey, he felt like a million bucks. Staff Sergeant Foster, Marcia L., who had turned the routine puddle-jump flight into a cruise among the stars for him, stood at attention at the foot of the small stairs, saluting smar
tly as Sims stepped to the ground.

  “Call me,” she said with a wink, passing a card with her telephone number to him. She hurried back into the plane, pulled up the stairs, and closed the door, and the sleek C-20 followed a Jeep with a rack of lights down a long, empty approach runway.

  Sims had expected to be deposited in front of a terminal, with another C-20 waiting for him, but instead there was nothing around but darkness. A tall cyclone fence was set back at the edge of the field, and no blue lights marking the runway reached into this far corner. Low bushes and scrubland fell away from the tarmac and into the field bordering the fence, and he could barely make out the big control tower outlined by lights several miles away. A breeze carried the salty scent of the Chesapeake Bay, and he could hear the hum of distant traffic. It seemed that he had been dropped off in the middle of nowhere.

  “Where the hell is everybody?” he said into the emptiness.

  “Right here, sir.” One of the bushes stood up, a Marine in a full ghillie suit with a long rifle in his hands. “Staff Sergeant Gonzales, USMC scout sniper, sir. May I see your identification, please?”

  Sims was aware that several other bushes were also moving around behind him as he handed over his laminated military identification card. The staff sergeant checked it in the briefly seen red beam of a flashlight. “Right. Thank you, sir.” He turned and called into the darkness, “Mr. Dillon, you may come forward.”

  Footsteps in the darkness on the far side of the runway came closer and Sims made out the shape of a small man who extended his hand. “Billy Dillon, colonel, United States Air Force, retired. Glad to meet you.” Sims’s eyes had adjusted to the night surroundings, and he saw that Dillon was dressed in a ribbed and pressurized black flight suit.

  “What’s going on, Staff Sergeant? Why is your team out here, and what is Mr. Dillon, a civilian, doing in a restricted area?”

  Dillon handed Sims a flight suit like the one he wore. “We will explain while you get dressed. You can’t fly with me without it. The boys will tuck your uniform into the Val Pak and we’ll carry it in a storage space. Hurry, please, Colonel. Time is of the essence.”

  Staff Sergeant Gonzales made some hand motions and his men went prone again, facing outward. “We’re a Force Recon team, Colonel, out of Camp Lejeune. We’re just doing a routine drill here tonight,” Gonzales said with a grin of white teeth against his grease-darkened face. “I will say that a couple of unexpected telephone calls had something to do with this assignment. In fact, my Top threatened to feed my ass to the buzzards if I didn’t move fast enough to get here before you did.”

  Sims stripped to his underwear and was struggling into the tight flight suit, which looked like the skin of some prehistoric alligator. “I got a call, too,” said Dillon. “Bit of personal history first. I was flying an Air Force F-16 several years ago somewhere that we weren’t supposed to be and the bad guys got lucky with a missile. My radar intercept officer was killed, but I got out with just some broken bones. A Marine Special Ops team came and fetched me home, along with the body of my RIO.” He helped Sims zip up. “After rehab, I couldn’t fly military anymore, so I got another gig. I owe the Force Recon boys big-time, and I always pay my debts.”

  Gonzales was no longer smiling, and his eyes burned with anger. “All we really know, sir, is that you have something to do with settling the score for what happened over there in Syria. We’re here to help. Those were our brothers.”

  “Let’s go,” said Dillon, handing Sims a black flight helmet.

  “Go where? There’s a plane here?”

  “Right there. A hundred yards straight in front of us.” He started walking and Sims followed.

  As they closed in on the spot, Sims saw a ground crew dressed in black working on a shape beneath a big camouflage net. At a signal from Dillon, they pulled it away.

  “And just what the fuck is this, Mr. Dillon?” The plane was almost invisible, with flat black paint, no sharp surfaces, and standing high on a tripod of wheels. He touched the surface, which was as smooth as a mirror.

  “Call me Billy, please, Colonel.” He led Sims around the strange aircraft and pointed to the small white acronym lettering the tail fin. “Meet the X43-D scramjet, the latest in the Hyper-X series. We’re trying to make a reusable space vehicle. You’re flying courtesy of NASA tonight, Colonel. I have to get this bird out to Edwards Air Force Base in California before dawn, so we arranged a little side trip to Alaska for you. It will get both of us where we need to be in plenty of time. Up you go into the rear seat.” He patted a footstep in the hull.

  “You’re going to make it from Washington to Alaska and back to southern California in a couple of hours?”

  “Yep. The old SR-71 Blackbird used to be the fastest thing in the sky and it only did Mach three, three times the speed of sound. Tonight, you and I are going to climb about sixty miles up, just under the edge of space, and you’ll be able to see stars like you cannot believe. There will be some weightlessness. Then I level off, kick her into high gear, and peg the speedometer at about Mach eight. When we start the descent, we’ll be going like a bat out of hell. A ceramic covering more advanced than that on the space shuttle will protect us against the heat of reentry.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit. It will be the ride of your life. Now let’s buckle you in.”

  “Colonel?”

  Sims looked over his shoulder. Gonzales was still standing there. “You have something to say, Staff Sergeant?”

  “Get the motherfuckers, sir.”

  “Bet your ass on that, Staff Sergeant.” Sims climbed into the rear seat of a cockpit unlike anything he had ever seen, and ground crewmen reached around him to hook up the hoses and belts.

  “Ready back there?” Dillon asked, face-to-face over the televised intercom.

  “Let’s do it, Billy. I’ll see if you’re lying about the speed.”

  The cockpit hummed down and locked into place, the instrument panel glowed green and red, there was the hiss of cool oxygen into the mask, and the radio came to life in his ears. “Hold on, then. We don’t call her ‘Greased Lightning’ for nothing.”

  CHAPTER 37

  KYLE SWANSON DROPPED HIS pack as softly as a mouse’s footstep, and moved to the side of the bed. His night-vision glasses gave a clear, green view of the bearded man sound asleep beneath a cotton sheet, and Swanson brought his big pistol down hard on the crown of the man’s head. He needed a few moments to set up, so the guy had to stay asleep.

  He ripped off a strip of duct tape and pasted it across the man’s mouth. A broom leaning against a corner went behind the shoulders, and he secured the wrists to it with flexicuffs and duct tape. He cinched the ankles and the knees together with more tape. Duct tape had many uses. He wound more of it all the way around the bed and secured the torso and legs. Almost ready. He clicked on a single bedside lamp and covered the shade with a towel to cut down on the glow. It would be important that the Frenchman be able to see what was about to happen.

  Moving to the stove, he lit a propane flame and propped the largest spoon he could find to roast over it.

  Back at the bed, Kyle hauled the sheet up to the man’s neck and straddled the chest, his weight pinning the edges of the sheet to the bed like a giant sleeve. With one hand, he poured a cup of cold water on the man’s face, while the other hand kept the pistol right between the eyes. Hell of a way to wake up.

  The eyes flew wide open in surprise. Kyle said nothing. He knew the value of silence to an interrogator and wanted to establish the parameters of the session before the man even started to think he might have a vote in what was happening to him.

  Kyle returned the pistol to the shoulder rig and withdrew his long, sharp knife. He grabbed the left hand secured to the broomstick, and took his time sawing off the thumb. The victim yowled behind the tape as blood spurted out in a dark stream. Swanson got off the guy and brought over the large spoon from the kitchen, holding it up so the Frenchman could see it
glowing with heat. Tears of pain and shock and fear spilled from the eyes. Then the spoon went against the bleeding stump, where it sizzled, and the muzzled man screamed again.

  When he calmed down, Kyle said, “Bonjour, asshole.”

  He pulled up a chair and looked the man in the face. “That was just to save us some time. We’re both professionals, so let’s make this as painless for you as possible.” He wiped the blood from the knife on the man’s hair, pressing the flat of the blade against the skull. “Still going to hurt, though. You decide how much.”

  Swanson held up the small photograph he had received during the pre-mission briefing. “Recognize this dude? Oh my God, it’s you! How about that for a coincidence? Your name is Pierre Dominique Falais, an ex-Legionnaire who is now an intelligence snitch for whoever will pay you. You speak Arabic, French, English, and German, so don’t insult me by saying you do not understand what I am saying.” It was easier to break a prisoner early in the interrogation if he thought the questioner already knew everything. Falais had no idea that the French had given up his entire record.

  He mumbled.

  “Ummmm,” said Kyle, sniffing. “Smell that? The unmistakable odor of burning flesh. I smelled it only a few hours ago when I got out of that fucking helicopter. A lot of Marines who were my friends were killed out there, and were burned worse than you.” He leaned across and laid the razor-sharp knife blade on the pinkie of the mutilated left hand and cut that off, too, then took his time reheating the spoon before stanching the flow of blood with it. Another scream.

  “Okay. You have eight fingers left, ten toes, a nose, two ears, two eyes, lips, legs, arms, and of course your dick and balls, which will go into your mouth or up your ass, I haven’t made up my mind yet. But that would be a lot of work, and you would experience some discomfort. So you answer my questions and I won’t chop you up like frog legs. I’m going to remove the gag now, and if you try to shout, I will ram this big knife through your cheeks and knock out a few teeth. Then the questioning will resume. Understood?” The man nodded a vigorous yes. Kyle tore the tape off so that it clung to one cheek in case he needed it in a hurry.