Clean Kill

by Jack Coughlin

  Ebara flung the disgusting magazine into the trash. It was a lie. The harlot was not in any holiday resort in the Caribbean with her infidel boyfriend. Right now, she was cooped up in one of Ebara’s barren jail cells, alone and wearing nothing but a dingy gray scoop-neck prison shift that buttoned along the back.

  I N ADDITION TO BEING a celebrity, Stephanie Haddad was also a Muslim and had decided to fulfill a requirement of her religion by making a haj, the pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. She was much too well-known to appear during the proscribed time for the real festival, but she felt safe in making an umrah, an off-season visit that would still be spiritually satisfying. When she was older and no longer in the spotlight, perhaps she could perform the true ritual visit. This time at least she could make the walk seven times around the black cube of the Kaaba and stone the devil.

  Her trip was planned in secret and her publicist announced in Lebanon that she and Barnaby were taking an extended holiday at a villa on a Caribbean island. The photo of Stefi and her boyfriend had been staged on a secluded beach in Spain and leaked to the media. Then, with the color washed from her trademark mane of hair, the makeup removed, and the Victoria’s Secret lingerie left behind, Stefi entered Saudi Arabia under an assumed name. She was covered and pious, a proper young woman traveling with her brother, naïvely believing that her fame could be left behind.

  O NLY TWO HOURS AFTER she crossed the border, Mohammed Abu Ebara knew she was in the country. What better way to demonstrate his authority than by publicly degrading and whipping this particularly insulting harlot who pranced naked before the face of God? Before Stefi even had a chance to leave Jeddah, the gateway to the holy shrines, he struck.

  A political riot was arranged while she was out shopping and Religious Police swept her up to slam her into the dirty cell. Ebara announced the arrest on television and charged the slim singer with public blasphemy. His judges came to a quick decision, because the defendant was not entitled to an attorney, a jury, or even allowed to hear the evidence against her. There would be no embassy contacts, no telephone calls, not even a prior notification to the Shura Council, which might oppose his intentions.

  The three judges sentenced her to fifty lashes with the cane. Ebara balked: not enough! A thousand lashes, he demanded, and the cowed jurists, fearful of making a powerful enemy and perhaps ending up in jail themselves, agreed.

  A BOUT NOON THE FOLLOWING day, two female guards entered her cell, clamped handcuffs on her wrists and took her out. She thought for a moment that she was being released, but found herself being hoisted into a dank, covered truck that contained four male Religious Police guards who leered at her as she sat on a side bench. A wooden chair also was in the truck.

  At the downtown marketplace in which she had been arrested, she was still handcuffed in the truck, while Ebara’s men spread the word that a special event was about to occur in the square. Foreigners and journalists were particularly encouraged to attend. A crowd gathered, thinking that there might be a brutal beheading and there were some noises of disappointment when the chair from the truck was placed in the middle of the open area: just a flogging.

  Stefi began to lose some fear as she waited, replacing it with a growing sense of defiance. I’m Stephanie Haddad! They can’t get away with this! She would offer bribes, or ransom, or whatever it was called down here.

  E BARA WAS SATISFIED AT the way the event was unfolding. Like the rebellion, it was another public demonstration of his soaring power. Straying Muslims around the world would quake, then rally to his cause.

  Ebara had postponed the flogging until Dieter Nesch and the terrorist Juba arrived, so he could judge their reactions when he meted out this remarkable punishment. They also needed to understand his determination and strength to do whatever was necessary as a true leader. Guards shoved aside the crowd to make room for the two special visitors. Nesch, the short, pudgy banker, was in a buttoned suit. Juba was casual in a dark shirt and gray slacks, his face shaded by a wide-brimmed straw hat that disguised the eye patch. Neither seemed particularly interested. Ebara intended to change that attitude of indifference by showing them sharia law at work!

  “Bring her,” he told the guards. He gave the long and flexible bamboo cane a good shake. The tip swished back and forth through the air, like the pendulum of an evil clock.

  Despite her increased resolve, a tear rolled down Stefi’s cheek when the guards came. They laughed and said they were not interested in a bribe from a whore.

  The guards took her out of the truck and into the bright sunlight to parade her slowly around the edge of the crowd. Gasps of recognition trailed them. That looks like Stefi! It is her! Men began to jeer and spit, and women could not stop staring. Word spread rapidly and the crowd started to build. Stefi was to be flogged! The television crews could not believe their good fortune.

  Ebara adjusted the sleeve of his robe and brushed back the edge of his red kaffiyeh while the guards made the little whore ready. The shift covering her backside was unbuttoned to the waist and she was thrust forward hard across the chair, with her buttocks and thighs and those famous legs totally exposed. The crowd of men cheered as the guards clamped tightly onto her wrists to hold her in place.

  “Please! Don’t do this! Please!” Stefi screamed, twisting her partially nude body in fear. The cameras would prove to the world that Mohammed Abu Ebara was unafraid to carry out his divine duty. By beating this guilty woman, he would give pause to anyone who opposed him during these troubled times. They, too, might face his stern vengeance.

  Ebara walked around his victim, loudly reciting surahs from the Koran to endorse the punishment, while swishing the long bamboo cane aloft. Cheers from the gawkers increased. Only the initial fifty lashes would come today, and he would personally administer the first five. Then the girl would be sent back to her cell to recover. When she was healthy again, fifty more lashes would be administered. It would take a very long time to reach a thousand and this devil child would never perform her debauchery again.

  The sacred female parts that he would now desecrate in the name of Allah were exposed. Ebara brought the cane high overhead and crashed it down with all his might across her thighs, bringing a loud, piercing scream from the young woman as the pain ripped through her. The scream and the new scar on her naked flesh infused Ebara with a strange, personal, sexual excitement, and he laid the next stroke on even harder, but with great care, crossing it over the first. Then he furiously flailed away to finish his few lashes. Long red welts and trails of blood oozed from ruptured flesh as his reward. The scars would last a lifetime.

  He handed the cane to the big guard who would conclude the day’s punishment. As he turned away, his gaze moved to the two Europeans. The crowd was berserk in excitement, but the banker was looking down, working his BlackBerry, a strange hand-held electronic device, with rapt attention. Juba, with his arms crossed, yawned.

  E BARA MET THEM IN a cool room in a nearby mosque, beads of sweat still dappling his shaggy hair and beard but the hard dark eyes reflecting a sense of triumph. They remained silent while a servant brought a tray of tea, figs, and goat cheese, then withdrew to leave the three alone.

  Juba had removed his hat. He took a sip of tea and then checked the large watch on his wrist before staring with his single eye at the renegade Saudi cleric. “Exactly four minutes ago, a series of explosive devices began blowing up in Dammam, an important city and the center of commerce in the entire Eastern Province. As you know, Dammam is right on the Persian Gulf and is an important oil, gas, and transportation center. Only an hour’s drive on the causeway out of Dammam, and you can be in Bahrain, so the detonations will indicate to everyone that this rebellion in Saudi Arabia is threatening to spill over to other countries.”

  Ebara tried to interrupt, but Juba held up his palm, flat, to stop any response. He coolly continued, “That attack was part of my overall plan, a very careful scheme that has been two years in the making. Now that plan migh
t not work, because I am not directly controlling it from my headquarters. You, Mohammed Abu Ebara, are not the only important person involved in this, but you are the only one who is screwing it up.”

  Ebara was watching Juba as a predator wolf stares down a lamb. Who was this infidel to speak to him in such an insulting manner? The guards were right outside and he could have Juba arrested and taken to prison and executed in private. A seething anger was building inside him, but he kept his voice soft. “We now have nuclear weapons that must be considered.”

  Then Dieter Nesch spoke for the first time, in a normal tone, telling Ebara, “Our sponsor is nervous about this disruption of the schedule and is concerned that you have taken your eyes from the goal of toppling the monarchy,” he said. Nesch held up both his cell phone and BlackBerry for the cleric to see. “I sent a message and pictures of your performance today to the Russian. He is not happy, not at all. He instructed me to say that if you are this unsteady and confuse what is really important with a minor situation, perhaps you may not be the man for the massive task that lies ahead.”

  That jolted Ebara. The only sign to betray his sudden nervousness was a quickened bobbing of the Adam’s apple in his gaunt neck.

  Juba said, “You ordered me to drop everything and come here to meet with you personally! So I had to put many attacks on hold, because the fighters will remain idle until they receive my personal authorization codes to carry out their assignments. Since I am not there to issue those orders, the attacks will not happen. So I am here in your presence, as you wished, but I hope that you understand that by choosing to emphasize the nuclear weapons, you may have stopped the revolution in its tracks. Not the royal family, not the army…you!”

  Mohammed Abu Ebara would not tolerate being spoken to in such an insulting manner, but Juba leapt to his feet, flushed with fury. “I flew halfway around the globe to see about these nukes, weapons that could instigate a holocaust, only to be kept waiting in the sun while you whipped a helpless child! Your priorities are strange, preacher. The whipping was stupid, totally unneeded, a work of lust by a perverted old preacher who has probably never fucked a willing woman. We are trying to win over Muslim support in other countries and you decide to publicly humiliate and flog the most famous pop music star in the Arab world. Your actions today will cost us the support of an untold number of young people. Maybe millions.”

  Ebara shot a glance back, but did nothing. His confidence was cracking under Juba’s onslaught. This man had once been the deadly tool of some of the greatest men of the age, including Osama bin Laden. There was no pity, generosity, or politeness about him. Nothing there at all but a pure killer. The banker was equally uninterested in Muslim protocol. Neither offered him a dram of respect. Ebara felt a jab of fear. “The girl is a disease and must be eradicated,” he said, feeling that he must say something in his own defense. “We must teach women to stay in their place.”

  “You will release her immediately,” Dieter Nesch said quietly, grimly resting his pale blue eyes on Ebara. “That is not a suggestion, Haj Mohammed. You will appear gracious by suspending the rest of the sentence and kicking her out of the country. The damage this has done to our cause has been incredible and now your personal show of brutality will be spread all over the Internet. You will appear as a madman and a fool to the rest of the world. I cannot believe you were so stupid.”

  Ebara stared back. “I could kill you both for talking to me like that.”

  “No. You couldn’t,” Juba snarled. “Try. I will snap your neck right now and we will get some other stooge to finish this rebellion.”

  Nesch sucked in some breath, making a tut-tut sound. “Now, I know I will sound like a banker, but can we please complete our real business? I must send a report.”

  “Yeah. Let’s do that.” Juba said, putting his hands on his hips and leaning forward toward Ebara. He screamed, “WHERE ARE MY FUCKING NUCLEAR MISSILES?”

  37

  AL’S GARAGE, SAUDI ARABIA

  E VEN WITH HIS DARK sunglasses and the tinted windows of the Land Rover, Kyle could barely look into the morning sun, which was still a dull orange balloon rising over the amazingly flat airfield. A dot coming out of the glare grew larger, a plane that was headed straight into the base.

  “Here we go,” said Prince Colonel Mishaal bin Khalid, son of the minister of defense and a nephew of the king. He opened the door and hot air poured into the SUV to immediately overwhelm the air conditioner. His hustling, no nonsense aide, Captain Omar al-Muallami, followed his boss.

  Swanson winced as he stepped into the early morning heat. It was going to be one of those searing days with a steady wind blowing sand that streaked like gritty, little bullets across the open miles of the Prince Sultan Air Base, about sixty miles south of Riyadh. Mirages were already shimmering off the tarmac. Everyone wanted to get this over with as soon as possible, before the place began to bake. The temperature was already knocking near a hundred degrees.

  The huge military installation had risen from nothing during the Iraqi wars, with millions and millions of American and Saudi dollars creating something from nothing not far from the town of al-Kharj. The thousands of American troops who had been stationed there or transited through called it “Al’s Garage.” The U.S. troops were satisfied in 2003 to turn it back over to the Saudis, the camel spiders, and the carpet snakes.

  Most American military personnel left, but a training cadre and several hundred private U.S. civilian contractors remained behind to help the Saudis keep things running. Kyle, wearing his old jeans, a loose blue shirt, and a tan web vest with lots of pockets, looked like one of those ubiquitous, faceless American civilians. The floppy shirt easily covered the Marine Special Ops.45 ACP pistol that rested in a holster on his belt.

  The dot in the sky was bigger now, riding down on four huge engines in a smooth landing approach.

  “Prepare the loading area,” Mishaal bin Khalid told his aide, and Captain al-Muallami snapped the order with authority. A company of forty armed troops fanned out in a wide cordon around a parking area at the end of a fifteen-thousand-foot-long runway. Humvees mounted with machine guns roamed beyond the soldiers. No one was around who was not supposed to be there.

  Swanson stood beside the APC that contained the tactical nuclear warhead. He reached out and patted the steel armor, making sure that the heavy vehicle had not somehow disappeared. This was the first warhead to be officially transferred from Saudi to American custody.

  He was the point man for the U.S. transfer team. Prince Mishaal, who might one day become a senior prince in the royal family, was his counterpart. The king had personally paired them up to maximize authority and expedite the process.

  Mishaal roamed the protective cordon like a stalking panther. He was six feet tall, a weightlifter whose sculpted body was a strong 200 pounds. Whether in uniform or in white robes, he possessed the natural command presence of someone born to lead. At thirty-five years of age, the prince was a handsome man with sharply planed cheeks and a strong chin that was covered with a perfect goatee.

  Right behind him was his stern aide, whose busy eyes and agile brain tried to anticipate everything. Mishaal personally examined each soldier in turn, not necessarily trusting any of them. The assassinations had thrown a net of suspicion over everyone in the military services and Captain al-Muallami had combed the dossiers to select the guards prior to the prince authorizing their presence at the site.

  Nevertheless, Kyle would not be content until the security platoon of U.S. Marines aboard the incoming plane was on the ground to “assist” in the final stage of the handover. Trained and trusted guns would extract the worry from the process.

  A C-130-J H ERCULES, THE most reliable transport warhorse in the U.S. airlift stable, touched down and its big tires and the blast from the six-bladed props on the four Rolls Royce engines churned a hurricane of dust in its wake. It slowed and turned onto a taxiway, then followed a Humvee into the circle of waiting Saudi troops.

/>   The big ramp lowered in back and the Marines poured out to form a tight inner position within the Saudi cordon. A tall, black officer strolled confidently down the ramp and walked to Prince Mishaal. He saluted and the Saudi colonel returned it.

  “Colonel, I am Major David Lassiter from the Marine Expeditionary Unit, Special Operations Force, and I am ready to receive the item as stated on this manifest.” He presented a clipboard containing several sheets of authorization papers.

  “Very well, major. Ordinarily, I would offer our traditional hospitality to you and your men. Due to the urgency of the situation, I feel it would be best to forego that.”

  “Yes, sir. I agree. Perhaps next time,” Lassiter said. “Gunny Swanson, it’s good to see you again. Perhaps you would like to check the hold of the Hercules while the colonel and I finish the paperwork.”

  “Aye, aye, sir. Good idea. I want a word with the loadmaster.” Kyle walked away from the two officers, through the Marine cordon, and up the ramp. Darren Rawls was playing a major today, for the show was all Trident.

  The cavernous cargo hold was big enough to carry an armored vehicle or even a helicopter with blades folded. The Herc could shuttle thousands of pounds over hundreds of miles and it had been fitted out specifically for this mission, to receive the APC waiting on the tarmac. Kyle waved to the loadmaster, who had brought along two assistants, and moved toward the darkened front of the plane. The lights had been turned off. Someone waited in the shadows.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” replied Sybelle Summers. With her black hair, and wearing black jeans and a black sweater, she was almost invisible. “You know what pisses me off?”

  “Far as I know, just about everything. What?”

  “This friggin’ country! Here I am helping to save them from catastrophe and I can’t set foot outside of this damned plane for fear of upsetting their frail little sensibilities. Rawls has to pretend to be a major while I, the real deal, have to stand around doing nothing. Whole nation of men traumatized by tits and ass.”