Ghost Target

by Nicholas Irving

  “The b-birds.”

  For a moment, the words didn’t register with Basayev. The night was utterly silent save for the owls’ nefarious melody.

  He turned toward Abrek and looked at the injured soldier.

  “Yes,” Basayev said. “What about the birds?”

  Abrek opened his eyes and directed them at the voice.

  “Do they m-mean I’m alive?”

  Basayev had a week to think about this moment. If the soldier was going to wake, how would he approach him? What would he say? After several permutations, he had developed a plan.

  “Yes. I saved you, Abrek.”

  “Abrek,” the man said, as if trying on a new shoe.

  Basayev paused, allowing the name to soak into his wounded brain.

  “I-Is that my name?”

  “It is now, my friend.”

  “A-Abrek.”

  A long moment of silence endured, interrupted only by the fluttering of wings and the gnashing of talons and flesh.

  “Y-You’re my friend?”

  “The only friend you have, Abrek.”

  “I d-don’t remember,” the soldier said.

  “You were wounded. The Americans left you behind,” Basayev said. This was the tricky part. He had cut away and burned the man’s uniform the night he had returned to the compound. Abrek was now dressed in traditional mujahedin tactical garments of black pants and shirt with an empty outer tactical vest.

  “Left me?”

  “You were part of a kidnap team that was ambushed.”

  “K-Kidnap team?”

  “Yes. Your teammate left you behind. Saved himself. I came to your rescue.”

  Abrek lifted his head and stared at the blanket covering him. Basayev moved swiftly to his side.

  “Careful, brother. You were wounded badly.”

  Abrek’s eyes searched Basayev’s, looking for recognition. Basayev held the gaze, imprinting his face into Abrek’s memory, like creating a permanent photo to be kept on the hard drive or in the cloud. Always there. The first one there. The most enduring.

  He brought water and soup to the soldier, who drank and ate sloppily at first, but with Basayev’s help, managed to get most of the fluids into his system.

  “B-Brother,” Abrek said.

  Eyes locked again. Soup clung to the newly forming strands of beard on the soldier’s face. Basayev held Abrek’s eyes until the man looked away.

  “We’re brothers?” the soldier asked.

  “Like brothers. Brothers in combat,” Basayev said. “You were wounded badly by Americans.” Basayev lifted Abrek’s hand and placed it against his shaved scalp. “Go lightly. The wound is fresh.” Abrek’s hand recoiled at the touch of the stitches.

  After another long silence, the soldier asked, “Where?”

  This was another tricky juncture for Basayev. Did he go with Afghanistan or some other location? Deciding it might be too risky to try to make him associate with another country, Basayev determined that he would tell him the truth.

  “Kandahar. We are in a safe house.”

  “Safe house.”

  “It is dangerous. The Americans are looking for you. They know you kidnapped the women.”

  Silence.

  “Women?”

  “Yes.” Basayev let the soldier’s mind churn. Abrek’s face was pinched in frustration.

  Then finally: “Women in trucks.”

  It was a statement, not a question. A moment of recognition.

  “Yes. Women in trucks.” Basayev paused. Where would his captive’s mind go next?

  “Burqas,” Abrek said.

  “Yes. Afghan women in burqas. You were part of the team.”

  His captive nodded. Watery eyes locked on to his gaze.

  “Brothers?”

  Basayev was interested in the speech pattern. Sometimes there was a stutter and other times there wasn’t. He wondered if that meant anything. Perhaps the doctor could tell him.

  “Yes. Brothers in war. I saved you. The Americans wounded you.” The repetition would build the memory, like a foundation.

  “Yes. Rockets. B-Bombs.”

  “I got to you as soon as I could. Then brought you here to a doctor.” He segued quickly from the attack to something far more personal to test the man’s memory. “Do you know what your name means?”

  “Means?” he asked as if he wasn’t sure. “You told me my name is Abrek.”

  “Yes. Abrek means brave warrior.”

  The man nodded slightly, whispering, “Warrior. Abrek. Wounded.”

  “Yes, and you’re tired now, Abrek. You must rest. I’m taking care of you. The Americans left you.”

  “Left me? Why? Who? N-Not right?”

  Abrek’s temperament had reached the right pitch. “Yes. Not right. Please rest, brother. Warrior.”

  “Yes. Tired.” After a pause, his captive said, “Thank you, brother.”

  Basayev pulled the blanket tight around Abrek and walked to the window. The owls were quiet, their kill bagged for the night.

  He turned and walked to the television. After a few minutes, CNN International showed an attractive young blond woman pushing a black man in a wheelchair. Cameras flashed and reporters were shouting questions. The woman was wearing a red, white, and blue jacket with five interlocking rings. The Olympic symbol. Basayev unmuted the sound and listened, keeping the volume low so as to not disturb Abrek … or spark an unwanted memory. A male reporter wearing a dark suit spoke into a camera.

  “… Olympic gold medalist Jackie Colt escorts wounded Army Ranger sniper Sergeant Vick Harwood at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington, D.C.… Harwood is the cover story in the current issue of Rolling Stone. They call him ‘The Reaper.’ One sharpshooter taking care of another. An Olympic champion and a combat hero. A story made for Hollywood…”

  The image switched from the reporter to a cover of Rolling Stone magazine with a picture of Harwood below the title “The Reaper.” Quickly, the picture faded to a television commercial. Basayev stared at the screen and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The same woman who was pushing the wheelchair was now running in her Olympic outfit and sweating as she gulped down a red-colored sports drink. She smiled and held up her gold medal as the commercial ended.

  He lifted the smartphone. Still nothing on Instagram. He walked to the window and stared at the distant rectangle of Nazim Ghul’s water-bottling plant. Then he turned around and watched his prisoner sleep and continue to heal. His eyes flicked to the damaged weapon in the corner. Then he thought of the high altitude jump in 2010. Indeed, I do have something to trade.

  Basayev smiled. He called Dr. Nijrabi for one more favor. He would be ready when he got the message.

  CHAPTER 4

  Three months after Vick Harwood had been evacuated from a rock pile in Afghanistan, he stretched outside of the enlisted visitors’ quarters at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. His medical journey had taken him from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, in Washington, D.C., to Brooke Army Medical Center, in San Antonio, Texas. The last phase of his rehab included reintegration into the force as a trainer of snipers and today had been a full day.

  He chugged a sports drink that Jackie Colt was now sponsoring. She had given him two cases of the stuff. He felt the sweat bead on his arms in the North Carolina humidity. Wearing formfitting Under Amour activewear and Nike running shoes, he worked the tightness out of the shrapnel scars from the mortar attack that had left him unconscious and wounded. He didn’t remember much from that day and was still struggling with bouts of memory loss on a routine basis.

  Two things had stuck with him, though, ever since he’d woken up. First, the army had listed his spotter, Samuelson, as DUSTWUN, army abbreviation for “duty status—whereabouts unknown.” Samuelson could be a prisoner in a Taliban dungeon somewhere in Pakistan or dead and buried in a forgotten grave. Second, his platoon sergeant had told him that the search-and-rescue team reported finding no sniper rifle at his loc
ation. The only weapon they recovered was the nine-millimeter Beretta Harwood he’d carried on his hip. Apparently that had remained in place beneath the rubble. The crew chief from the SAR team had admitted their search was cut short by the intense enemy fire they received while conducting the evacuation.

  Lindsay was missing.

  Harwood finished lengthening his ropy muscles, working out the kinks. At six feet two inches, he was broad and well-muscled. A self-professed gym rat, Harwood had hit the weights even harder after his injuries. Shrapnel to the back and face were the most severe, the ghillie suit having saved him from further harm. The doctors had told him the fall had been just as damaging as any shrapnel that had hit him. His broken left arm had healed nicely, and the torn rotator cuff on his right shoulder still bit at him every time he did a pull-up, but he still did pull-ups every day. He was powering through the injuries and using his skills to train U.S. military special forces and scout snipers around the country.

  On his fifth and final night here at Fort Bragg in August, he was already sweating as he stood and shouldered his rucksack. Harwood always ran with a black rucksack full of fluids, meds, and other things he probably shouldn’t have carried. But he’d taken mortar rounds for his country and he wasn’t exactly in the mood to be complying with all the rules. There were viable targets on the home front that necessitated taking every precaution.

  Stepping into his pace, he followed his usual route along the golf course, through the officer housing, past the headquarters, through the generals’ brand-new mansions, and to the sawdust pit that had pull-up, dip, sit-up, rope, and Pilates platforms. Passing an attractive female soldier running in the opposite direction, Harwood nodded at her with respect at the size of her rucksack and she returned the gesture as she continued her gait. Harwood stopped, off-loaded his rucksack, and turned when he saw General Sampson, the commander of the JFK Special Warfare Center, pull into his driveway about a quarter mile away.

  “Son of a bitch,” Harwood muttered. Sampson was a sanctimonious asshole. Harwood didn’t know or care much about generals, but this one had dressed him down on his first day of training the special operations snipers. Harwood jumped up and started knocking out pull-ups, his injuries screaming at him the entire time.

  Sampson. His mind rewound back to five days ago when he had reported for duty to begin training the snipers in the special forces school.

  “No charity here, Harwood,” Sampson had said.

  “Don’t expect any, sir.” Harwood’s “sir” had been a tad late, like a missed musical note. The general picked up on it right away.

  “Got a problem with authority, soldier?”

  No, just pricks like you, he wanted to say, but went with the safer “No, sir.” The “sir” had been tightly connected to the “no” this time.

  “I got guys that can outshoot you, Harwood. I understand the army is trying to rehab you, but this ain’t the time or the place for the disabled list. This is major-league ball here, son. And none of that Reaper bullshit around here, understand?”

  The general verbally railed him for about fifteen minutes as Harwood stood at attention, his shoulders, arms, and neck tightening into one metal knot. When the general dismissed him, Harwood uncoiled from his position of attention, stumbled as his muscles refused to lengthen, the scar tissue fighting every move he tried to make. Then he heard the general mutter, “Reaper, my ass,” as he stepped into the large anteroom that housed an executive assistant, an aide-de-camp, an enlisted aide, and a host of other soldiers. How many people did it take to manage a general? he wondered.

  Like most times he went deep into a memory, his mind spiraled. Dizzy. Other memories crept in, took over. Emotions flared from the dormant images that flashed in his brain. He jumped down from the pull-up bars, breathing hard, panting practically, and leaned over, hands on his knees.

  His eyes moved to his rucksack, his mind spinning. Spiraling down the hole, he felt himself slipping into the abyss. Was it the exercise? He didn’t think so. Was it seeing General Sampson? Maybe. He never knew what the catalyst might be, but it was there … and the spiral was hard to stop once it started.

  Harwood had talked to his therapist about these episodes, but she didn’t seem to understand.

  “Your mind spirals and you think about what?” she would ask.

  Frustrated, Harwood would say, “I can’t think about anything!” But that was a lie, he knew. He thought about the Chechen and how that foe had beaten him. Harwood wasn’t a prideful man—he was humble almost to a fault—but losing to the Chechen had done something to him. Changed him. Altered his wiring. He’d lost in an epic match on the world stage for all to see.

  The Chechen. His nemesis. Harwood’s fight-or-flight instinct amped up as if he were a kid playing a video game for four hours. He was spiking.

  The damn Chechen.

  Harwood needed to forget the Chechen, but how could he? Did he have alternatives? Could he prove himself again? He was certain that General Sampson had ridiculed him precisely because he had lost the duel with the Chechen.

  Rangers never quit. They never lose, either.

  What could he do? he wondered. The spiral was taking him deep into his darkest fears and emotions, some of which he had no idea he harbored. Nefarious ones. Murderous. Maybe even a death wish, common among PTSD survivors.

  The Chechen. The spiral. They were one and the same.

  He stood, leaned against the dip bars. Had he done any dips? Feeling the ache of the rotator cuff, Harwood watched Sampson.

  Then his eyes flitted back to his rucksack. Then back to the general.

  Light-headed, Harwood swooned, as if he were in a faint, but not completely out of it. He struggled to regain his balance as he knelt in the sawdust pit.

  * * *

  The sniper watched General Sampson through the scope of a sniper rifle from a wooded area that the soldiers at Fort Bragg used for infantry training and testing.

  The expert sniper had scouted this spot on the first night after securing the rifle. The rifle was key to everything. There it had been, exactly where it was supposed to be. Every day for the past five days, the sniper made some microadjustments to the lair, but was satisfied that this was the best location for the mission. Not only did the infantry train here, but there was a small workout facility about twenty meters away. It was the perfect place for fifteen minutes of climbing ropes, doing push-ups on incline benches, using the pull-up bar, and finishing off with some dips.

  The trick for the sniper was the timing.

  The sniper moved the sight of the rifle scope to General Sampson’s driveway. The sun was setting and the patterns of life were those of an army base settling in for the night. Parents tucking kids in, soldiers cleaning their gear, and a few doing physical training here and there, but mostly there, because the sniper had found the perfect spot.

  General Sampson was sitting in the seat of his brand-new 2018 dark green Mercedes-Benz in the driveway. It was a warm August night, and the general had chosen to drive with the top down. He appeared to be texting. The general’s head was down and his hands were working a small device, probably a smartphone. Sampson was either issuing orders or locking down a hookup with his girlfriend before he went inside to kiss the wife.

  The car was about four hundred meters away. Easy shot.

  The sniper lined up the crosshairs on the back of the general’s head, saw the white hair full in the scope, and began to pull back on the trigger, no lateral drift, just perfectly smooth pressure against the spring. While this rifle was beat-up and damaged, the sniper had done everything necessary to make it fully operational again. Multiple test fires had proven that the weapon had been restored to its full operational splendor.

  The general continued to look down, his arms moving with the rhythm of his texting, but importantly to the sniper, his head was a perfectly still oval situated dead between the crosshairs.

  Under the pressure of the sniper’s finger the trigger gave way and a
slight cough erupted from the weapon. In the scope, the sniper watched the general’s head explode onto the front windshield of his car. In the periphery, there remained a stillness in the small copse of trees. It didn’t appear that anyone had heard the barely audible whisper of the weapon, but it wouldn’t be long before General Sampson’s wife or one of his aides-de-camp would find the general’s brain matter on the windshield.

  Time to get moving!

  The sniper gave it two minutes, eyed the ejected casing, let it lay where it had landed, broke down the weapon, slid it quietly into the rucksack, and low-crawled, then stood, then walked, then ran into the night.

  * * *

  Harwood was running again, resurfacing from a memory blackout as bad as anything he’d ever had. He was a swimmer augering as fast as he could for the surface. Couldn’t breathe, but trying to suck in fresh air. The humidity was thick, and he coughed as he ran along a dark, unlit path ten yards off the main road.

  Military police cars raced toward him from all directions. Passing him, they headed toward the beautiful brick Georgian mansions in which the Fort Bragg generals lived. Blue lights bounced off everything: the pine trees to his right, the golf course to his left, the random warehouses and headquarters buildings. A military police car set up a cordon in front of him near an iconic statue of a paratrooper. He jumped up on the sidewalk and continued his run, oblivious of what had transpired.

  Vick Harwood was a survivor. But he was also suffering from traumatic brain injury, known as TBI. The mortars that bombarded his hide position had caused an avalanche of rocks to nearly crush him, including his unprotected head. As a sniper, he rarely wore his helmet when shooting.