Ghost Target

by Nicholas Irving

  “Too late,” he said. “You shoot. I shoot. We both die.”

  “How did you find me?” she asked.

  “Hey, boo, I was sort of expecting, ‘So good to see you, bae.’ But I guess I can’t have everything.”

  She lowered the pistol.

  “It is good to see you, Vick. I’m just in the middle of something here.”

  “Who you killing with my rifle this time?”

  She was silent for a long time, maybe minutes that seemed to stretch into hours but were probably only seconds. The emotional connection he had felt with her surged back like a freight train. His heart raced. Palms sweated.

  “It’s not what you think,” she said.

  “Pretty lame. It’s exactly what I think. I’m sorry about Richard,” he said.

  “You don’t know … everything.” Jackie flushed.

  “I knew enough to find you here. And I know that you’re working with Nina Moreau, who is probably the one who keeps sending you instant messages wondering where I am.” On the screen behind her, a new dialogue bubble appeared with the question, Where is the Reaper?

  Then: I’m set. They appeared to be using the same Wickr app that Jackie had recommended for their own communication. The messages disappeared moments after being sent or received.

  “Then tell me … everything,” Harwood said.

  Jackie paused, turned toward the screen, placed her weapon on the bench seat, and typed, Stand by.

  She turned and leveled her blue eyes on him. The freckles were prominent in the mellow lighting of the boat. Her blond hair fell across her shoulders in a silky sheen. She was wearing athletic clothing similar to what he had seen her in every time they had been together for the last week.

  “If I tell you, it makes you complicit and I do love you, Vick. I don’t want that for you,” she said.

  “Everybody already thinks I’m complicit. Hell, it’s my rifle. How could you do this to me? To them?” he said.

  “To who? The drug-dealing generals and the sexual predators on the Lolita Express?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Milk ’Em has been dealing ghost girls. They’re bringing young Afghan and Iraqi girls—fourteen to seventeen years old—to the United States on their classified milk runs into Hunter Army Airfield. They kidnap them and stash them in caskets for days and then set them up in what they call ‘safe houses.’ They’re also peddling straight opium, the actual resin that comes from the poppy, to dealers who are paying premium prices. We’re talking sex-slave trafficking, drug distribution, and blackmail, at a minimum.”

  Ghost girls. Like the ghost prisoners taken early in the war. Either parents were too scared to report the kidnappings to the authorities or Xanadu killed them as part of the process. Collateral damage. He thought of his foster sister Lindsay and his inability to save her. In their own way, Harwood, Lindsay, and the other foster kids were ghosts themselves, wafting through the system, often disappearing with no account.

  “So, just take it into your hands? Vigilante justice? Frame me for everything? I’ve been on the run for the past two days. Shot at, mugged, nearly killed.”

  Jackie dropped her head. “I’m sorry, Vick. I didn’t know at first. I tried to warn you. I’m … conflicted on this.”

  “No, you didn’t warn me. You put shit in my sports drink that made me go dizzy.”

  Again, she averted her eyes. “I found out after the fact that Nina had done that. Her husband had some bottles made in Afghanistan with the date-rape drug. I was livid. It wasn’t me. I swear.”

  “You’re spotting for her on a target right now. You telling me you have nothing to do with that?” Harwood’s neck muscles tensed. His carotid arteries pulsed hard. His heart pumped against his chest.

  “I’m involved in this, Nick. But I never meant for you to be.”

  He said nothing. Tacked on a corkboard behind the monitor was a piece of standard-size printer paper. At the top of the document were the words “Kill Sheet.”

  Some names were crossed out, some not.

  General Sampson, General Dillman, Officer Tommy Blakely, Officer Ken Strong, Senator Kraft—all had their names lined out. Two names were written in ink, Blake and Wercinski, possibly the guards. General Bishop, General Markham, two congressmen and a few names Harwood didn’t recognize were still among the living.

  “Bishop?”

  Jackie nodded. “Tonight. He’s speaking to troops at Hunter Army Airfield and then to the law school in downtown Savannah.”

  “She’s in Forsyth Park. What’s your feed? Drone?”

  “Yes. We have a butterfly drone that pipes back over Ku-band satellite.”

  “Why Bishop?”

  “His son gave Richard the opium. Melted it in the spoon for him. And General Bishop covered it up with the local police. Kid should be doing twenty to life, but Bishop’s in with the local Columbus police.”

  Jackie was being honest and straightforward. She had nowhere and no reason to hide from him.

  “The congressmen?”

  “Markham has a plane and they take ‘flights’ with these teenagers they’ve brought back from Afghanistan and Iraq. They call it the Lolita Express. There are private bedrooms. It’s a large Boeing jet, like a triple seven. It sits over there on the runway at Hunter and when it’s not going back and forth between Colorado and Georgia, they retrofit it with the Lolita package, as they call it, and invite CEOs and congressmen down for some fun. There’s others, but we’re only killing those we can confirm.”

  “Let me guess. Markham videos them and he blackmails them into giving him contracts or voting for his weapons or whatever,” Harwood said.

  Jackie said nothing for a moment. She looked at the list. Then she stared at the screen. It was obvious to Harwood she was thinking about neither of those things. She looked toward the stern and then the bow of the boat. Tears streamed out of her eyes. Uncontrollably. She used the backs of her hands to brush them away. Like windshield wipers. But they were rivers coursing down her face. She was steady, though, like the shooter she was. No heaving of her body. Controlled. The moment passed and she turned toward Harwood.

  “You’re back, aren’t you? Fully back. No memory issues.”

  “Maybe not fully, but I’m back. I’m able to do simple math, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I’m sorry. You know how sometimes you get carried away with your emotions and you have one single goal and that’s all you can think of? Like you with this Chechen guy, maybe? Well that’s how I was—no, I am—with Richard. These people have to pay,” Jackie said.

  “You’re committing murder on U.S. soil, Jackie. It’s vigilante justice. I don’t disagree they should pay. But you shouldn’t have to suffer any more than you already have. You’re an Olympic champion with the whole world ahead of you.”

  “Killing Markham will be the hardest. He’s holed up in his Tybee Island pleasure palace. I won’t survive that I don’t think. Markham is in charge of the entire operation. He’s got a group he calls CLEVER. Something about CEOs helping veterans. It’s all bullshit, though. It’s a good-old-boys club where they do some drugs, bang some underage kids, and then go hunting or fishing. Disgusting.”

  She talked as if Harwood were already part of the plan. Even as if he had been all along. As if there were no question that he would go along. They both turned their heads toward the monitor when a whispering voice said, “Here he comes. Where’s the Reaper?”

  “He’s with me. You’re cleared hot. Fire.”

  Jackie’s voice was as calm as he knew her shooting composure to be. He’s with me. Harwood watched the screen. Some type of hover drone was providing real-time video streaming. The picture was black-and-white, but clear, not grainy as in many of the older video feeds showing bomb attacks. This was new technology. Nina Moreau was dressed in black. She was perched in a tree observing the Savannah Law School building. The drone was behind Moreau, showing her body, the rifle—his rifle—the park, som
e more trees, and then the steps to the law school. There were two opposing sets of curved stairways that hugged the exterior wall of the building and led to a landing fronted with columns. Moreau’s shot would either be frontal as Bishop crested the far stairway or rear, as he came from the less likely near stairway. Either way, it must have been the only clear shot at the front door of the school from the opposite side of the park.

  “We worked the angles using three-D imagery to find sight lines. This was the best spot. Get him on either set of stairs. There was one other but it was too close,” Jackie said. She spoke as if he were part of the team. Professional. An operations officer providing a situation report, clarifying an issue for a comrade.

  The screen showed two black SUVs pulling up to the curb. One was a chase car and the other carried the principal, General Bishop. They were moving toward Moreau on the one-way street.

  First out of the SUVs were military police bodyguards who took up posts at the four quadrants within a ten-meter radius of the planned exit door of General Bishop. They were professionals scanning in every direction, but they would do no good against Harwood’s weapon if Moreau could shoot. There was a clear field of fire all the way up to the platform. As Bishop ascended the steps, he would be in the sight picture.

  Next, two more bodyguards exited Bishop’s SUV and took up post on the far side of the road, in the park. They were scanning the park. Six military personnel providing security and they were all useless, Harwood thought. Just down the street, either Jackie or Nina Moreau had shot and killed General Dillman two days ago. Naturally, that explained the tightened security, but where was the creativity? he wondered. No drones. No advance security that he could notice. No head fake to the front door and then enter through the back door. Like Pickett’s charge, a brutally stupid advance up the front steps, albeit the far stairway, of the law school where the general had a publicly announced speech to make at 8 P.M. He had three minutes to be inside and in front of the podium if he wanted to keep the military reputation for time discipline and management.

  The right rear door opened on the second SUV. That was the traditional seat where the commander sat, Harwood thought, shaking his head.

  “Still clear?” Moreau asked.

  Jackie looked at Harwood with questioning eyes as if to ask, “Are you in?”

  Harwood said nothing. He thought of Lindsay and the man in the barn who wound up with a pitchfork in his neck. How was this any different? Should he give Jackie her due? She might have picked up on an imperceptible nod, because Jackie turned toward the screen and said, “Cleared hot.”

  Bishop stepped out of the vehicle, and the two nearest guards collapsed on him shoulder-to-shoulder, as if they were marching in parade. It was a tight fit, meant to be. The heightened security made it clear that the general knew he was a target, knew he had done wrong, and knew there was a chance he would die tonight.

  As they ascended the far set of steps, two more men collapsed into a diamond wedge around the general. The man in front was tall enough to obscure the general. They were all wearing army blues with the giant saucer hats.

  Jackie remained calm, though her fingers twitched, as if she wished she were pulling the trigger. This was a difficult shot for any sniper. Moreau was DGSE, French CIA. If she had killed any of the others, she had to be a decent shot.

  The general reached the second-to-last of the marble steps. Like the Supreme Court. Pillars stood tall at the front of the landing, but coincident with Moreau’s shot. The guards tightened around the general like legionnaires protecting their commander, which perhaps they were. As they turned toward the front door, the general’s head became marginally visible.

  On the screen, the rifle jumped. Moreau was quickly disassembling the weapon before she even knew what happened. Within seconds she was out of the tree. At the top of the screen, the general’s hat flew against the tall white door of the law school building. A spray of dark liquid briefly appeared; obviously, it was blood. She had shot the general in the head.

  Nina Moreau was more than your average nurse.

  The guards drew weapons and were on top of the general. The drone appeared to fly close to get a better picture, what the military called battle-damage assessment. The monitor showed an apparently dead man on the steps wearing the uniform of a two-star general. The face and features of the man appeared to be General Bishop. Moreau had accomplished her mission.

  Men were on radios, calling for backup and ambulances, most likely. The drone turned around and now followed Nina Moreau several blocks away from the action as she jogged wearing a rucksack in which she had stashed the weapon. She opened the door of an older Honda Civic and began driving.

  Jackie Colt stood and grabbed a ruler and a Sharpie. Leaning over the monitor, she crossed General Bishop’s name off the kill sheet.

  “That feels really, really good,” she said.

  CHAPTER 24

  General Markham stared into the darkness. The moon’s yellow semicircle was a knife cut in the black firmament, the leering smile of a jack-o’-lantern.

  The phone call had not been a good one. General Bishop was shot dead on the steps of the law school. Just as General Sampson had been killed at Fort Bragg. Just as Senator Kraft had been killed in Macon. Just as Dillman had been killed on his front porch. That moron Dillman had taken one of the women home and now the FBI was sniffing around MLQM’s headquarters at Hunter Army Airfield.

  He was feeling the squeeze. Markham clutched the tumbler of Macallan Scotch until his fingers hurt. He had built firewalls around himself and the entire operation. MLQM had plausible deniability. Rationally, he had nothing to worry about. Nothing a good lawyer three years out of law school couldn’t handle. He didn’t want to get rid of the women and had grown accustomed to the occasional opioid high. He had earned this good life. Worked hard for it. Deserved it.

  And now he needed Xanadu to execute like he had never executed before, because the Reaper was on his trail. He believed that. Just as the moon was sneering at him right now, he knew the Reaper was searching for him. Might even be out there in a dive suit with his mask hovering just above the meniscus of the ocean, like a gator lying in wait, eyes unblinking.

  “Tell me you’ve got something,” Markham said. His earpiece had buzzed with Xanadu’s special ring tone.

  “I think so. Been busy setting the trap, but one of Bishop’s guys called me. Old unit buddy. Said he saw someone running north and east. Got in a Honda Civic and drove toward Tybee. Your direction. I’ve got a drone doing license-plate scans outward from your house along the main road. It takes pictures, scans the DMV database, and confirms or denies in a matter of seconds. A lot of road to cover, but wanted to make sure you were safe first.”

  “I’m fine. I need you to find Harwood and kill him.”

  “The description I got of the person running away from the shooting scene didn’t sound like Harwood. Maybe he’s got more than one person helping him. I’ve got the helicopter on standby with a quick-reaction force serving as a snatch team. We see him or whoever is driving the car, we’ll be on them in minutes.”

  “Make it seconds,” Markham ordered. He hung up and continued to stare into the ocean through the floor-to-ceiling bulletproof-glass windows. The dim light behind him cast his reflection in the glass. Was he unassailable on this? He had tapes of corporate CEOs, generals, and the local sheriff having sex with underage girls at one of the safe houses or on the airplane. That ought to count for something, especially with the sheriff.

  Xanadu called again.

  “We got a hit. Helicopter is launching with me on it. Everything else is in place. We’re moving to a warehouse complex on Old Tybee Road. We don’t see the shooter, but we have the car. We’re close. Wherever he’s going has got to be close.”

  “Unless he changed cars,” Markham said.

  “There’s that, but this feels right. There’re some warehouses down there. Lots of restaurants. A marina. And some boats you can charter. Lot
s of options for someone trying to stay flexible.”

  About a minute later, Xanadu said, “Okay, we’re over it and landing in the back of the warehouses. Using the drone to scout the backside. We’re going door-to-door on each warehouse. Wait, they’re not warehouses. They’re storage units now that I’m seeing them firsthand.”

  “Cut the locks,” Markham said. “Each and every one of them. Smoke them out.”

  “We’ve got movement to the north. Stand by,” Xanadu said.

  The spot reports reminded Markham of his air force days. He would sit in the leather chair of his command suite in Central Command Headquarters in Tampa when he was a three-star general. Occasionally he’d listen in on the combat operations. He found it all very pedestrian, but needed the background so he could be conversant during staff meetings. Unlike those tedious times, Markham did not yawn. He was a ball of energy, feeling the fear begin to creep up his spine.

  The Lolita Express, the safe houses, the opium sales. He had plausible deniability on all of it and the power to blackmail the right players. But if it got to the press, then the whole thing would be unmanageable. Even the WikiLeaks releases during the recent election cycles had pushed him toward phone-only communications. Sending an email nowadays was like publishing a blog, almost.

  “Jackpot,” Xanadu said.

  “Talk to me,” Markham replied.

  “We’ve got them.”

  He smiled a thin-lipped lizard grin, lips pulling back into a sneer that said “Fuck you” to the leering moon.

  * * *

  Jackie vectored Nina Moreau back toward the boat. A series of “go left” and “go right” and “hold, okay, go” and “get cover” commands resulted in Nina hiding under a bridge about two hundred yards to the west. The drone showed her kneeling, taking deep breaths, gathering oxygen, preparing to move.

  “We’re going to get her,” Jackie said. She moved to the center console and started the engines. Harwood stepped on the dock and shouted to Samuelson.

  “Come on. We’re going along for the ride.”