The Land Cruiser’s doors opened, and four men, presumably bodyguards, piled out. They were all dressed in cheap-looking suits without ties. As I watched, the driver got out of the Hummer, hurried to the other side of the vehicle, and opened the passenger’s side door.
“There he is,” Tailor said as a short, heavyset man in traditional Gulf Arab garb climbed out of the large yellow SUV. Tailor and I laid eyes on Ali Bin Ahmed Al Falah for the first time. We’d been coming to the same spot for days, watching the social club, waiting for him to make an appearance. Today we finally got lucky.
We were on the second floor of a half-completed building that stood directly across a divided street from the social club. It was going to be an office building of some kind, but construction had been halted. The second floor had large floor-to-ceiling windows on the sides. The glass wasn’t installed yet. We lay on the floor, side by side, shrouded in the darkness the unfinished building provided, watching our target. The sun was low in the western sky behind us. People passing by on the narrow street had no idea we were there. Our vehicle was parked in the narrow alley behind the building, concealed from view.
Tailor reached into his backpack and pulled out a handheld device that looked like a satellite dish. He put on a set of headphones. “Let’s see if we can hear what they have to say.” Neither of us spoke Arabic, but we could connect the parabolic microphone to our radios and transmit the intelligence back to Control.
Al Falah made his way toward the glass front doors of the establishment, with his driver walking just behind. The other bodyguards fanned out and did a half-assed job of observing the area. As Al Falah approached, another man in similar Arab attire appeared from inside. The two men greeted each other warmly, grasping each other’s right hands while putting their left hands on the other man’s right shoulder. They then exchanged kisses on each cheek.
“That must be Khalid.” I squeezed the transmit button on my tiny microphone. “Control, Nightcrawler. We have eyes on the primary, secondary, and tertiary targets. Intel was correct. This is the place.”
“Copy that, Nightcrawler,” Control replied, all business. Anita King was on the radio instead of Sarah.
“Control, Xbox,” Tailor said, “I’m transmitting now.”
“Copy that . . . receiving,” Anita said. I could hear Al Falah and Khalid speaking in Arabic in the background. We observed Al Falah and Khalid for several minutes, until they disappeared into the club, followed by Al Falah’s entourage.
“Did you get all that, Control?” Tailor asked.
“Uh . . . roger that,” Anita said. “They were just greeting each other. Said something about a chess game, and that they were going to discuss a proposal.”
“What kind of proposal?” Tailor asked.
“They didn’t say. Observe the area for as long as you can, then withdraw without being detected.”
“Roger that, Control,” I said. “Out.”
Tailor looked over at me, then back through his binoculars. “I’m hungry.”
“So, what do you think?” I asked. “How you wanna do this?”
“I say we get a scoped rifle and just pop him from here.”
“Sounds easy enough. Do we have a scoped rifle?”
“There’s an SR-25 in the safe house we can use. It’s got a suppressor, too. From right here, we can lay down some fire, drop a bunch of these guys, and then bug out through the back.”
“Did you get a good look at the bodyguards?” I asked. “I think they’ve got sub-guns.”
“Probably little MP5s or something under their suit coats,” Tailor agreed. “Probably can’t shoot for shit. We should be okay.” It was about sixty yards from our position to the front door of the club.
“Cripes, we should’ve brought the rifle with us. We could’ve popped him just now and had it over with,” I said. We’d been ordered to observe the club and try to get a feel for Al Falah’s routine. We knew where Al Falah lived, of course, but it had been deemed too risky to attempt to hit him there.
“Yeah,” Tailor said, not really listening to me. “Can’t see much in the windows. They’re tinted. Al Falah won’t sit by the windows out front anyway. He’s a big shot, right? He’ll have a private room in the back or something.”
“Worse comes to worst we could enter the club,” I suggested, even though I knew that wasn’t a good idea.
“Hell, no. Not with just the two of us. No, we’ll have to hit him here. We’ll only get one shot. If we fuck this up he’ll go underground and we might lose him.”
“You’re right.” I set my binoculars down. “You wanna take the shot, or you want me to?”
“You take the SR-25,” Tailor said. “I’ll grab a carbine and provide cover fire.” Tailor wouldn’t come out and admit it, but I was a more accurate shooter than he was. He was correct in his assertion that we’d only have one shot, too. There wouldn’t be much room for error.
“I don’t like it,” I said. “Just the two of us versus five bodyguards—”
“That we know of,” Tailor interjected.
“Right. Next time he could have more. One shot, maybe two, since the rifle’s an autoloader, before his bodyguards can get him behind cover. A rifle I’ve never shot before, and who the hell knows who zeroed the scope or when.” We didn’t have access to any kind of a shooting range, and I doubted they’d let us risk taking the rifle out into the desert someplace to test-fire it.
“You’re right,” Tailor agreed, setting down his binoculars as well. “If they get Al Falah into that club, we’ll have to go in after him. So you better drop him on the first shot. That’s the best chance we got.”
“Why are there only two of us? We could really use Hudson and Wheeler for this.”
“I don’t know,” Tailor said. “I don’t like it, either.” I could only wonder what kind of operations the others were involved in if they could only spare two of us for a job they insisted was so important. As I continued to watch the social club, I couldn’t help but worry that things were going to get ugly, fast.
LORENZO
March 26
The disassembled pieces of my pistol were strewn on the kitchen table of our rented apartment. I wiped the slide down with a rag while my crew slept. I found that I always woke up early on game day. Nervous excitement, I suppose.
It never hurts to recheck your equipment. I put a few drops of Slipstream lube on the frame rails of my STI 4.15 Tactical 9mm before fitting everything back together. The gun was a stubby work of lethal art. Phenomenally accurate and reliable, it was the pistol I used when performance was more important than deniability. I had a few Bulgarian Makarovs and old Browning P35s for that. I worked the slide back and forth quickly, feeling the familiar slickness of oiled metal on metal. I checked the chamber before aiming at Al Falah’s picture that had been taped to the wall. The tritium sights lined up perfectly on the bridge of his nose as I pulled the trigger. The hammer fell with a snap.
Ali bin Ahmed Al Falah dies today.
The old terrorist bastard had dropped by the club yesterday. He was still distraught, but he wasn’t going to let that get in the way of business. Our meeting was on.
An eighteen-round, flush-fit magazine went into the STI. I pulled back the slide and let it fly, feeding a Hornady hollow point into the chamber. If everything went according to plan, that same bullet would end up in one of Al Falah’s bodyguards by the end of the night. He’d beefed up the number on his security detail since his nephew’s murder. Sure, Al Falah was still calling it a kidnapping, but at this point I knew that was wishful thinking.
The call for prayer could be heard coming from the corner mosque as the sun rose. It was a mournful sound but I had spent so many years in places like this that I found it kind of comforting.
I showered, put on the obnoxious perfume that all of the men in this region wore, and dressed in my Zubaran thobe, vest, and head scarf. I’d tailored this one a bit with a few extra pockets, and I could hike up the idiotic skirt a
nd run if I needed to. The reflection in the bathroom mirror was that of an Arab landlord who had become friends with a terrorist. Today would be the last day that this identity would ever exist.
If I were just here to assassinate this man, life would be simple. Murder is easy, no matter who the target. I needed him for so much more, hence the effort of fabricating Khalid. Al Falah needed to quietly disappear. A business meeting meant that he would probably have greater than normal security, but he would also need his computer to arrange the transfer of funds. I needed that computer for Phase Two and I needed Al Falah himself for Phase Three.
I splashed some water on my face and stared into the mirror. This was too damn complicated. If anything went wrong, there was going to be hell to pay. Shutting the faucet off, I dried my hands and prepared myself for what I had to do. My crew had woken up by the time I came out. The three of us ate breakfast in silence. There was a lot riding on today, and we all knew our jobs.
I holstered the pistol under my thobe, along with two more magazines and the Silencerco suppressor that would be attached to the end of the STI’s threaded barrel. My radio went into another pocket.
“You ready?” Carl asked rhetorically, still chewing his Captain Crunch.
“I’m going down to the club,” I answered in Arabic. “I’m expecting a busy day today.”
VALENTINE
Al Khor District, Safe House 4
March 26
1955
I had the jitters. I always did before an operation. My nerves would smooth out as I got into the swing of things. Tailor and I were in the basement of the safe house, preparing our gear, getting ready for what was coming. Neither of us spoke. We’d go over the plan again later.
I’d gone through this routine many times before, and the jitters always passed, but it was different this time. It was just Tailor and me. No backup, no fire support, and our entire egress plan was to get in our car and drive away.
We’d gotten the word earlier in the day. Al Falah would be returning to the club tonight to broker some kind of arms deal with Khalid. Intelligence had given us the time of the meeting, but few other details. It was on.
But still my mind wandered. I had a lot of questions, many that I didn’t dare to ask. I wondered about this intelligence. Where did it come from? Do they have someone inside Al Falah’s network somewhere? Why not have that guy kill him? I wondered what happened to Wheeler and Hudson, too. Though they were supposedly assigned to our chalk, we hadn’t heard from them in days.
I chided myself. So many questions, but now was not the time to worry about them. I returned my attention to my gear. Standing up, I slid on my body armor and adjusted the straps until it snugly conformed to my torso. It was a low-profile vest, black in color, with pockets front and back for hard protective plates. The plates, designed to stop rifle fire, were made of ceramic and were thinner and lighter than any I’d ever seen.
On my left hip was a high-ride concealment holster for my revolver. Tailor flashed me a smirk when I pulled the big wheelgun out of my bag, but I paid him no mind. It was my good-luck charm, and I had a feeling I was going to need some luck tonight.
I put on my jacket. It was loose-fitting, and like my body armor and T-shirt was black in color. In Zubara, it was still fairly cool out in March once the sun went down. I wouldn’t look too out-of-place with a jacket on. The dark color of the jacket made it hard to tell I was wearing the armor vest underneath it.
Reaching down, I picked up my primary weapon and shouldered it. I pulled back the charging handle, observed that the rifle’s chamber was empty, and let the bolt close. I then looked through the scope. The Knight’s Armament SR-25 sniper rifle felt heavy in my hands. Its twenty-inch barrel was capped with a sound suppressor. A folding bipod was attached to its railed hand guards. I began to partially disassemble it so it’d fit in a discreet padded case.
While I did this, Tailor got his own equipment ready. His weapon was a 5.56mm FN Mk.16 carbine, also with a suppressor. The carbine had the short, ten-inch barrel installed, making it very compact. Tailor removed the suppressor, then folded his carbine’s stock. He was then able to fit it into his backpack.
As Tailor and I finished packing our gear, I realized Sarah had come down the stairs. Hunter had left her with us, as he’d been called away for something else. I wasn’t sure why they left her at the safe house instead of bringing her back to the base where she belonged, but I was happy to have her around.
“Be careful,” she said simply. The look on her face told me she wanted to say more.
“We’ll be fine,” I said, hefting my bag. I didn’t mean to be dismissive of Sarah. It was just that I had my game face on and it was hard to be sociable. I looked her in the eye and touched her on the arm as I walked past. She didn’t follow Tailor and me as we made our way up the stairs.
“Where is he?” Tailor whispered in frustration.
“Punctuality is not considered a virtue over here,” I said absentmindedly, scanning the front of the club through the SR-25’s scope. It was a lot more crowded than I would’ve preferred. By my count there were more than a dozen patrons, all of them Arab men, most of them in traditional garb, in the club now. I could see a few of them sitting by the windows, smoking, playing chess, and having animated conversations with a lot of hand gestures and laughter.
I looked up from the scope of my rifle and over at Tailor. His carbine was on the floor in front of him. He was propped up on his elbows, watching the front of the club through binoculars. I could tell he wanted a cigarette, but we couldn’t risk the light signature. In order to have a clear shot, we had to get a lot closer to the window than I liked.
Another ten minutes slowly ticked by as the jitters got worse. Finally, a yellow Hummer H2 pulled up to the curb and parked, trailed by the same white Toyota Land Cruiser as last time. I quickly hunkered down behind the rifle as Tailor picked up his carbine and looked through the ACOG scope mounted on it. The jitters melted away. My heart rate slowed down. I felt my body relax as The Calm washed over me again.
A rough-looking man with a brown suit jacket and a bushy mustache got out. It was the same driver from the previous day. Through the rifle scope I could tell that he had a compact submachine gun hidden under his suit jacket. He hurried around to the passenger’s side and opened the door.
Ali bin Ahmed Al Falah stepped out of his truck. He was on the opposite side of the Hummer, and I didn’t have a clear shot, but there was no mistaking his squat stature and white beard.
“That’s our boy,” I whispered. “You confirm?”
“I confirm,” Tailor said.
“Control, Nightcrawler,” I whispered into my microphone. “We have eyes on target.”
“Roger that, Nightcrawler,” Anita said, her voice distant and professional. “You are cleared to engage.”
“Copy,” I said, flipping the SR-25’s selector switch from safe to fire. Al Falah, trailed by his driver, made his way toward the door of the social club. This time he had a large black briefcase in his hand. His four other bodyguards had piled out of the Land Cruiser and fanned out. To my dismay, they seemed more alert than they had the previous day.
“I’ll hit his driver first, then switch to the other bodyguards,” Tailor said. “You take out the primary target first, then the secondary target.” The mission priorities were Al Falah, then Khalid, then the bodyguards. However, our practical priorities were to take care of the people who could shoot back as quickly as possible.
The front doors of the club opened. I recognized Khalid through the scope. As soon as the club’s doors closed behind him, I swiveled the rifle on its bipod, placing the illuminated crosshairs between Al Falah’s shoulder blades. I wasn’t going to attempt a head shot, even at this close range, with a rifle I’d never fired before, not when it was this important. My finger moved to the trigger, and I exhaled.
Crack! The suppressed rifle’s report sounded like a .22. The bullet smacked into my target in a puff of blood, a
little higher than where I’d aimed, and tore right through him. Al Falah dropped to the ground like he’d been hit with a bat.
“He’s down,” I said calmly. Tailor fired off a double tap. Al Falah’s driver went down as I swiveled the rifle toward Khalid. The other men standing around began to scurry like cockroaches. The patrons of the club seated next to the windows reacted in horror. Several got up. In a moment, the entire place would empty into the street. “I’ve lost Khalid!” I was getting tunnel vision through my scope. Somebody was shooting back at us.
“He’s behind the Hummer!” Tailor said, firing off another double tap. There was someone crouched down behind the Hummer’s engine block, concealed from my view. I didn’t even see Khalid bolt for cover after I’d shot. He’s fast, I thought. I then cussed at myself. Damn it. I should’ve waited for them to shake hands. Probably could’ve gotten both of them with the same bullet.
The two remaining bodyguards were hunkered down behind the Land Cruiser as Tailor began shooting at it. One of them was foolhardy enough to bolt for Al Falah; I caught him in my crosshairs and put a round through him as he ran. He stumbled as the bullet hit and face-planted onto the sidewalk.
I still didn’t have a shot on Khalid. Swinging the SR-25 around on its bipod, I put two more rounds into Al Falah’s body, just to make sure. The terrorist convulsed as the bullets hit him. Al Falah was quite dead.
Switching back, I rapidly fired into the boxy yellow truck, hoping a bullet would punch through and hit Khalid. Shot after shot, holes appeared in the hood and fender. Then my rifle stopped. I looked at the action; a fired case was sticking sideways out of the ejection port, mashed between the bolt and the breech face.
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