On Scope: A Sniper Novel

by Jack Coughlin

  A broad grin spread on the general’s face. “Surprise. I like it. Who else you got, Lizard?”

  Freedman fiddled with the keys, and in thirty seconds the broad screen divided into four quadrants, with photos of Bourihane and three men. “Pick one and I will work up the details. Meanwhile, I have something else.” Juan de Lara had received a cash infusion the day before his death, the Lizard said, and the payment had been routed through a New York broker.

  “What’s strange about that?”

  “Well, for starters, the broker didn’t have the money to make that kind of transaction. In fact, he doesn’t have much money at all and is maxed out on his cards. I’m still digging.”

  “Suggestion?” Middleton wanted answers, not vague comments.

  “Since you guys are all getting out and about, I think that Master Gunny Dawkins and I should go up to New York and have a talk with that broker.”

  “Yeah, I’m tired of sitting around while Swanson and my baby-faced assassin here have all the fun.” Dawkins patted Coastie fondly on the shoulder. “I’ll demonstrate for her that it is not always necessary to kill someone to accomplish a mission.”

  “Shut up, you Godzilla freak of nature,” she snapped.

  “Go,” said the general. “Sybelle, I will clear a Green Light for you and Beth on Bourihane. Kyle, you review those remaining targets and make a plan with a timeline. Bring in a couple of MARSOC operators for backup if you need them, but it’s your call.”

  12

  NEW YORK

  PETER MCNAMARA loped along the interior of Central Park at six fifteen in the morning, counting his money in his mind as he jogged the usual three miles wearing brand-new red Nike Air Max shoes while his Garmin Forerunner 910XT combination GPS, watch, and heart rate monitor, purchased yesterday, clocked off his times. A chic black Reebok reversible runner’s headband soaked up the sweat beading on his forehead. The ribbon of sidewalk stretched out before him, pointing like a solid path toward further success. It was an exhilarating time, marked by bass notes hammering in the sharp pop music of his iPod.

  He had bet almost everything his clients had, and then had borrowed on margin to bet even more, on a short sale against the embattled German company on which he had received the tip from the enigmatic Carlos Blanco. He now held fifty thousand shares, and the price had already fallen two full points in two days, putting 100K in his pockets for following the tip. In return for the favor, Blanco had sent a messenger with an encoded list of money transfers, plus his fee, and it had taken Peter less than an hour to shovel the cash around the globe. He had the rest of the day to concentrate on growing his company, maybe reel in another client, and then get in some shopping before happy hour. He was on his way to the top, away from the trading floor, and the rest of the world could bite his ass.

  Then a runner behind him closed too fast and stepped on Peter’s left red Nike, making McNamara stumble. A big hand caught him by the arm and steadied him. Peter at first thought it might be a clumsy mugging attempt, which didn’t worry him because martial arts were a regular part of his fitness regimen. Then he saw the huge man holding his arm and grinning at him with a face that indicated he wasn’t really grinning at all, and he wasn’t letting go but propelling Peter forward. “See that guy on the bench right before the tunnel? Go sit by him.”

  “I have a black belt,” McNamara snarled, trying to jerk his arm free.

  “And I have a Glock. Anyway, I can kick your skinny ass so quick that you’ll ring like a tenpenny finishing nail hit with a greasy ball-peen hammer, as Brother Dave Gardner used to say. Go. Sit down and have a listen.” Master Gunnery Sergeant O. O. Dawkins squeezed the man’s bicep a little harder, and they moved toward the bench.

  Commander Benton Freedman, the electronics wizard of Task Force Trident, did not get up but watched with large, intense eyes that seemed to burrow into McNamara’s DNA.

  “Who are you people?” demanded McNamara. “I’ll call a cop!”

  “The cops won’t help you, because we have better badges than they do,” said Freedman. “So, Mr. McNamara, allow me to summarize this situation: You are in a world of hurt. If you raise any kind of ruckus, my large friend here will reduce you to a puddle of piss in about three seconds flat. You run, he will shoot you dead. In the unlikely event that you somehow get away, a sniper in the bushes up on that rise will put a bullet in your head. Clear on that?”

  McNamara’s eyes widened as the Lizard continued in his calm voice.

  “The first choice you have to make right now is whether you prefer living or dying. Second choice is whether you would prefer living or dying in Guantánamo Bay, the Supermax federal prison in Colorado, or a very sad place in Romania, where you can be going by nightfall if you do not cooperate. Do you understand me?”

  McNamara took a seat beside the smaller man, and the giant sat down, too, so close to Peter that their thighs touched. He looked incredibly strong, but the little guy doing the talking seemed to be the more vicious.

  “I haven’t done anything wrong!”

  “Oh, just shut the fuck up, kid, until I ask you a question. Keep thinking about Romania. We know everything about you, and spent most of last night going through your shit in the office of your so-called boutique hedge fund. Jesus, you don’t even have a secretary. What is that about?”

  “I handle everything personally. Instant access on my phones for my clients is one of my company’s strengths. You need to move into the Internet age, old dude.”

  The big man threw back his head and laughed hard. Freedman was perhaps one of the top ten hackers in the world, and his rich Uncle Sam bought him any electronic toys he wanted. The Lizard worked with the designers of cutting-edge next-generation everything long before it hit the commercial shelves.

  “I try to keep up,” Freedman replied. “In reality, you have a cheapo answering service in Queens that picks up the calls. Did you know Mannix Dillon of BQM, another lone ranger in your business? Never mind. Of course you knew her. You exchanged e-mails several times in the past year. Some of it very personal stuff.”

  “Only from around the bar scene after work. We were fuck-buddies for a few weeks a long time ago, that’s all. I never did any business with her. How are you reading my e-mails?”

  “She’s dead now, murdered right here in New York.”

  “I saw that in The Wall Street Journal. It was horrible.”

  Freedman popped open his Apple laptop and leafed through a couple of screens. “A few days before her death, she transferred a tidy sum to a gentleman named Cristobál Jose Bello in Mallorca, who was a person of great interest to us. Then Mr. Bello was killed. For those keeping score, you are tied to Dillon, and through her, you link to Bello. That makes two murders, three if we also count Bello’s bodyguard, who went down with him.”

  McNamara gulped. “I don’t know anything about it. Never heard of anyone named Bello.”

  Freedman readjusted his thick glasses and tickled the keyboard again.

  “Ah. So next, a gentleman in Madrid, Juan de Lara, suddenly gets a hundred thousand dollars sent by you. He was also a person of interest to us, but alas, he, too, has been murdered. In the past, de Lara had received similar transfers from Dillon. That’s four murders now, and you are connected to all of them. What are the odds? The cops will figure it out soon enough and will come see you. If they don’t, I will personally make a call to the NYPD and throw you under the bus. You see where I’m going with this?”

  McNamara felt walls closing in. “I want to speak to my attorney.”

  “He can come see you in Romania. Now I have learned that you are making a bundle off of a collapsing company in Germany, the short-selling that Mannix Dillon had done right before she was gutted. That’s a lot of coincidences in one story, young man.” He closed the laptop and looked McNamara square in the face. “So you, Mr. McNamara, are now also a person of interest to us.”

  “But who the hell are you?”

  “Your new owners,” replie
d the Lizard. “If you want to be able to continue to trot along the sunny fields of Central Park in coming days, then you will tell me who instructed you to send the money to Juan de Lara, and who told you about the Kraut company that’s going belly-up.”

  The big guy shoved closer to McNamara, jarring him off balance, even seated.

  “A man I had never heard of called me for a meeting, gave me the tip, and hired me to do some of the transfer work that Mannix had been handling. His name is Carlos Blanco.”

  “And you did no due diligence or background check, like ask to see his passport or driver’s license?”

  “No.”

  “Do you recognize any of these faces?” The Lizard turned his laptop screen so Peter could view the head-and-shoulders snaps of five men and one woman.

  McNamara put his finger on one immediately. “Yeah. That’s the guy. How did you get that?”

  Freedman ignored the question. McNamara had just confirmed the identity of Yanis Rebiane, who had originated the Dillon transfers. Now Rebiane had chosen a new broker and had changed his business name to Carlos Blanco. “You stole her client, this Mr. Blanco, and that has resulted in a nice reversal of fortune for you. Any response?”

  “As soon as we all learned that Mannix was dead, everybody on the street was scrambling for her client list, me included.”

  “You just took the money.”

  “Yes, I took the money. If I didn’t take it, someone else would have. It is all properly reported, if you’re from the IRS.”

  “We’re not.”

  “CIA, then. The CIA cannot operate within the U.S.”

  “Wrong again. Can you contact your new client Mr. Blanco?”

  “Maybe. We only had one meeting, right here in the park, and after that, he sent my instructions via bike messenger. I have a number to call in case something goes wrong. I’ll give it to you.”

  “Don’t bother. We already have it from your file.” Both of the men stood up, leaving Peter on the bench. The smaller one tucked the laptop into a shoulder bag. “Do you ever want to see either of us again?”

  “No,” said the bewildered McNamara.

  “And you won’t, if you do as you are told. You can communicate with me through a phony e-mail account that I have installed on your office computer. You will write messages there in draft form, saved but not sent. I will access them and reply, if needed. Don’t try to outsmart me, because this isn’t a game of checkers. We are the only people standing between you and thorough investigations by the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission, with resulting prison time. That will be my call, son. I suggest you cooperate.”

  “But I haven’t done anything wrong!” McNamara protested. His face was flushing red in despair and tears were gathering in the corners of his eyes as he saw his life, which was so beautiful only a few minutes ago, falling to ruin.

  “I don’t care. You get in touch with Blanco and I might make the government pressure go away. Once that happens, I strongly recommend that you take a two-week vacation from your job and never come back.” The men walked up over the hill and out of sight.

  13

  NEW YORK

  “I WARNED YOU.” Mercedes Sarra Bourihane was not a person for small talk, and her sharp words fell like lashes on the sensitivities of Yanis Rebiane. Despite being a devout Muslim, the woman seldom knew her place. He bristled at her criticism and fought to keep his voice down, his outward manner unruffled. She had been in Morocco and he was in New York, a distance that Rebiane deemed adequate, but now here she was in his downtown Manhattan hotel suite, barking at him like a common bitch dog. She should have stayed over there!

  Bourihane was seated comfortably on the long sofa with her legs tucked beneath her, and a glass of lemonade in her hand reflected the brilliant sunlight coming in from outside. “We were making good progress until Barcelona,” she said. “Making concrete proposals to help them restructure their economy is complex, but we were winning converts within the government by forcing the European Commission to take an even harder line.”

  He said, “The Americans needed to be shown that we are serious and will not be intimidated in reaching our goal, Mercedes. Even you agreed to that.” Yanis had a vodka over ice. He was somewhat loose with religious rules: Sharia law was a tool to control the masses, not the elite.

  “It was to be done in a civilized manner with diplomatic and financial pressure, Yanis. Spain is not Afghanistan, but you decided to turn your thug son loose and attack America directly.” The woman snorted, a sound that reminded Yanis of a grunting horse.

  “When we all met in Geneva, I was given a unanimous vote to take forceful action to put pressure on Washington. You did not object at the time.”

  “None of us agreed to a full military-style attack on the consulate and that massive loss of life—none of us!” Her voice was harsh; then she took a deep breath and calmed herself. Mercedes Bourihane was famous for her unwavering charm throughout intricate financial negotiations at the highest levels, and here she was lowering herself to scold a man who was steering the opportunity of a generation toward the rocks of failure. “We told you then that there were limits and not to take it too far. You made the decision on your own.”

  Yanis rose and walked to the line of windows looking down on Manhattan. “Do not call Djahid a thug. My son is a hero who has fought the infidel Crusaders all of his life. His military skills are invaluable to our cause.” Thirty floors below, he could see lines of automobiles, trucks, and taxis swarming through the city streets, and he knew that somewhere among the traffic was Djahid, truly risking his life by pretending to be a bicycle messenger.

  She did not apologize. “What happened in Barcelona also guaranteed a violent retaliation. Two of our number are now dead. Why didn’t you foresee that?”

  “Every time they strike back, they mobilize more support for our cause,” Yasim replied. I just did not anticipate their choice of targets; instead of going after the low-level gunmen, they are aiming higher.

  Mercedes put down the glass and unwrapped her legs, sliding her toes into stylish high heels. “You must understand, my friend, that Juan de Lara was much too valuable to be expended as one of your car-bomb martyrs.”

  Ah, he thought. She’s finally getting to the point. She is afraid.

  He pressed onward, bringing up another sore subject. “We do not know for certain that the Americans killed them. Men of such huge appetites for wealth and power as Bello and de Lara have many enemies.”

  “Of course they did it,” she said. “Now the rest of us are at risk.”

  “I agree that the United States is the most likely party, Mercedes, but we have a whole field of opponents. The U.K. and NATO are perfectly capable of doing such operations, and who would benefit more than Washington if the current regime is left in place? The Spanish government itself may be at the front of the line in order to squash the very idea of an Islamic takeover, no matter how it is camouflaged, and tens of millions of ordinary Spaniards would not lift a finger to help us. Last, but not least, are our brothers in Allah, the Shia. They were already unhappy that the Six are controlled by the Sunni, and they are always ready to shed blood. That is why there are no anti-American riots right now; nobody knows exactly who to blame.”

  “No matter,” she replied. “It’s the Americans, and you know it.”

  “I urge everyone else to be cautious and make their personal security as tight as possible.”

  “We might have drones circling our heads right now because of your stupidity. You are guarded by your Rottweiler son and can disappear at will, but I cannot.” Another deep breath and a faraway look. “I spoke to the others before I flew over last night, Yasim. We cannot continue our work very well if we are dead, and although we willingly sacrifice our bodies, our brains and positions make us irreplaceable in this task to reconquer Spain in the name of the Prophet.”

  Rebiane wanted to slap her impudent face. “I am pursuing those responsible, Mercedes. If the Ame
ricans are the ones, we will find out soon. A United States senator is already badgering the White House and the State Department to solve that puzzle. We will discover and deal with them.”

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  PICK ONE. Kyle Swanson had the three color photographs lined up on the table before him, each atop a file folder containing the subject’s history. Three human beings: Pick one. Who would be allowed to live a little bit longer; which would die at his hand first? He stacked them one atop another, then rearranged them into a new line and studied them some more. Nothing jumped out. Eenie-meenie-miney-mo. Did it make a difference? Trident was going to kill them all anyway. If they had been wearing military uniforms or carrying weapons, or if they even looked threatening, the choice might be easier, but the result would be the same.

  He got up and walked to the coffeepot and poured a refill, then stood before a map of the world. There sat Spain, hanging off the southwestern end of Europe, buffered along the Atlantic by Portugal. Gibraltar guarded the choke point for the Mediterranean and was just across the watery street from Africa. The country’s strategic position was undeniable, and it was over that strait that the Moorish Muslim armies invaded and conquered in the eighth century, holding power until the thirteenth century. Five hundred years is a long time, Kyle thought. The United States hasn’t even been around for three hundred.

  Spain was only about the size of Oregon, and while that state contained only four million people, the Spain of today was crowded with a population of more than forty-seven million. The economic collapses of the past thirty years had left many of them distrusting their government and doubtful of a secure economic future. Change was hurting, and the thinly disguised Islamist rescue package seemed attractive when looked at solely as a business deal with favorable basis points and almost nonexistent interest rates, unaccompanied by harsh demands to change their accustomed way of life. The obvious power grab was unseen by the public.