On Scope: A Sniper Novel

by Jack Coughlin

  He had told the Lizard he was going surfing in California during the break, then made a first-class reservation to fly all the way to Los Angeles, en route to his beach house, from which he could easily bounce back to D.C. after a week of relaxing. After picking up his ticket at the airport counter without checking any luggage, Kyle went downstairs, rented a car from Hertz, and drove away. He bought a throwaway cell phone and some minutes, which left him off the grid and on his own for a while.

  He dozed and rested in the sunshine. After a shower and a shave, he would get down to business. Swanson was back in Seville.

  A hotel concierge sees many things, but he had not judged this one correctly. The hard man’s gray-green eyes contrasted with an already tanned face that was slightly rosy from a morning in the sunshine. The brown hair had been trimmed that morning. He wore a white hotel robe over his swim trunks, with a white towel flung over a shoulder, and he was as lean as a whippet at about five feet nine and about 175 pounds. Mr. Swanson looked more like a mixed martial arts fighter than a businessman. The memory bank of the concierge recalled that the guest was executive vice president of a firm called Excalibur Enterprises, based in London.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Swanson. How may I help?

  The man leaned casually on the front edge of the concierge’s desk, silently invading the polite space. “I would like the telephone number of a discreet escort service.”

  The concierge had such a list, for such a request was not uncommon from tourists and visitors. “Of course, sir. Do you wish me to make the appointment?”

  “My Spanish is not so good, so yes, it would be better if you made the arrangements.”

  Then came the jolt. He wanted a male escort who was physically fit, handsome, and neat in appearance and spoke American-style English. The concierge acknowledged. A tryst? No matter. Still, it rankled the concierge that his observation skills had erred; he liked to know what his guests needed even before they did. To ask directly if the escort should be homosexual would be impolite. He would discuss that with the agency, who would probably have someone of multiple sexual abilities.

  “Do you wish the escort to come to the hotel?”

  “No,” said the guest. “I will meet him in two hours at El Serranito on Ronda de Triana.”

  Swanson was paying cash, with generous tips, for everything during this off-the-record visit.

  “Very good, sir. Anything else?”

  “No. Thank you.” The man in the robe walked away as if he did not have a care in the world.

  Once back in his room, Swanson cleaned up and changed clothes. At the hotel-furnished computer that was secured to a small desk, he used fake identification to make a reservation for the 3:30 P.M. nonstop flight from Seville to Lisbon. Overnight in Portugal, then the long jump to California. He sent an e-mail to the front desk asking them to prepare his bill, and another to the real estate manager in Venice saying to prepare the house for his arrival.

  * * *

  THE VIBRATING BUZZ of the cellular telephone in his shirt pocket startled Daniel Torreblanca. He was at his desk, alone in the big office, working hard while the others took a siesta. A lot of legitimate business had been pushed to the side while he had been with the Group of Six, and his employers at the Islamic Progress Bank, who had supported the Spanish expedition, now wanted him to get on with other projects. The business world had already moved on, with or without the revolution.

  He flipped open the phone, and the screen shot of his son flashed on. “Hello?”

  “This is the guy who was in your house recently. The one who left you this phone.” Kyle Swanson kept his voice even and unthreatening, as if talking with a friend at a bar.

  An icy fear spread alongside a bolt of anger in Torreblanca, and he fought the urge to dash upstairs and count the sleeping family members. “You bastard. You murdered my friends.”

  “You murdered mine, too. But you are off the list now. I was at your bedside with a knife and intended to slit your throat when your boy decided to go to the bathroom. Bad timing for me, good for you. The child saved your life. I did not harm your family and left you sleeping there so your son would not see your bloody body. You are no longer in any danger. That part is over.”

  “Then what do you want?” The banker spat the words with genuine hatred.

  “A few minutes of your time.”

  “Do you think that I would expose myself to you again? You are mad! Whoever you are, you are still a killer.”

  Kyle remained unflustered. “I’m thinking of an exchange of information. Tell you what, Señor Torreblanca. We can meet in a public place. I will be waiting at an outside table at El Serranito on Ronda de Triana in one hour. I will be unarmed. You can have your bodyguards check it out first; then they can set up a close perimeter. I want a promise of safe conduct out.”

  “My bodyguards are members of the Spanish National Police. Why should I not just turn you over to them?”

  “Because if they try to capture me, things will get ugly in a hurry, I will get away, and you go back on my list. All I am asking is ten minutes. Then you will never see me again.”

  “And what is this information you have to exchange?”

  “Show up and find out.”

  Torreblanca hesitated as his mind raced through possibilities. A part of him wanted to meet this assassin, for one could never tell if such an asset would be useful in the future. The police guards would be on hand, so he would be reasonably safe. How could this man believe that he could escape a trap? The banker shut down that line of thought. He was no detective, but he had some close at hand.

  “One hour at El Serranito and safe passage,” he confirmed and hung up. Torreblanca rose from his desk and went to find one of the bodyguards. Here was a chance to get even and have the authorities arrest the deadly invader.

  Kyle Swanson folded his phone and placed it carefully on a table inside a small café directly across the street from El Serranito. Before him sat the empty plate of tapas he had eaten for lunch and a glass of red wine. Through the large glass window, he had watched a man in a monochrome blue suit, with a silver shirt open at the neck enough to show a gold necklace, arrive and sit down at a sidewalk table outside El Serranito. He was a tall kid, obviously a gym rat, good-looking with thick black hair, and carried the reptilian look of a hooker ready to relieve a client of several hundred euros.

  Swanson figured the cops would descend in about fifteen minutes to put the place under surveillance. They probably would not grab the guy outright until the banker arrived and made contact. With everything in order, he finished off the wine, put down some bills, walked to his car, and drove away. He had no intention of waiting around to be picked up by police. This scheduled meeting was only a diversion to focus attention here and slacken the protection at the hacienda. Kyle had no information to give Torreblanca in a tabletop deal anyway, but the financier could tell him about the leader of the pack.

  * * *

  HE PARKED the little gray sedan on the same street they had used for the van stakeout, upslope from the front garden of Torreblanca’s home and facing down. Swanson pushed back the seat and adjusted the mirrors to give him sight lines all around, then settled down for what he expected to be a short wait.

  The damage had already been almost totally repaired, and the shaded garden was abloom again with fresh blue plants. An old gardener poked around the thick hedges up on the hillside. Swanson mentally compared it all with what he had encountered in Barcelona, where the remains of the consulate were only a twisted steel skeleton supporting slabs of burned concrete tilted into a huge deep crater with steep walls and littered with still-smoking debris and emergency crews digging frantically for survivors by the time he had arrived several hours after the blast. The image of body parts and bones could not have been sharper. That was why General Middleton had made him go there and retrieve the Marines. This had not been some abstract assignment for him after that; it was personal.

  Swanson controlled h
is breathing, willing himself to remain calm and watch the front door. He had no illusions about the guilt of this enemy. Daniel Ferran Torreblanca did not deserve to live. That knife thrust would have been so easy! Today, though, Swanson just wanted to sneak in and force him to talk. After that, well, he would just wait and see. Kyle caught the scent of old, angry smoke from Barcelona mixing on the air with the morning flowers of Seville and slumped down further, until he was looking through the round steering wheel and the seat hid his head.

  The San Pablo Airport lay thirty minutes away on the A-4 motorway, and he had factored in extra time for the ticketing and security check. With the sky clear and blue, there should be no weather delay. An hour to get from here to there, through the gate, and out of Seville seemed doable. The fallback would be to dump his car at the airport long-term lot, rent a new one, and drive to Lisbon, about 195 miles away.

  Kyle snapped back to reality when a bald, burly man in a suit appeared in the front door, walked out slowly, and stopped, taking his time to look all around. His gaze swept right over Kyle without pausing. Swanson thought, Stupid. Where are your binos, cop? Do you think your job is supposed to be easy or that you have Superman vision? The guards were police officers, not soldiers, and trained to protect by defense, not by offense. The policeman raised a handheld radio and spoke into it.

  A long black SUV emerged from behind the house and followed the drive to park beside the patio so the driver’s side was away from the house. The tinted windows were dark squares. Kyle figured the cops at the café had reported they had established a perimeter and it was safe to bring in the principal for the contact. A woman officer emerged next and walked in quick strides to the front passenger side, opened the door, and climbed in beside the driver.

  Swanson had observed that most rich people liked to ride behind the driver in such vehicles, a little automatic establishment of privacy because it was harder for the driver to observe them in the rearview mirror. The big man opened the door behind the driver, gave a final look around the grounds, and called back to the house.

  The tall Daniel Torreblanca stepped onto the patio and paused uncertainly at the door, long enough for Swanson to see the bulk of an armored vest beneath the long white shirt that hung over his trousers and buttoned at the wrists. He walked out of the shadows and around the front bumper of the large vehicle. The banker was three steps away from the door when the shot rang out as clear as a banshee wailing over someone who is about to die.

  The first bullet flew true and took him in the right side, which was unprotected by the ceramic safety plates. Torreblanca stumbled back against the SUV fender and spent the last moments of his life grabbing for support on the slick black paint as the tumbling high-velocity round scrambled his internal organs all the way through his heart before exiting at a downward angle. A second shot went into his face.

  Kyle lurched upright behind the steering wheel. Holy shit! The gunshots had come from his left, near the hedges. He looked over and saw the old gardener sprawled on the ground and scrambling to hide behind his plastic cart, away from the hedgerow. That’s where the sniper was.

  Down the street, the stunned guards were frozen in place like cartoon characters glued on a bloody page. The police had anticipated possible trouble at the café, not here at the house. The big man dove over the body of the already dead Torreblanca; then the woman was out and around the SUV with her pistol drawn, pausing to look down at the victim. The driver threw open his door and jumped out and covered the right flank, nine-to-noon, while the woman swept over the twelve-to-three sector.

  All of them backed away from the assassination site, pulling the corpse with them, until they vanished through the doorway. There had been no more follow-up shots. All they saw of possible interest was a lone car parked up the street.

  Kyle could not stay where he was parked. He started the engine and let the vehicle coast forward in neutral to avoid any sudden movement that might draw police attention and gunfire. Cops would be all over this area in a minute, and he did not want to have to answer any questions.

  32

  NEW YORK

  HOURS LATER, when Swanson was standing in the customs line at Terminal Four of the Kennedy Airport, he still had not untangled what had happened at the Torreblanca hacienda back in Seville. Perhaps a deep thinker like Sun Tzu or Nostradamus might have come up with an idea, but Swanson doubted if either had a lot to say about what happens when you do everything right and the grenade still explodes in your hands. Swanson shuffled with the line of passengers as it edged forward, intentionally trying to look very American with a maroon golf shirt hanging outside of his worn jeans. He could have used other credentials and breezed through the security barrier, but he wanted to take the slower road, hoping an answer would come to him. The line for citizens returning home from abroad was shorter than the one for foreign nationals, so he would be clear soon enough anyway.

  He had tried to keep the moving parts of his little plan in Seville to a minimum: draw away the cops with a crude deception, then break into Torreblanca’s house for a private chat when the Spaniard returned. All plans, however, are as fragile as Venetian glass. Somebody else obviously had another plan, and that shattered his own with an unexpected volley of gunfire. Kyle was not saddened by the death of the banker, but now thought himself naive for not considering that there might be competition in the sticky world of terrorism.

  During the flight back across the Atlantic, Swanson had replayed the scene a hundred times, trying to remember anything he might have ignored at the time because he had been so focused on that front door. Kyle recalled hearing the muffled bark of a suppressed rifle off to his left, and had turned that way in time to see a small fluff of dust rise above the decorative bushes on the hillside. That was the result of the muzzle blast jarring the ground immediately in front of the gun barrel. The sniper had not used a mat to keep down the dirt, either counting on the bushes to do that or not being professional enough to think of doing so. The only person in view when Kyle had parked was the old man in long-sleeved green overalls who had been lazily working the landscape. Rake and shovel handles stuck out of his rolling plastic trash can. That guy had dived to the grass when the sniper fired, a normal reaction. Running away from the sound would have been even more normal, but he did not do that. Was he ducking to hide from the cops? Kyle considered there was a strong possibility that he was working with the shooter as the lookout. The rifle could be stashed in the cart and hidden beneath plastic. That made sense; they were a team.

  Kyle moved forward again in the long trek to the customs agent, getting near the counter where weary travelers were being scrutinized by officers who were as alert as the police roaming nearby. He had never gotten used to seeing cops with automatic weapons inside an American airport. Swanson exhaled a full breath and readied his passport and entry declaration form.

  What about the timing? How could the sniper have known Torreblanca was going to come outside at that moment? Was it Kyle’s plan that had drawn him out? Or maybe there had been another ruse he knew nothing about. Coincidence or just Murphy’s Law at work, proving once again that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, and at the worst possible time. He had seen that happen before in other places, and had no answers then either.

  Then he was at the counter, handing over the documents while being eyeballed by the officer and video cameras. She was a curly-haired woman with brown eyes and thin lips that needed new lipstick. Her attitude was professional, not bored, and she studied the papers and the computer panel that crunched the information. The eyebrows rose as she read the unusual data on her screen, then settled into place as she smoothly handed back his passport. “Welcome home, sir,” she said. “And thank you for your service.”

  Swanson walked through the portal and was only fifteen minutes from downtown Manhattan. He knew the interlude would not last long as soon as his name and number hit the electronic grid, so he had not even bothered checking the connecting flight to Los Angeles
.

  Reluctantly and because he could not put off the inevitable any longer, he powered up his cell phone, fully expecting what was waiting. Under MISSED CALLS were a dozen text messages from Lieutenant Colonel Sybelle Summers. The first had been a polite inquiry about his location, but her choice of words had changed remarkably when there were no replies, and the last bluntly ordered him to put his ass on a plane and get to Washington, like right now.

  THE PENTAGON

  “TELL ME you didn’t do this.”

  “I didn’t do it, sir.”

  “Did you?”

  “No. I just went there to try to talk to him about the Barcelona raid. I thought that I had everything under control.”

  “And then it went all FUBAR.”

  “Fucked up beyond all recognition does pretty well describe it, sir.”

  “Weird,” said General Brad Middleton.

  “Very,” echoed Sybelle Summers.

  “We were killing these people. Then we stop and somebody else starts,” observed Commander Benton Freedman. “That is indeed strange.”

  “Another dog in the hunt,” said Master Gunny O. O. Dawkins, his forearms folded across his big chest and his boots crossed at the ankle. He looked comfortable, like a rhino after a good meal.

  Middleton had not been angry, only perplexed. “You did not disobey orders, did you? I forgot the precise wording.”

  Swanson shook his head and lied. “No, sir. This was a last-minute thing. I really was going to California, then thought, what the hell. With the heat off, Torreblanca might be curious enough to meet me in person. I hoped to get intelligence on the tactical commander in Barcelona.”

  “I don’t like you going off our grid. Disappearing like that. Don’t do it again.”

  “Sorry, sir. Of course not. Are you through chewing me out now? Can we get on to other things?”