In the Crosshairs: A Sniper Novel

by Sgt. Jack Coughlin

  Flat on his belly in the dirt, Swanson unlimbered Excalibur from the protective casing across his chest while Gibson, angled out to his left, glassed the area with small binoculars. They seemed like two big black cats patiently watching for prey. The .50-caliber Excalibur rifle was built to do one thing, and that was to kill the enemy. Resting in its protective sheath or viced tight to a workbench, it was a compilation of parts, none of which were deadly by themselves. Assembled and loaded with thick high-powered rounds longer than a man’s trigger finger, Excalibur transformed into a piece of war waiting to happen. With Swanson snuggled against the personalized fiberglass stock, the weapon seemed to breathe along with him, slow and measured.

  “I ever tell you about my father?” Gibson asked in a quiet voice.

  “What?” Swanson, startled, hissed, “Shut the hell up.” Here they were on a covert operation and this guy suddenly wants to talk about dear old dad?

  “First time I ever saw this place, he showed it to me. It’s an agency safe house.”

  “God damn it, be quiet, Luke. Maintain noise discipline. Marks might hear you.” Swanson took a moment away from the powerful telescope on Excalibur to have a hard look at his partner. “You brought us in right on top of a safe house?”

  “Don’t sweat it. Marks ain’t here, Kyle. I can feel it.” Gibson crawled forward a few feet. “Nearest neighbors are about two hundred yards off to the west, an old couple who live alone and take care of this place.”

  “I don’t care. We should be looking at this from far away. Treat it like you’ve never seen it before. Your casual familiarity could get us killed. Clear?”

  Gibson grinned and put the binos back up to his eyes. “Yup, you’re the team leader.”

  Swanson swept the area with his scope, trying hard to maintain mental focus. That this was a safe house was a guarantee that there would be access to weapons, gear, and money. But the walls would be thicker than normal, the courtyard could be a killing zone, entries could be booby-trapped, and sensors and cameras could be hidden, along with tricky alarms. Luke should have told him about this before they came. And his father was a spook, too? Slow down. Improvise. Carry out the mission.

  He motioned for Gibson to spread away and skirt the big outer wall to the left while he went right; they would meet in the rear. Gibson nodded and snake-crawled away, fading from sight within seconds. Swanson moved closer, extending a hand to touch the wall. It was just the usual brick-hard clay found around most houses in the region, a way to maintain privacy and safety while keeping predators from the animals. It was about eight feet high and no doubt topped by broken glass along the lip to discourage anyone from climbing over. He slowly worked his way forward, finding no trace of alarms or cameras. The wall was aged and patched, and Swanson thought it was more for show than anything else. He neither heard nor smelled any animals, and there were no tracks. Maybe Gibson was right and nobody was home.

  Step by step, he moved along until he reached the far corner, where he pressed against the wall before doing a peekaboo that exposed his head for only a moment. Gibson was right there, leaning against the wall, waiting with his snubby Heckler & Koch MP5KA submachine gun dangling from one hand. Gibson gave a thumbs-up, and Swanson moved closer as they both took a knee.

  “Clear back that way,” Gibson reported.

  “I assume you know the way in?” he whispered, face to face. If it was a safe house, there would be some emergency ingress and egress points.

  Gibson motioned directly above where they stood. “No obstacles at that point up top. Same on the front eastern corner. Soft landings on the other side. A tunnel leads from the bedroom out to the goat pen for a fast getaway.”

  Made sense, Swanson thought. “We’ll go over here. You first.” He hung Excalibur on his shoulder and laced his fingers together to make a stirrup. “Give me your foot.”

  Gibson gave him a funny look, slinging his HK. “It’s only eight feet, Kyle,” he said, and jumped. His fingers snared the clear spot and he hauled himself up in one smooth motion, confident of what was up there. Swanson handed up the long sniper rifle and pulled himself up while Gibson dropped into the courtyard with hardly a sound. As promised, there were no shards of glass or embedded nails to slow their progress. Swanson went over, picked up his rifle, and strapped it over his back. The barrel length would be of no use in close, so he slid his preferred sidearm, a Colt .45 pistol, from its nylon holster.

  Snipers are creatures of their surroundings, and the courtyard was an entirely different environment than beyond the wall. Although the enclosure was open to the sky, it was essentially cut off from outside influences. Their night vision had to make some adjustments, too. Slowly, things began to materialize and take shape in the vague light; the open space was no nest of junk, but neat and orderly. Solid black became deep purple. A slight breeze outside might be unfelt inside. Noise would be amplified or reduced on different sides of the wall, and it was so quiet that he heard a small flotilla of birds flutter overhead. Humidity would be different. While making the necessary physical adjustment, Swanson grabbed Gibson hard on the shoulder in an urgent warning.

  When Gibson turned, Swanson gestured as if he were puffing on a cigarette and pointed toward the house. He had smelled cigarette smoke. Gibson dropped all pretense of laziness and went on point, steady as a bird dog. He could smell it, too, and brought the HK to his shoulder as he studied the shadows. The aroma was familiar. It was Marks’s favorite brand. Gibson nodded that he understood.

  Swanson fought back his anticipation. This was no time to get stupid. They communicated with hand signals, deciding to make a two-direction entry: Swanson in the back door and Gibson bursting through the front as soon as he heard Swanson yell. No matter how good Mr. Marks was, he couldn’t take out two professional CIA shooters hitting at the same time.

  Swanson had been doing this sort of thing for years, so stalking a target was thoroughly ingrained in him. Back on his belly, he started the crawl toward the rear portal, inching over the approximately twenty feet to his goal. Survival depended on remaining invisible. A bucket was in the way, and he wormed around it. The earth pressed against his body. Excalibur was an added weight and rode at an awkward angle, and although he would rather not take it off, it would be a hindrance in any close-quarters dance. He silently removed the rifle and propped the barrel against the house. Picked up the .45. Back to crawling. Slow, small, precise movements would get him where he wanted to go.

  The smell of smoke lingered in the air like a sour, tantalizing perfume as Swanson worked his way forward. Their quarry must be in the front room. No lights were on. Swanson made it to the single poured-concrete step and studied the door. It was open about two inches. Why? To catch some night breeze, or an invitation to a trap? In an instant, Swanson voted for a trap. This was too easy. A seasoned operator like Nicky Marks smoking a telltale cigarette and leaving a door unlocked and open?

  The unexpected, deafening crash of a flash-bang grenade tore the silence, followed by a lightning-bright burn of incandescence. It sparkled Swanson’s night vision for a few heartbeats, and he wondered why Gibson changed the plan so abruptly. He shook his head and charged inside, stumbling over a chair as he bolted into the room swirling with acrid smoke.

  “GET YOUR HANDS UP, SWANSON! GET ’EM UP! DROP YOUR WEAPON!”

  Swanson saw a shadow in the smoke transform into a full figure and he recognized Nicky Marks, rooted in a shooting stance, both hands around the butt of a Glock pistol with a laser sight mounted on the rail. The pinpoint scarlet streak cut through the smoke and danced on Swanson’s face. An error!

  Swanson didn’t hesitate. He did a halfback juke to the left and the red dot followed, then he planted his weight on his right foot and leaped directly at Marks with a war cry of his own.

  Marks pulled the trigger and a single shot rang out, but the bullet buzzed past wide to the left, missing by no more than an inch and splintering the chair where Swanson had been a moment earlier. Marks
had screwed up. Overconfident. Swanson felt no fear as he closed in, piloted by instinct.

  The pistol swung back as Swanson tackled Marks around the waist, beneath the gun, slamming him against the wall, off balance and back on his heels. Marks got off another wild shot before Kyle smashed down on the gun hand with his own pistol. Both weapons flew away in the collision. The red streak spun crazily, and Swanson logged that information away: Both guns out of the fight.

  The aggressor now, he grabbed Marks by the collar, feeling the man squirm as he searched for a hold of his own. Swanson freed his left hand just long enough to smack a sharp elbow strike aimed at the nose, but Marks turned his face aside. It was only a glancing blow.

  Marks drove a hard flat hand just below Swanson’s sternum, and although there was no room for a follow-through, he dug into the abs as if trying to pull out the liver. At some other time, in some other situation, the strike might have been painful, but with the adrenaline pumping it was no more than an insect bite to Swanson. Still, it was enough of a technical score to force him to oof out a breath and lean away.

  They threw simultaneous knees at groins, but succeeded only in tangling legs, losing their leverage and falling, taking down a crash of crockery as they toppled. They landed hard, and Swanson cartwheeled away while Marks rolled in the opposite direction.

  Both men got back on their feet, panting hard. Staring at each other, they reached for their belt knives as they warily began round two. Swanson’s thoughts flashed back to his Marine Corps days and how to fight with a knife. He’d never practiced the arcane art much, preferring to shoot his enemies from a distance. But it is what it is. He was armed with a dark and heavy SEAL knife, which was designed to do everything but algebra, while Marks pulled a Fairbairn-Sykes commando dagger, built for close-quarter blade work. Advantage: Marks. Nicky saw that, too, and began a little shuffle to get close enough to strike.

  Physical conditioning was about even, Swanson thought. The superior equipment was more than offset by the fact that Luke Gibson should be bursting through that front door any second now. All that Swanson had to do was not get killed until help arrived. Where the hell is he? Swanson looked for his gun, but it was lost in the rubble. The ruby laser beam was gone, too.

  “Give it up, you surly prick,” Swanson snarled, noticing that Marks’s gray eyes actually held hope instead of gleaming like those of a trapped animal. “My partner is coming in.”

  Marks struck with a rattlesnake-quick thrust, in and back, and the Fairbairn-Sykes nicked Swanson’s forearm, leaving a red trail behind. Marks didn’t appear to be in a hurry to finish it. “You’re a dead man if that’s what you think.”

  Swanson tried a side-kick sweep, and although Marks dodged it, the move bought a few extra inches of space, a few more seconds off the clock. But it seemed that Marks was the one buying time.

  A short rattle of automatic gunfire shook the tight room and a dozen 9-mm. bullets stitched Nicky Marks from legs to torso. As he fell backward, blood oozing from multiple wounds, a look of surprise crossed his face. “My prince,” he coughed in a death rattle, staring at Gibson. Gibson stepped up and shot the man three more times, all in the head.

  Gibson looked over at Swanson, who was breathing hard. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” He wiped away some of the blood running from his forearm down to his wrist. “Why the hell did you throw in the flash-bang?”

  “I didn’t.” Gibson pointed toward the sprawled body. “He popped it. I saw him through the window, and maybe he saw me, too, and decided to start the action on his own terms. Once again, Nicky knew our movements.”

  “Impossible.” Swanson went to the corpse and rifled through the pockets. No paper. No phone. “You shouldn’t have killed him, Luke. We needed answers from this guy.”

  “Well, you’re welcome very much for saving your life, asshole. Those were the orders. I believe the exact words from Marty Atkins, our superior officer, were ‘Find him and shoot him dead.’ That’s what we did. Anyway, he didn’t leave us much choice.”

  Swanson looked hard at his partner. “Why did he call you ‘my prince’?”

  “Well, that’s something I’ve been waiting to discuss with you.”

  Gibson swung the H&K submachine gun around like a baseball bat and struck Swanson hard across the back of the skull. Swanson’s legs buckled and he went down like a bale of hay, unconscious before hitting the floor.

  21

  GIRDIWAL, AFGHANISTAN

  9:18 PM LOCAL

  1518 ZULU

  HEADACHE. POUNDING AND PAINFUL, and a thirst that begged for moisture. The roar of a machine. Kyle Swanson sensed movement, then fell back into blackness. The machine roared again. Close by. It scared him, and he took the fright back into dreams.

  The Boatman was leaning on the oar of his long canoe, waiting. “I told you,” the ragged specter said in a voice dry and sandy. “I tried to warn you. ‘This cannot be done alone,’ I said.”

  Swanson groaned. Somebody working with a hammer. “I don’t remember.”

  “Try.” The nightmare figure spoke quietly, in contrast to the noise elsewhere.

  “Water. Please give me some water.”

  “Think about it.”

  Swanson heaved, but his arms wouldn’t work, and he collapsed again. “Did you come for me? Is it finally my time?”

  “No. Just this one, although my work is just starting this night.” The Boatman gestured toward the front of the bateau, where the corpse of Nicky Marks sat mute. Splotches of dried brown blood crusted his wounds. He had no head.

  The Boatman stirred the imaginary pond and the boat sluggishly moved away, toward the carmine glow on the faraway horizon. “Try to remember,” the figure called out before disappearing. “It is the answer.”

  * * *

  SWANSON SLEPT AWHILE, THOUGHT he heard someone calling his name. He tried to force his eyes to open, but he couldn’t see anything beyond an intense brightness, so he closed them again. His body shook. Another spell of blackness enveloped him, then he heard different voices, real ones this time. Words he couldn’t understand. So thirsty.

  * * *

  LUKE GIBSON WAS BEGINNING to believe that he had popped Swanson too hard. That wasn’t his intent. He had patched up the wound and hoped there was no concussion. He checked the restraints and stepped away, got a cup of water and poured some into Swanson’s mouth, and heard him gag and cough, then gave him a little more.

  “Are you finished yet?” he asked in Arabic.

  One of the three rugged young men who had come up from the village said the work was complete, and Gibson went over. “Let’s see how you did.”

  Nicky Marks’s body hung upside down, tied by the ankles, from a hook in the ceiling above a blood-stained bathtub. It was messy. They had been in a hurry, because blood pools in the lowest part of the body after death, and Gibson needed the postmortem wounds to pump out a profuse amount of blood. It streamed from the deep gouges made on the back and thighs, from the spikes driven through the palms and into the walls, and flowed from the neck, where a chain saw had removed the head, and at the groin, which was missing the testicles and penis. He nodded approvingly. That should do the job. “Smile, Nicky,” Gibson said, and started taking pictures.

  * * *

  THE WATER TRIGGERED A recovery, and Kyle Swanson felt as if he were landing in a hot-air balloon as his senses quickened. Where am I? He opened his eyes, but the vision was fuzzy. He saw dark figures and blinking bright light. The headache squeezed him again, and his body tightened in a spasm to compensate. The green field where he had been about to land vanished again.

  Gibson, checking the pupils with a flashlight, thought Swanson would be coming around in a few minutes. It was only ten o’clock at night, so there was plenty of time to finish the email and make the calls.

  Rep. Keenan:

  Forwarding these pictures made today at secret CIA rendition house in the Afghan village of Girdiwal, the site of the drug airfield. This t
orture is the bloody hallmark of special operator Kyle Swanson. You must put a stop to this.

  He didn’t sign the note, but attached the grisly photographs in a slide-show format and sent them to Veronica Keenan in Washington. When the transmission had been completed, Gibson broke the burner phone apart, crushed the SIM card beneath his boot, and threw the pieces on the plastic sheet in which two of the men were wrapping the remains of Nicky Marks. “Take it all back into the mountains and burn it,” he ordered.

  Then he activated the sat phone and called the CIA contact in Germany. “Checkerboard, Checkerboard, this is Player Two.”

  Contact was instantaneous. Ryan Winters had been waiting for this call. “Player Two, this is Checkerboard. Send your traffic and stand by for new information.”

  “No time to wait, Checkerboard. Mission failed. Repeat, mission failed. Player One has gone berserk. Swanson tortured Nicky Marks to death and turned on me when I tried to stop him. Gunfight. I am hit and trying to egress. He is following me.”

  Winters was stunned. He was supposed to pass along the urgent instructions for Swanson to break off the mission because his partner might be unstable, and return to base on the double. This radio call from Gibson flipped everything. “Player Two, Checkerboard. Are you all right?”

  “Bleeding from a shoulder wound. I’m in cover for now. I need orders.” There was a moment of static, but before Winters could say anything, Gibson was talking again, louder and in a rush. “Gotta go! Gotta go! Aw, Jeez. He’s coming.…”

  Well, that should keep them busy for a while, Gibson thought as he turned off the sat phone and trashed it, too. Two of the men lugged Marks’s body out the door and tossed it into the bed of a pickup truck, then covered it with canvas, tying the corners. The Toyota pulled away from the house and headed away from civilization.