The tone of the attack was already changing as the ranch took its defensive toll, and Gibson knew the momentum had shifted. What had looked like an overwhelming force on the attack plan only moments ago was fizzling into disarray. There was another boom in the south, and he heard someone cry out. Breathing hard, he hunkered down beside another boulder to catch his breath. The pain in his lungs indicated that he’d probably been running dangerously hard for about a mile. He knew the trip-wire locations, but if he stumbled and broke a leg or ran into a tree the game would be over. “Hell it will,” he told himself, and a smile creased his face as he inhaled deeply and put down the weapon to take a drink. “This game is already over. I’m number one.”
“Hello, Luke,” a voice said softly in the darkness.
Gibson looked out in disbelief as a silhouette broke from the shadows and moved toward him at a lazy pace. Luke screamed and grabbed for his gun, and Kyle Swanson unloaded a blast of his own 12-guage, unleashing a swarm of miniature flechettes. Some of the needles broke on the rocks and shredded trail brush, but about a dozen punched through the clothing and skin of Luke Gibson with the power of a mad surgeon. He had never felt such searing pain, and he screamed as it immobilized him; the tiny syringes had been packed with enough chemicals to bring down a gorilla.
Swanson charged. The result was certain, but a few heart pumps were required for the drug to circulate to the brain and vital organs; until then, the victim would be able to resist. Swanson kicked Gibson in the ribs and sent him sprawling. “How you doin’ down there, Number One? You look like a porcupine.”
Gibson tried to crawl, but Swanson stomped on the back of his knee, then kicked the shotgun away as he reloaded his own weapon—a test model of the anti-personnel, multiple-projectile, remote drug-delivery system straight from the Excalibur laboratories. It was supposed to be nonlethal, but dosage was a still a problem. At the moment, Swanson didn’t care. He had been dropped off six miles from the house early this morning and found a hide on a ridge from which he could see most of the spread. When Gibson ran out, Swanson trotted up the trail behind him.
“You’re dead.” Gibson croaked as his energy evaporated. The bright cone of the helicopter light came back and painted a circle around them. “You’re dead!”
“Oh, go to sleep,” Swanson said. He punched Gibson hard in the temple as FBI black-clad fighters slithered down long ropes to the forest floor.
* * *
AN ANESTHESIOLOGIST AT THE Kalispell Regional Medical Center efficiently brought Luke Gibson back. The patient was secured to a hospital bed in a guarded part of the facility, where he had been flown while still unconscious. A doctor had plucked out the quills and closed the little wounds. Blood work had taken a while, because of the complex formula used as ammunition in the darts, but the recovery was relatively swift. Dose like that, delivered by a shotgun blast, could kill a man.
When Gibson finally became aware of his surroundings, he saw two women standing on each side of the bed. One was a nurse in pink scrubs who had a lousy bedside manner as she shook him awake. The second wore a brown uniform with blue shoulder flashes and a duty belt.
“Hey! Hey! Can you hear me?” the cop barked. She also gave him a shake. “Wake up.” Her voice was young but firm.
Gibson was irritated and still groggy, close to barfing. “Yeah. God damn it, I can hear you. Where’s Kyle?”
“I don’t know any Kyle,” she said. “My name is Danielle DeLaittre of the Montana Highway Patrol, assigned to District Five. Do you understand that?”
She came into better focus. Lean and muscle-toned, with a turtleneck sweater beneath her shirt, and looking very young. “How old are you?” he asked.
DeLaittre had been expecting such a comment. She had been briefed by her training officer to emphasize her lack of law-enforcement experience with the prisoner. The federal officials who had brought this guy in wanted him to be treated like a common criminal. “I’m twenty-five years old and a member of the most recent graduating class of the Montana Law Enforcement Academy. Before that, I worked my way through college by cleaning motel rooms and making sandwiches at a Subway over in Billings. Now, are you coherent?”
“You’re a damned rookie!”
“Lowest of the low, sir. They made me leave my .357 Sig outside because you’re some kind of bad dude. However, I consider you somewhat special because you’re my first arrest.”
“And I’m fresh out of nursing school,” chirped the nurse. Both cop and nurse grinned in amusement.
While Luke Gibson groaned at the intentional insult of being treated like pond scum, Danielle DeLaittre took a small card from her pocket. “I will now read you your rights,” she said.
BILLINGS, MONTANA
THE LAWYER FROM MANHATTAN looked out across the plains and felt nervous. This was cowboy-and-Indian country, and probably not a decent bagel within a hundred miles. He had flown out yesterday and spent the night in a hotel, hoping not to be scalped. As Leonard P. Flagler climbed the steps of the federal building, he felt that he was reaching the safety of a frontier fort, and put on his business face.
He presented his card and was ushered directly into the office of Melissa Jacob, an assistant U.S. Attorney in the Criminal Division for the District of Montana. She was an attractive woman, dressed in blue jeans and a flannel shirt, plus Western boots. No, this was not Manhattan.
She apologized for the casual look, but said it was a paperwork day for her, just to clean up some loose ends; she could have worked from home had she not made this appointment. She put on a pair of rimless glasses and read briefly from a file. “So you’re the attorney of record for Mr. Lucas Gibson?”
“I am.” He read the body language. This woman wasn’t cowed by his courtroom reputation. In fact, it looked as if this might be a short meeting.
“And Gibson wants to make a deal?”
“I visited with my client earlier today, and he is willing to become a fully cooperative government witness in a number of important investigations in exchange for…”
Melissa Jacob leaned back and crossed her arms. “Whoa up right there, Mr. Flagler. I’m afraid you’ve made a long trip from New York for nothing. There will be no deal. Period.”
Flagler felt a trickle of sweat on his back. He might be out in the badlands but he knew how to make prosecutors crawl. “That’s highly unlikely, Ms. Jacob.”
“Tell your client he does not have a single thing we want. Nothing at all. In fact, we’re finishing up the paperwork today, declaring him to be an enemy combatant and a national-security threat; he’ll be transferred into military custody. Any trial will be in secret, and he will not be allowed a civilian lawyer.”
“That’s preposterous, madam! On what charge?”
“I cannot tell you that because you do not have proper clearance for top-secret material. Just assume we start with treason and murder and work our way down. I suggest that you get your payment up front, Mr. Flagler, because we’re seizing all of Mr. Gibson’s assets as soon as possible.”
“He’s an American citizen and has constitutional rights!”
“Read the fine print in his employment contract with the CIA. Oh, sorry, you don’t have clearance for that, either.” Melissa Jacob came around the desk and extended her hand. “Look, Mr. Flagler, I’m doing you a favor here. I know your firm defends drug dealers and other such criminals, and everyone deserves a robust defense, but you do not want any part of Luke Gibson. We intend to bury him. Spend your time elsewhere.”
Flagler was being dismissed. He sputtered, “My client demands to confront his accuser, a man named Kyle Swanson.”
“Ain’t gonna happen,” she said. “Go tell your client what I said, and that he will be transferred tomorrow to the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, down in Kansas. His future after that is unknown. You will never see him again. Have a nice trip back to New York, Mr. Flagler. Thanks for dropping by.”
Epilogue
SWANSON AND GIB
SON NEVER met again. Gibson was convicted in a secret trial of the single charge of murdering fellow CIA contract worker Nicky Marks, a cover that kept intelligence issues off the table. He was on a long, slow, never-ending road to nowhere.
The man whose reputation meant everything to him was ruined. Guards were ordered not to speak to him except to give orders. He was allowed one hour a day in an exercise area, alone, then back to his small single cell. His bed was made up at eight o’clock in the morning, and he was not allowed to sit or lie on it until nine that night. There was a single chair and a steel desk bolted to the wall. A steel commode and a small sink was in a corner. His only visitors were occasional federal investigators, never senior in rank or experience, who practiced their interrogation skills on him concerning various things. The information the government had gleaned from the one-time friends of the Prince, who had been tracked down through a drug lord and a careful perusal of his family history, had brought down a dozen major criminal enterprises and rolled up the few rogues inside the CIA, and the investigations were ongoing. The result was that Luke Gibson became a practice dummy for trainees to question; always men, never women. After a few years, even they stopped coming.
ABOARD THE VAGABOND
A BABY SNUFFLED INTO a cry and was swept up into the protecting arms of its grandmother, Lady Patricia Cornwell. Kyle Swanson and Beth Ledford were married a year after the death of her first husband, with the blessing of Mickey’s mother.
Lady Pat had been planning Kyle’s wedding for years, just waiting for him to settle down enough to pick a bride, and Coastie was a darling. But the plans went for naught when the bride and the groom threatened to run off to Las Vegas and be married by an Elvis impersonator if Lady Pat didn’t calm down. The ceremony was held not in a castle or a cathedral but on a private, rustic estate in Maryland, with a few intimate friends. The ceremony was performed by the president of the United States, Christopher Thompson, who had lent the couple his Camp David retreat for a few days as a token of respect for their unspecified services to the country.
The baby arrived ten months later, and was named Jeffrey Michael Swanson, and soon was given the nickname Rocky, because he often punched out with his rolled fists. Lady Pat couldn’t keep her hands off him. She had thought these precious moments would never come.
“Oh, DO give the lad some breathing space, Patricia,” Sir Jeff said over the rim of a glass gin and tonic. “You don’t need to come running every time he burps.”
The yacht was cruising off the Azores, and the family was enjoying the scenery and the calm waters. A baby who cried now and then was the only emergency, and a full-time British nanny was in attendance.
Coastie kept both of the older women within hailing distance where anything to do with the child was concerned. They could play with him and change his diapers and feed him stewed carrots, but she was his mother, and made certain there was no question about that. She and Lady Pat had gone toe to toe a couple of times before the issue was settled and ended in hugs.
Kyle drank from a bottle of beer, leaning back against the rail on an upper deck, facing Sir Jeff. Coastie, Lady Pat, and Rocky were below decks, and the ship’s crew had everything running like clockwork. There was no emergency in his life. Not a single one. A three-legged German shepherd basked in the bright sun.
“I know that you dislike the idea, dear boy, but Mommy and Daddy simply cannot continue running around being assassins anymore,” Sir Jeff said, continuing an argument that had been ongoing for months. Coastie and Lady Pat agreed with the new grandfather. Kyle was still unsure.
“It’s the only thing I really know,” he said, and it sounded lame even to him.
“Time to get off the helicopter, lad,” Sir Jeff replied. “It comes to us all. Your new job is to get home safe and sound to your family at night.”
“You just want to retire. Lazy old man.”
“You’re dead right about that. A wise fellow once asked me, ‘After your make your first dollar, read your first good book, have your first adventure, and make love to your first woman, what do you do next?’”
“And the mysterious answer is?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet, Kyle. But I’m working on it. We’ve built an empire, you and I, a couple of tired old soldiers who had a bit of luck. Then we both snared a couple of exceptional and beautiful women. We’ve served our nations well, and can continue to do so, just not on the front lines or sneaking around with Excalibur sniper rifles and that sort of thing.”
The plan that had taken form was for Sir Jeff to retire and for Kyle to assume the job of president and chief executive officer for Excalibur Enterprises. Janna would run the North American operations from Washington, and Kyle would live in London and handle the U.K., NATO, and Europe. Money would never be a problem. Not a bad way to handle middle age, Kyle decided.
What disturbed him was the thought that he would be retreating from a world in trouble. Evil was still out there, and always would be, and it needed to be confronted and fought. He was just unsure whether, sitting behind a big desk, he could still get that rush of finding a good hide and bringing a bad guy into the crosshairs. Coastie had already made the transition; the instincts of a killer had been drowned by love for her family. She would never go back.
Coastie came on deck, and the breeze hugged a light sundress to her figure and blew her golden hair over a tanned shoulder. In her arms was Rocky, clucking and flailing, while Grandma Pat, trailing behind, warned that the child would catch its death out there in the breeze.
Kyle knew the argument was over. It made sense to at least give it a try. He gathered his wife and child into his arms. His son punched him softly. “Good left hook, kid. You’re going to be a great marine.”
ALSO BY JACK COUGHLIN
NONFICTION
Shooter: The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper
(with Capt. Casey Kuhlman and Donald A. Davis)
Shock Factor: American Snipers in the War on Terror
FICTION
Kill Zone (with Donald A. Davis)
Dead Shot (with Donald A. Davis)
Clean Kill (with Donald A. Davis)
An Act of Treason (with Donald A. Davis)
Running the Maze (with Donald A. Davis)
Time to Kill (with Donald A. Davis)
On Scope (with Donald A. Davis)
Night of the Cobra (with Donald A. Davis)
Long Shot (with Donald A. Davis)
ALSO BY DONALD A. DAVIS
Lightning Strike
The Last Man on the Moon (with Gene Cernan)
Dark Waters (with Lee Vyborny)
About the Authors
GUNNERY SERGEANT JACK COUGHLIN, USMC (Ret.), was with the Third Battalion, Fourth Marines, during the drive to Baghdad and has operated on a wide range of assignments in hotspots around the world. You can sign up for email updates here.
Photograph by Dave Eckenberg/Tumbleweed Photos/Yucca Valley
DONALD A. DAVIS is the author of twenty-seven books, including multiple New York Times bestsellers. You can sign up for email updates here.
Photograph by Robin Murphy Davis
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
> Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
Also by Jack Coughlin and Donald A. Davis
About the Authors
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously.
IN THE CROSSHAIRS. Copyright © 2017 by Jack Coughlin with Donald A. Davis. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Jerry Todd
Cover photograph © getmilitaryphoto / Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-10353-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-10355-0 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250103550
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact your local bookseller or the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].
In the Crosshairs: A Sniper Novel Page 28