Kill Zone

by Jack Coughlin; Donald A. Davis

  “Hell, no! These birds collided, fell down, and everybody died but one. End of story.”

  “I understand that. But in the very moments immediately after the accident, time stands still. The normal tendency of spectators to a disaster watching is to freeze where they stand, giving time for brain and body to cooperate, and even more time passed before people approached because the ammunition and fuel were exploding and burning hot. That is the reaction of a normal person, not a highly trained military professional. Several minutes passed, time enough for such a soldier to accomplish any number of things, and smoke and fire covered his escape. Therefore, your conclusion was only an educated guess, not much more than an assumption. Am I correct?”

  “Then it was a damned good guess, Major. Sometimes things are exactly as simple as they appear. He was a young guy who took off, looking for safety.”

  “I disagree. Our helicopters and trucks have thoroughly combed the area between here and the Israeli border. Beyond the assault at the checkpoint, they have not found a trace of the man, nor of his motorcycle. Not even tracks.”

  “So he got lost in the desert. Big deal. He’s dead no matter how you cut it.”

  They walked back toward the waiting armored personnel carriers. “I should have wanted more proof before reaching such a conclusion myself.”

  “Yeah. Right. So, then, what’s your idea?”

  Al-Shoum grimaced. “Bluntly put, Mr. Logan, you fucked up. You were the experienced military advisor on the scene and everything depended on your assessment. I think this Marine wanted everyone to believe he was a youthful radioman so they would consider him rather harmless, just as you have done, and not look too hard for him. I agree that we are facing only one man, but in my judgment, he obviously is a rather formidable opponent who has played you for a fool.”

  Logan wanted to pound the little Syrian Army officer on the head, grind the little shrimp beneath his boots. But he did nothing because they were surrounded by armed soldiers who were watching him closely. “Then who is he, and where is he?”

  Before Logan could answer, a tremendous detonation rocked the village of Sa’ahn behind them as the house of the jihadists exploded. A column of fire shot into the black sky. The concussion rolled across the desert and shook the heavy BTR carriers on their tires. Everyone turned to watch, fascinated, frozen in place.

  Al-Shoum recovered and sighed aloud. “I do not yet know the name of the Marine who escaped this crash, sir, for it is not the one you reported. But I do know where he is. He is right over there.” The major pointed toward the fire and moved back toward his command vehicle.

  “We will return to the village now, Mr. Logan. Unless I am gravely mistaken, you will find that your prisoner is gone. My country has been placed in a quite uncomfortable diplomatic position due to your stupidity and arrogance. Consider yourself under arrest.” He motioned to his soldiers. “Take his weapons.”

  Victor Logan knew he was in shit up to his eyeballs. If he remained in custody, Gates Global would toss him to the wolves because the kidnapping had gone sideways. The little Syrian asshole was right; Vic had been in charge all the way. He and Jimbo would be disappeared, and he would never touch that pot of gold waiting for them.

  The Syrians searched him thoroughly and stripped off all of his weapons, including the hidden boot knife. They had been well trained in that little science, which indicated that they were not common enlisted men, and he could expect them to be just as professional in other things, such as shooting a prisoner who tried to run away.

  The best time to escape would be within the first few minutes, before the captors could lock him up tight and establish total control. But that damned explosion had heightened their alertness. They roughly pushed him aboard the carrier, leaving him untied so he could crawl inside. Which meant his hands would still be free when he got out. He still had a chance. An opportunity popped into his mind.

  But even if he escaped from these dudes, where would he go and how would he get there? One thing at a time, Vic. Get out of this mess first.

  He was jerked back against the small seat as the big vehicle lurched forward and turned around to head to the village. Logan kept his hands clasped in his lap, a picture of cooperation, the temporary victim of a misunderstanding between friends.

  “Say there, Major?” he shouted over the sound of the engine.

  Yousif Al-Shoum looked back at him from a front seat. Said nothing.

  “My computer, back at the house. I think you’ll be interested in some of the things I can do for you.”

  “Such as what, Mr. Logan? I can access as many computers as I need.”

  “But mine can get real-time American satellite imagery. I make a call on my sat phone, we’re uplinked in half an hour. How’s that?”

  The major nodded his head and turned around again. “Hmmm,” he said.

  Logan did not really have access to those satellites, which were so deep within U.S. government security that they were well beyond even the reach of Gordon Gates. But the major did not have to know that, and Logan believed that by tossing out the satellite idea as bait, he had bought a few more minutes. The inference was that Logan had to be kept alive in order to obtain this help, thus bringing value to his life. They would keep his hands free if he had to work on the keyboard.

  So when they walked through the door of the small house, it would be normal to have his hands raised slightly above his head, as if in surrender. He would grab the loaded AK-47 hidden above the door, spray the guards, and hope that Collins would be able to take down a few. Or they could at least force a standoff, with the soldiers still outside the house but with the little major inside as a hostage, with a rifle in his ear. Then Vic could deal on better terms. It is always better to negotiate from strength.

  Then a second huge explosion flashed. The gunner on the Zeus had opened fire on the fleeing white truck, and the booby-trapped big gun blew to pieces when the bullets hit the C-4 explosives Kyle had stuffed down the barrels. Cases of ammunition then detonated around it with mighty stutters and new flames billowed up. Logan did not know what this one was, either, and the surprise was plain on his face. The little major turned again and stared at him with total disgust.

  CHAPTER 43

  SOME DIFFICULTY? GERALD, we have quite a bit more than that,” Gordon Gates said after Buchanan briefed him. “You have let things go astray. I would have thought better of you.”

  “It will be brought under control soon, Gordon,” Buchanan promised stiffly, feeling the back of his neck redden in embarrassment and anger. “I just wanted to keep you abreast of what was happening.” He did not like being insulted, and did not miss the careful wording from Gates that this was a problem created by Gerald Buchanan. They were in this together! Was Gates distancing himself and his company from the national security advisor?

  Buchanan took a deep breath to keep his voice calm, as if they were talking about the weather in Aspen rather than creating a constitutional crisis. “I think it would be good if you and I and Senator Reed meet and discuss our options.”

  Gordon Gates laughed, a cold sound that disturbed Buchanan’s false calm. “Out of the question. You tell me you have things under control, so I shall accept your statement as fact. When you resolve your little ‘problem,’ Gerald, then we will get together.”

  Buchanan rocked back against his chair. “But, Gordon, I need your help!”

  “Don’t be a stupid ass. You are putting thousands of your Junior G-Men all over this situation and there is no telling what they are going to do or uncover in their zest for carrying out your orders. If some eager beaver government cop stumbles onto the truth, then we will have a real problem. Isolate these people, Gerald, and take care of them. You’ve got Patriot Act IV, that Homeland Security Department, and every imaginable legal power you need. Damn, the attorney general would give you retroactive authority if you ask. You are above the law! How much more do you fucking need?”

  “You won’t help?”
>
  “You do not need to know what I will or will not do.” There was another long pause.

  Buchanan could almost envision the lean face of Gordon Gates concentrating in thought. It was not the face of a businessman, but that of a killer.

  Gates spoke. “You must convince the President to increase the threat level up to Red immediately. Make up some excuse tied to the Syrian situation or better yet, change the conditions of the entire argument. North Korea plans another nuclear test. Iran is gathering forces on the border of Iraq. Maybe a rogue Mexican Army unit plans to tear down part of the border fence. Use your imagination. Something international to make everyone look the other way and give us more cover. I give us no more than twenty-four hours.”

  “Twenty-four hours?”

  “Yes. If that sniper brings General Middleton out of Syria alive, this whole thing will blow up in our faces. Middleton must be stopped, as well as all four of the other people who know about your order. You must get to them. Understand this, Gerald, everything is at risk here. Everything!”

  “I can do it. I already have the machinery moving,” Buchanan said.

  Gates was thinking far ahead of him. “We’re almost out of time. Once you get the red alert in full force, and homeland protection is at its maximum, I will signal my Shark Teams to prepare Operation Premier with terrorist attacks on multiplex theaters in Houston, Kansas City, Atlanta, and San Diego. They will be in position for simultaneous strikes within two days. Then some schools will be hit during the following week, and the shopping malls. Every day there will be something new until this country finally wakes up and realizes the military and police services and the civilian leadership, as currently constructed, are unable to protect them. Sad, but true.”

  “I see. Can we avoid significant casualties?”

  Gates exhaled in frustration. “Don’t be thick, Gerald. It is only when we sustain major civilian losses that this country will finally turn in the direction it needs to go. It cannot move that way now because of that old piece of paper called the Constitution. When television sets across the land show horrific pictures of thousands of dead Americans—many more than 9/11—including a lot of kids, for hour after hour, day after day, you just make sure you have the Declaration of Martial Law ready, as well as your new draft constitution.”

  “Very well.” Buchanan was sweating.

  “Now buck up, Gerald, old boy. Do your job and you will be running the United States of America in a couple of weeks. The clock is ticking. I look forward to talking with you after you have sewed up these loose ends. Meanwhile, you give me every scrap of information you have on those people. Maybe there are some ways I can help after all.” He terminated the call.

  Only then did Gordon Gates let his anger show. He threw a delicate bowl of blue glass made in Venice against a wall. It shattered, and he yelled aloud, “Buchanan, you goddam fuckup!” Buchanan didn’t have the balls or the smarts to take out those four people, because he had never lived in the dark world of spies and special operators. I have to clean up your shit! You are weak! Gates poured a stiff Scotch and took a deep drink as he stared out the window at the lake behind his home. Then he activated a special communications device on his desk and prepared to send encrypted messages to some of the Shark Teams. Some would independently be sent to hunt down the four people who had become threats.

  He had come too far, planned too much, and spent too much money to let an incompetent bureaucrat like Buchanan screw things up. Operation Premier would go forward, and faceless terrorists would be blamed for the tragic attacks.

  He knew the idea of staging false attacks was not original. The Pentagon had seriously considered the tactic back in the 1960s to whip up a frenzy for an invasion of Cuba—shooting down a moon rocket and an airliner, hitting some civilian targets, and killing important officials, blaming it all on Castro. But President Kennedy intervened and trashed those plans. Gates had studied the scheme in detail at the War College, and thought it might have merit in the modern world. This time, he would run it privately so no governmental leadership could block the attacks.

  The United States would cry out for someone who could stop the fighting and erase the fear but still guarantee rights for a free people, within reason. Who better to step in and bring order out of chaos than a decorated war hero, a proven patriot, who was at the helm of the world’s largest private security company?

  First, he had to clean up Buchanan’s mess, including that sniper in Syria.

  CHAPTER 44

  AS SOON AS KYLE SWANSON saw the headlights of the troop carriers begin to move away from the crash scene, he swerved the pickup truck off the road to the right and down into a wadi that spread into a cultivated field. He stopped beside a thick stand of trees and brush and turned off the motor. The dust the truck had kicked up settled to the road, leaving no trace of their passing.

  General Middleton whispered, “What are you doing? Get the hell out of here.”

  Swanson held up a finger to silence him. Within thirty seconds, the two big armored personnel carriers roared past, heading back to the village where ammo was still crackling in the two separate fires.

  Kyle jumped out, dug through his pack, and grabbed a claymore mine bandoleer. Middleton still wanted to move out. “What are you going to do now? Get back behind the wheel! Let’s go!”

  “I’m going to plant a claymore out on the road,” Swanson said as he swung the bandoleer over his shoulder.

  “A claymore won’t destroy a BTR-80, Gunnery Sergeant Swanson.”

  “No shit, Brigadier General Middleton,” Swanson shot back. “But the next vehicle moving down the road will probably be one of those BTRs coming after us. With any luck the claymore can puncture the tires, maybe even the gas tank, and also take out whoever has their heads above the armor. The other BTR will stop because they will be worried about an ambush or another booby trap.”

  “Think, Swanson! It’s a waste of time. The other one will just swing around the wreck and keep going.”

  “No, dammit, you think! It will take me three minutes to plant this thing, with the trip wire. When the first BTR is hit, even if it is not disabled, they will stop to sort things out. That will mean at least a ten-minute delay. Do the math, general. We get a net gain of at least seven extra minutes… that is, if you will shut the fuck up and let me get on with my job.”

  Kyle scrambled up the incline of the wadi and opened the claymore kit bandoleer. He loved these things, and his fingers worked fast as he checked off the familiar equipment—the powerful M18A1 mine, the M57 firing device, the M40 test set, the spool with a hundred feet of firing wire, the electrical blasting cap, insulation tape, and two wooden stakes. The whole deadly thing in a single handy package.

  The Germans in World War II had invented the concept of a mine with a concave surface that would be capable of slinging a solid slab of steel through the armor of an enemy tank. By Vietnam, almost every American infantryman carried the modern lightweight version of the claymore, which was an inch and a half thick and packed with C-4 explosive and 700 steel balls that could devastate enemy personnel and take out thin-skinned vehicles. Swanson considered it the perfect ambush and perimeter defense tool. The trick was to remember how to place it correctly. It had not been named the claymore for nothing, because like its namesake, the ancient Scottish broadsword, it could cut both ways. The soldier setting it off with the clacker had to be at least about twenty yards behind it and under cover because of the back-blast. Embossed on the lethal side of the olive-drab casing was the reminder, FRONT TOWARD ENEMY.

  Swanson braced the mine solidly into the dirt with its built-in spikes, stretched the trip wire low across the road, about four inches above the surface, and tied it off to one of the stakes. He ran a quick circuit test and stacked some brush and twigs over the mine. He was counting on the darkness, and the Syrians not expecting to be hit. When the BTR ran over the trip wire, those hundreds of steel balls would blow out up to a height of six feet and in a 60-
degree arc, with a casualty reach of up to 330 feet.

  He hurried back to the pickup, restarted it, and threw it into low gear. They crashed through the brush and up the side of the wadi, back to the road on the far side of the mine.

  “What if a civilian vehicle comes along first?” asked Middleton.

  “Jesus, you’re a worrywart,” snapped Swanson. “You want me to go back and put up a warning sign? With so much stuff going on, the civilians are staying put. And if it happens, it happens. But it won’t.” He was already tired of Middleton and they had a hundred miles to go.

  They sped along in silence with the lights off, and Kyle eyed the familiar surroundings through his NVGs.

  Middleton seemed to relax a bit. “They still call you ‘Shake’?”

  “Don’t start that shit on me now, General. We can argue later. Right now, I’m sort of busy.” Swanson removed his foot from the accelerator and let the truck coast to a stop without touching the brake.

  “Now what?” Middleton shifted in his seat, picking up the Kalashnikov.

  “There’s a checkpoint up ahead, about a kilometer.”

  “How do you know? Can you see it from here?”

  “No, but I’ve already taken it out once,” Swanson said. “On the way in.” He climbed into the bed of the truck.

  “So we’re going to do it again?” the general asked through the small window behind the passenger compartment. “How?”

  “With Excalibur.” He unfastened the protective drag bag and removed the long sniper rifle.

  “It’s too dark and too far away,” Middleton protested. “You can’t hit them from here no matter how good you think you are. All you’re going to do is alert them and give them time to radio for help.”

  Kyle adjusted Excalibur and racked a round into the firing chamber, then threw his pack on the cab of the truck and pressed a groove in it to use it as a steady platform. He took off the NVGs and clicked on the scope, dialing it to night vision. The scene lit up almost like daylight as the sensors grabbed every available source of light and heat and amplified them, and then the computer enhanced the forms it saw.