by Rick Jones
“I have a weapon on me,” said Kimball. “I don’t want any trouble.”
Suddenly the officers started to cry out with each man holding his weapon in a threatening manner, each yelling at Kimball to get on the ground, face first, arms spread.
Kimball nodded, got to one knee.
And then shots rang out.
#
Deveraux’s team were divided into three two-man units, with each unit maneuvering to positions along the perimeters of Kimball Hayden’s last known central position, where they would then push forward to pinch Kimball toward a point of no escape.
One two-man unit was manned by two former Rangers, both uniquely proficient in the field of the silent kill. Rodgers and Santomango had worked hotspots all over the world, most recently in Turkey where Syrian refugees were being vetted.
They were dressed for the Malta season—for nights that were warm and balmy. As they walked along the cobbled boulevards they spoke little. Each man was deeply involved with his search as heads turned while eyes scoped faces that were alien to them, hoping to spot the one that wasn’t.
To their left, perhaps fifty meters away, cries emanated from a narrow opening of an alleyway. First in Maltese, then in English. The cries were loud and commanding, many shouting out at once with a sense of urgency.
--Get on the ground!—
--Face first!—
--Arms spread!--
The suppressed weapons felt good at the small of the assassins’ backs.
And so the commands went on as a threatening mantra by the pulizija.
--Get on the ground!—
--Face first!—
--Arms spread!--
Santomango looked at Rodgers, whose eyes were focused to the mouth of the alleyway.
“Could be our boy,” Santomango offered. “It’s not too far from Hayden’s last known position.”
“Yeah . . . Maybe.”
They began to walk toward the alley.
#
“Get on the ground!”
“Face first!”
“Arms spread!”
“All right,” said Kimball, getting to a second knee. “Keep cool. I’m complying. No problem.”
As the officers continued to cry out demands and begin to close in on Hayden, the first officer’s head exploded like a melon as matter and red gore erupted everywhere. He went down quickly, his legs going boneless as he hit the pavement. The other officers turned with stunned disbelief, their eyes the size of communion wafers as two men came at them with leveled firearms.
Two more shots from Santomango, both loud spits.
. . . Phfttt . . .
. . . Phfttt . . .
Clean headshots, the rounds piercing one officer above the left eye, the other shot sheering off the top of the second officer’s skull.
The first officer stood for a moment as if deciding the fate of his mortality, and then he fell to the cobbled brickwork. The second officer was dead before he hit the ground.
Kimball was on his feet and backed into the recess, his weapon already in his hand.
Santomango and Rodgers pressed forward with their firearms directed at the opening.
Rodgers was on his lip mic. “Dev?”
“Yeah.”
“We’ve got eyes on the prize,” he said.
“Confirmation?”
“Affirmative. Lock onto our location.”
“Copy that.” The earpiece went silent.
Backup was on its way.
#
Hardcore assassins, Kimball considered, who were equally skilled with firearms.
He looked at the bodies of the police officers, felt for them. But like the priests, they had become expendable. The optimum task here was to keep Kimball Hayden out of the hands of the local authorities to ensure that no secrets came to light under interrogation.
The SAD assassins came closer, both men astute.
Kimball fell further into the recess, could feel the door pressing against his back, then tried the knob with his free hand, locked, nowhere else to go.
Thirty feet away and closing.
And then two muted rounds went off from Santomango’s gun, the bullets zipping into the recess and missing Kimball on both accounts. But not by much.
Kimball got to a knee, raised his weapon and fired off three shots. One bullet struck Santomango in the shoulder, the momentum of the impact spinning him around and bringing him to his knees. Santomango responded quickly, however. He pulled the trigger in quick succession, aiming his weapon high and then low, hoping to strike something within the shadows.
A single round clipped Kimball’s shoulder, grazing it, the furrow along his skin burning with white-hot pain.
Three more shots from Kimball’s gun.
. . . Phfttt . . .
. . . Phfttt . . .
. . . Phfttt . . .
All misses, but enough to drive Santomango from his stance and to cover.
Two more shots from Kimball as he stood.
One of the bullets skipped along the ground next to Rodgers as he tried to get to his feet and run to cover.
The other hit the wall next to Santomango’s head, the impact coughing up chips of stone.
With his gun directed at the two assassins, and cogent enough not to fire because his ammo was running low, Kimball took flight down the alley.
Night had fallen.
The shadows were deep and dark and long.
And Kimball became a part of them, a shape, something that was blacker than black.
Shots rang out after him, though he could not hear the muted gunfire. Tiny chips of the pavement erupted all around him, the shots close but not on target. And then he rounded the bend onto a well-lit avenue.
Though wounded and bleeding heavily from the shoulder, Santomango gave chase with Rodgers two strides behind him.
Kimball grunted against the pain of his own wound, sucked it up, and saw a man sitting on a smaller-sized motorcycle about twenty feet away talking to a woman.
Footfalls from behind, coming fast at a full sprint.
Kimball ran to the motorcyclist, apologized for what was to come next, and then he knocked the man clear. Jumping on and grabbing the throttle, Kimball revved the engine hard enough for the rear tire to spin viciously before it caught the pavement, fishtailed, and then leveled out before it sped to the east.
The man who had his vehicle appropriated got to his feet swearing in Maltese, the man shaking his fist soon after tossing his helmet in Kimball’s direction.
As Kimball pulled away, Rodgers and Santomango rounded the final bend with their weapons exposed, neither men caring who saw them.
Rodgers quickly got on his lip mic. “Dev?”
“We’re on our way.”
“Skip that. Target’s on a motorcycle heading east. He’s coming right at you.”
“Copy that,” said Deveraux. “Is he in the open?”
“That’s affirmative.”
Nothing more was said.
#
Kimball knew the Special Activities Division was closing in and wanted him dead. Worse, and something he was truly cognizant of, was the fact that he was running in view of the cameras through the streets of Valletta.
Where the hell are you, Leviticus?
#
“Base Command.” It was Deveraux.
Cooper spoke into his lip mic from the hotel room. The monitor was on with a VisageWare feed from Langley. “Go.”
“Target is open and heading west on a motorcycle from Team One’s coordinates. Can you get a fix?”
“Standby Team Two.”
Dill was manning the monitor so that several areas came up from several cameras in a grid pattern on one screen. In the center box was a large man navigating down a major lane through Valletta, going east. “He’s coming right at you, Team Two. About two clicks away.”
“Copy that.”
Then Kimball veered off path, going north and away from Deveraux. “Target is now heading
north. I repeat: target is heading north to the Warrens.”
The Warrens were notoriously narrow lanes created for people traffic that was out of the range of cameras.
“Team Three, do you copy?” asked Cooper.
“Team Three copies. Converging to intercept in the north.”
“Base Command, this is Team Two. We’re converging to intercept the target before he reaches the Warrens. Team Two will close by heading south. If we miss him, then Team Three will have him bottled up.”
“Copy that,” said Cooper. Then he stood back and watched the monitor with his arms folded across his chest.
From one screen to the next, Kimball Hayden was doing his best to lose the analytical eye of VisageWare, the man speeding towards the salvation of closed-in spaces and dark shadows.
So far he was losing the battle.
Chapter Twenty-Five
While Deveraux and his team were closing in for the kill, Ripper and Dill were on the westside of Valletta dealing with a man by the name of Carson Bates, a CIA operative who was responsible for the in-theater supervision of ‘Operation Incite.’
Bates was a vividly pale person with spindly-features and a stratospheric I.Q., which, though marginally, elicited marginal appreciation from Ripper, whereas Dill continued to expose his skinny range of emotions with neutral features.
The room Bates was occupying was a studio with a small kitchenette that was attached to a wall-less sleeping area and closed-in lavatory; approximately 350 square feet of living space.
Lying on the kitchenette table were two aluminum suitcases. In the first were three backpacks. In the second were three explosive devices.
“Everything’s set,” said Bates. He pointed to the explosives, all Semtex bricks with time-detonation fuses that were protected by Plexiglas encasements. Each brick had timing mechanisms that were in perfect synchronization with one another, the numbers counting down in red LED numerals.
Ripper had to question the security features since the timers had been activated and the numbers were counting down. “Are these safe to handle?” he asked.
Bates nodded. “Completely,” he said. “The units are idle. Once the primary timers reach zero, only then will the internal fuses activate. These devices cannot operate otherwise. As soon as the countdown reaches zero, secondary timers will trigger electrical impulses to ignite the devices in perfect harmony with one another. Three units will be strategically placed, one blast to achieve the means. All you have to do is place them.”
Ripper leaned over to get a better look at the plastique. He had been in the business for a while and knew the putty-like look of the explosive, as well as the devastating capability each brick contained.
Bates reached into the case, removed a single device, and showed Ripper its backside, which had a high-end adhesive for planting the unit securely against walls or beneath tables. “Strip away the tab,” he told him while mocking the removal of the tab from the adhesive. “And secure the device firmly to the point of its location.” Bates then made a gesture as if he was attaching the device to an imaginary wall. “Simple.” Then he abruptly returned the device into the case. “Questions about their operations?”
“No. Just the locations.”
Bates closed the lid. “There are three locations for positive effect at a single site.” After walking to a table where a scroll had been spread evenly across its surface with its four corners weighted down by cups to keep it flat, Bates beckoned Ripper and Dill to join him.
The map was an architectural schematic of the interior of St. John’s Co-Cathedral, including the nave, the transepts and the apse.
Bates used a red marker to draw Xs to pinpoint the planting of the devices. First, he drew an X at the altar. “Underneath,” he said simply. “This particular deployment will take care of the cleric.”
“You want me to take out a priest?” Ripper asked him while sounding diffident.
Bates turned on him. “Certain sacrifices of certain people establish positive effect.”
Ripper nodded. And then he watched Bates mark off points within the church’s nave. “Here you’ll find the pews,” he said. “You are to place the devices one hour before the service of the Mass, which is to take place at twelve noon during the height of the Santa Marija. You will place both devices in the center aisle. One goes underneath the bench in the tenth row, the other beneath the pew in the twentieth. The countdown mechanisms will do the rest. Once the secondary timer ignites the fuses, then all three units will go off simultaneously. The priest at the altar becomes a martyr. And the people sitting in the rows between ten and twenty will be killed because they’ll be caught within the radius of both blasts. Everyone outside the radius blast will become collateral damage or severely wounded.”
To Ripper, Bates appeared as a person who was ruthless and without soul, extremely cold on the surface and perhaps something like ice underneath.
“And if the devices fail to go off?” Ripper asked him.
“Then you set them off remotely,” he answered. “You’ll be wearing watches that are in sync with the timers of the explosives. Wait one minute, preferably well beyond the doors but close by, say the plaza out front. If the devices don’t activate, use the remote. It’ll send a frequency that will send a start-up sequence to the secondary timers. You’ll find the remotes inside the case.”
“And you said the devices are to be set when?”
“One hour before the Mass. Let no one see you.”
Bates nodded. Then he looked at the explosives whose timers counted down in red LED numerals: 19 hours, 23 minutes, 16 seconds.
Bates closed the lid and snapped the clasps into a locking position, then he gestured to the aluminum cases, the action saying: all yours.
Ripper grabbed the lighter of the two cases, the one with the backpacks, and signaled to Dill to take the one containing the Semtex.
“Anything else?” Ripper asked Bates.
Bates shook his head. “Nope. You’re good to go.”
Ripper exited the tiny apartment with Dill a few steps behind.
In Dill’s case the timers continued their countdown:
. . . 19:21:34 . . .
. . . 19:21:33 . . .
. . . 19:21:32 . . .
And Ripper knew he would have a difficult time sleeping with the devices so close to him, despite their safeguard features.
. . . 19:21:31 . . .
. . . 19:21:30 . . .
. . . 19:21:29 . . .
Chapter Twenty-Six
There was a single taxicab waiting in the cab queue when Deveraux and Cummings hailed the driver and told him to head east. After the driver drove for a period of three kilometers, Deveraux told him to pull over. As soon as he did, Deveraux raised his suppressed weapon to the back of the driver’s head and fired off two shots, the interior of the cab flaring up with double muzzle flashes.
After placing the body in the trunk of the vehicle, Deveraux got behind the wheel with Cummings taking the passenger seat, the operative giving his firearm a weapon’s check by sliding the rack and loading the chamber.
Deveraux tapped his lip mic. “Base Command.”
“Go.”
“We’re in vehicle mode and are presuming to head west from coordinates”—He checked the GPS numbers on his watch face—“six-five-four-point-six-seven-one.”
“That’s correct. Continue eastbound to six-five-three-point-two-six-six. The subject is three kilometers west of your position and closing fast.”
Deveraux pulled out into the street and gunned the vehicle, a small Citroën, and headed on an intercept course.
#
Kimball throttled the motorcycle hard enough for the landscape to pass him by in a blur.
Cameras seemed to be everywhere, something he never noticed before.
He raced down Triq ir Repubblika until he came to Triqit-Teatruil-Qadim. There he took a left and then a right onto Triq ir Merkanti, and then another right onto Triq San Gwann, which ev
entually took him back to Repubblika. He was winding his way through the streets hoping to throw off a tail with all the twists and turns, a tactical method to confuse.
But when he got back onto Repubblika, a Citroën entered from Triq Santa Lucija and fishtailed right behind Kimball, its tires squealing as it made the turn to hug the road.
Kimball looked in the mirror on his handle and saw a man on the passenger-side lean out of the window and take aim with a firearm. There was a quick burst, three shots, all muted, with one round striking the mirror and the other two missing.
Kimball swerved to the left, making himself a hard target to hit.
The man weaving.
Left, right, left, right, left, right.
The Citroën gathered speed and closed in.
Two more shots. One skipping off the ground to the right of Kimball’s bike, the other heading off to a point unknown.
Kimball reached for his weapon with his weak hand, his left hand. His injured shoulder was ablaze, his arm a lead weight, heavy and useless. With all the power he could salvage in his wounded arm, and with his right hand managing the throttle, Kimball swung around and sent off three shots: phfttt, phfttt, phfttt.
The Citroën’s windshield spotted in three places, all spider-web breaks. The Citroën weaved and overcorrected, the vehicle running up on the sidewalk and grazing an ornamental stone column. Sparks flew, danced and quickly died off as the driver’s side panel collapsed.
Kimball throttled the bike at full speed, pulling away.
Deveraux got back on track, the small car closing, but only by inches.
Cummings hung out of the window, took aim, and fired off three more shots.
Two of the rounds struck home. One hit the master cylinder and the other the clutch cover, the one hitting the clutch cover also affecting the clutch itself. The bike started to act squirrelly as the engine started to stutter and hitch. Its speed beginning to diminish.
The Citroën edged closer, the advantage theirs to take when speeds were at 105 miles per kilometer, or 65 miles per hour, with the bike slowing.