Kill Zone

by Jack Coughlin

The morning grew brighter and the allied planes circled like fast vultures to pounce on the exposed Iraqis. Kyle’s world shook and burned as bombs rocked the city, and the artillery punished the Iraqi infantry troops who had taken cover in some of the same buildings in which the Marine observers were hidden.

  Finally, U.S. and coalition ground troops and armor showed up. A Saudi National Guard unit was allowed to roll into the town first, for symbolic reasons, but the big chase was conducted by a Marine light recon battalion that roared through the broken town like it was Saturday afternoon at the Daytona Speedway. TOW missiles and 25 mm Bushmaster cannons obliterated any Iraqi vehicles that were too slow.

  Kyle and his spotter climbed from their hide like filthy moles, covered with dirt and debris. Only then did he realize that a big splinter had punched into his left bicep. Blood stained his uniform. He had been too busy, and the adrenaline was pumping too hard, to notice when it happened.

  A medic yanked out the splinter, cleaned the puncture, and tied on a quick bandage. “You’ll get another Purple Heart for that one, Sar’nt,” the medic said.

  “Forget it,” Kyle responded, rubbing the sharp piece of wood, about three inches long, between his fingers, then tossing it away. “Ain’t worth nothing.”

  As the other teams emerged, similarly battered and bruised, Kyle walked off to get some water and find a quiet place to be alone.

  It was part of his routine that let his mind disengage from the combat mode and come back into the real world. He found a cool, dark room in one of the empty houses and sat down as his body began to quiver. He thought of that big gaping hole he had blown in the throat of the first officer. Of the infantryman who believed he was safe behind a wall until Kyle shot out his liver in splash of blood. Of the driver of the armored personnel carrier who popped out of his hatch and caught Kyle’s bullet through the left eye. Sights of inflicted death paraded before him, and he knew that in future months, those Iraqis would visit in his dreams. Kyle Swanson, exhausted, curled into a fetal position and grabbed his knees tightly while his mind dealt with the carnage of his trigger finger. Tears streaked the dirt on his cheeks.

  A hand touched him on the back. “S’arnt Swanson? You hit?” A Marine major had found him, saw the bloody shirt, and thought he was wounded.

  Kyle relaxed. His eyes were still unfocused. “No, sir. I’m okay.” He swiped a hand across his dirty face, the sweat and tears leaving muddy tracks. “Just catching my breath. It got kinda intense out there.”

  It took a few moments for Kyle to recognize the face of Major Bradley Middleton, the executive officer of the Force Recon battalion. The major was a veteran but had little experience with snipers, and had never seen one personally deal with the aftermath of a day of battle. Ordinary soldiers shoot almost anonymously and seldom see what they hit. Pilots never view the bodies blown away by their bombs, and tankers have limited visibility. But with a powerful scope, a sniper sees every strand of hair in an enemy mustache, the color of an eye and the movement of a finger. They also see the gory holes they make in a man, and after the battle is over, that has to be dealt with. Every sniper has his own way of adjusting.

  Kyle told his shooters when they were in training, “We have to be peculiar, or we wouldn’t be snipers in the first place. None of us do what we have to do simply because we enjoy killing people. That would be crazy.” Some, the lucky ones, would just get drunk and wash away the images with beer and whiskey. Nightmares and divorces were common. Others would be gripped by unreasoning anger and fight whoever came along and end up in the brig. Kyle’s own habit was to shake and bake a little bit and be done with it.

  Middleton just squatted there beside him, mystified at the quaking Marine sniper. He had invaded Kyle Swanson’s private world uninvited, and after a minute he rose and walked back into the sunshine and left Swanson alone.

  Neither of them forgot the incident. Then Middleton saw him do it again after a brawl in Somalia, by which time Swanson was a staff sergeant and Middleton had risen to light colonel. Middleton considered the continued strange behavior to be important and gave Kyle a negative evaluation report. “Shaky,” he wrote of Swanson in an evaluation report, by which he meant undependable, unworthy, and unreliable. He recommended that Swanson undergo psychiatric evaluation and be retired from the Marine Corps because he was a walking time bomb. Who in their right mind would want a shaky sniper around?

  Kyle had come within an inch of being ruined until other officers and senior enlisted types jumped to his defense and forced the potentially career-ending piece of paper to be withdrawn. But the term “shaky” leaked out and his fellow snipers loved it, for they gave no quarter in busting balls. “Shake” stuck, an unwanted nickname.

  As he watched the news report aboard the Vagabond that Brigadier General Middleton had been taken hostage, Kyle felt conflicting emotions. It made him angry because he hated that kidnapping shit. Terrorist assholes could not just go around snatching American generals or anyone else without consequences. That anger was on principle alone.

  Personally, the moment also made him proud to be an American, because he knew the United States had a firm policy of never bargaining with terrorists. Well, almost never. So there would be no deals made to get the general back. Kyle believed that the unwritten rule book on international terrorism was very clear on that point.

  Therefore, now that terrorists actually had taken Middleton, Kyle reasoned that they had to keep him. That was just fine with the sniper.

  CHAPTER 12

  TWO OLD MEN LEANED UPON the railing of the bridge on which the Boulevard de la Gare crossed the Seine. Clouds had rolled in to chase the sun and a chilly afternoon breeze swept up the river, warning of coming rain. Sweaters protected their shoulders. Automobiles swarmed behind them on the roadway, and trains clattered into and out of the Gare de Lyon and the Gare d’Austerlitz stations on either side of the river. It would have been impossible for either to have been followed by someone without being seen, and the noise drowned out their soft voices.

  They had been competitors, enemies, partners, allies, and opposing spies in their younger years. After retirement, both stayed in Paris and a friendship followed. It was enjoyable to pass the time talking about the good old days of the Cold War over cups of hot café, particularly since they could now laugh at the absurdity of six decades of spying for the United States and France.

  Buzz Higbee had grown up in the Minnesota woods and could have returned to the U.S. of A., but found the thought of retiring to a cabin beside a lonely lake that was frozen half the year to be unattractive. He had lived most of his adult life in Paris, and his wife, children, and grandchildren were all French. Minnesota had become the foreign land. He was a healthy eighty-two years old, with white hair, weak blue eyes, high blood pressure, and a hearing aid.

  Higbee had ventured out today to meet Jean-Paul Delmas, who was only eighty. Delmas walked with the help of a cane, but his intellect remained sharp and since his spy days he had devoted himself to an extensive collection of rare stamps. Buzz called him “the Kid.”

  “This is rather delicate,” Delmas told Higbee.

  “Merde, Jean-Paul. Where our two countries are involved, what is not rather delicate?”

  “It is true. But I was quite pleased when your people in Washington changed the name of French Fries to Freedom Fries. What awful things you Americans have done to food.”

  “I’m glad that we were able to please the republic in our own little way, Kid, but that was bullshit and anyway, they changed the name back. You eat them, too, but with a Frenchified name. Pommes frites”

  “Entirely different.”

  “Same thing. Now why are two over-the-hill spooks like us meeting clandestinely? Everybody knows who we are, what we were, and that we hang out together. My landlady calls me the ‘old American spy who lives upstairs in 2B.’”

  Delmas laughed and looked down at the fast-moving dark water. “Which is why we have such excellent cover, no? No one woul
d suspect that we had any worthwhile missions left in us.”

  “They may be right. How are you doing?” Higbee knew that Delmas had undergone chemotherapy for lung cancer.

  “It may be coming back.”

  “Jesus. Sorry to hear that, my friend.”

  Delmas shrugged. “Life. Death.” His wife had died twelve years ago, and the way he spoke those words showed that he no longer cared about living or dying, and probably would choose death if it meant a chance to reunite with his love. He turned in a circle, as if watching a passing pigeon, but checking to be sure no one was loitering nearby. “I have been asked to give you something to relay to your former masters at Langley. My people wanted to keep this affair as back-channel as possible, and nothing can possibly be any more back-channel than you and me.”

  Even when governments are locked in extreme disagreements over international policy, sometimes even while at war, their intelligence services maintain unofficial contacts. Such was the case with the current strain between Paris and Washington. The French could not afford to be seen as helping the Americans in the Middle East, so passing an urgent and sensitive message was better done through very unofficial means.

  Buzz put on his CIA game face for the first time in many years. It felt good. Jean-Paul had been an agent with Le Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage (SDECE) back in the dirty days of Algeria, and since 1982 with its successor, the Directorate of External Security. He was retired over his protests.

  A crash of thunder rolled over the city, and raindrops began to fall from the churning, slate gray sky, speckling the bridge. In unison, they raised black umbrellas.

  “It is your missing general. You heard about him? This Middleton?”

  “Been all over the television. Yeah. What about him?”

  “As you know, we depend heavily upon human intelligence sources, where you Americans rely more on technology. We don’t have your capability in that field, but we have been growing agents in Africa and the Middle East for better than a century.”

  “Tell me about it. If somebody was about to fuck a sheep in Algiers, you knew about it before the sheep did.” They both laughed. The rain fell steadily, lightly.

  “Buzz, the Directorate has been contacted by one of our people, a former soldier in the Foreign Legion. He now lives in southern Syria, travels all around the area for us, and he saw your general being taken into a house in a village called Sa’ahn. The general appeared unconscious, but our man recognized that distinctive Marine uniform.”

  “Whoa, partner. You have a man on the fucking scene?”

  Jean-Paul reached into the pocket of his sweater and pulled out an envelope. “Oui. Here is his name, photograph, and the location of the village and the house he maintains there. I am authorized to tell you that the Directorate persuaded him to stay where he is to help guide any rescue effort, and to point out the house where the general is being held. You’ll have to pay him some money, of course. Probably a lot of money. He wants a million dollars, U.S.”

  “Damn. Just a mil? He’ll have to buy a couple of new camels to carry all the gold they will give him to get Middleton back safe.” Buzz Higbee put the envelope in a deep sweater pocket. “How does Washington contact this asset if they want to do something?”

  “Get a quiet message to our military attaché in Washington. Paris will pass it on through a coded microburst transmission to the asset.”

  “Sounds almost too good to be true, Jean-Paul, which means it probably isn’t. What’s the catch?”

  “I considered that and asked about it. There is nothing that we know of,” the Frenchman said. “Nobody wants to see still another flareup in that region. This isn’t Iraq, and Paris is more than willing to work with Washington on the problem. So I believe the only downside, as you say, is that you are now in my personal debt. I demand a lunch.”

  “Anywhere you want, and make it somewhere expensive. CIA is buying.”

  Jean-Paul smiled. “I was hoping you would say that. I will call you in the morning to name a place. Tell Marie that I send my love.”

  They shook hands and parted, heading toward opposite ends of the bridge, hurrying to reach shelter before the storm broke.

  CHAPTER 13

  THE CIA REPRESENTATIVE AT the meeting of the National Security Council wore a private, satisfied smile. He had something that would get Buchanan off his ass. CIA tapped the keys on a laptop computer and the photograph of a middle-aged man with dark hair and a thick brushy mustache flashed onto one of the wall screens. “His name was Pierre Falais when he served in the Foreign Legion. He became a Muslim after his enlistment was up and took the name of Abu Mohammed. Father was French, mother Algerian. Studied to be an engineer in France, but gave it up, did the military stint, and then moved to Syria in about 1985 and worked as a skilled carpenter. Injured in a fall from a ladder and couldn’t do the high work anymore, so he moved to this village and set up shop. Does a little carpentry, a little farming, and a lot of spying for the French.”

  “Why should we trust the French on this?” asked National Security Advisor Gerald Buchanan.

  “They controlled the area for years in the colonial times, and French roots run deep there. The information was given to us through a totally reliable channel, Mr. Buchanan. Our own contact agent is retired, but has known his French counterpart for many years. He believes the information is valid.” CIA stopped briefly to consider his next words. “Paris has done an extremely rare, timely, and thorough breakout on this guy for us.”

  “So this Abu Mohammed actually saw General Middleton and knows precisely where he is being held?”

  “We consider the information to be accurate as of this moment. It could change at any time.” CIA replaced the large photograph with a map, satellite imagery of a small town just to the east of the rugged Mount Druz. It was only a couple of streets and blocky buildings. “This is where the informant claims Middleton is being held… right… here.” He tapped a key and a red circle blinked around one of the small buildings near the edge of town.

  Buchanan tapped his fingers against his pursed lips. “Anyone care to comment?”

  The table remained silent for a few moments as he watched them all carefully. Finally, the woman from State gathered her nerve. “I’m uncomfortable with it.”

  “Why?” Buchanan had never liked her. One of those faceless drones who had lived overseas too long, enjoying the good life and throwing embassy parties. She had been in Rio until she came back home to that roost of diplomatic vipers over on C Street, for God’s sake. What would she know about the Middle East? “What troubles you?”

  “It all seems too easy. Too convenient,” State said, keeping her voice quiet and level. Buchanan was trying to move too fast, she thought, and nobody was willing to buck him. “Any time there is a major incident, we start getting walk-ins to embassies, our intel communities see their switchboards light up, and the FBI has to beat informants away with a stick. These potential informants all smell money and want to swap information for cash. On the Middleton kidnap, however, the secret world has gone quiet. Nobody got anything until this retired old CIA guy is contacted by his buddy, a retired senior French intelligence officer, and the whole thing falls into our laps. We get a local guide, his picture and history, and the address where the victim is being kept.”

  “So you think they are lying?” Let her dig her own grave.

  “No. But it’s possible that both Washington and Paris are being used. I have been in government service more than twenty years, Mr. Buchanan, and it has never been this easy. Problems of this magnitude do not just resolve themselves.”

  “Your concern is duly noted,” Buchanan said, knowing her comments were true. The contact in Syria was working with the Shark Team there and the information was intentionally being fed in from the field. He had to sidetrack her. The others at the table remained silent as Buchanan smirked. “This one indeed has come out of the blue. I think Paris realizes just how deep in the c
rapper they are with us on other things, particularly Iraq, and are offering this up as a goodwill gesture without having to do so publicly. That’s why they used the old boys. Okay, so everybody knows where we are. What’s the next step?”

  General Henry Turner, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, leaned into his microphone. “We want to go in and get him as soon as possible. The navy is moving a task force into position in the eastern Med, and we can fly a Force Recon rescue team in over Israel and plop right down on these people. Thirty minutes on the ground and we bring out both Middleton and the informant. All we need to green-light the mission is the President’s authorization.”

  Buchanan nodded once. Good, the general had shifted the attention of the group from questioning the “how” to the “what next.” He stood abruptly. “Sounds good. Make your final plans and prepare a briefing for the President.”

  “Yes, sir. We will get him everything he needs to know.”

  “Then let’s go and get your general,” said Buchanan. He turned and left the room.

  State caught up with CIA on the way out. “This is too damned easy,” she repeated.

  CIA shook his head almost imperceptibly in agreement. “I just work here,” he said. They left the White House together.

  Gerald Buchanan stood at the window of his office with the door closed, ready to sign the death warrant. A high position carried burdens. He, and he alone in this building, including the fool who sat in the Oval Office, had the guts to sign an order of the sort he contemplated. Few men in the entire city would be willing to sign it. That bitch from State certainly could never do it. They were weaklings who did not understand putting higher needs over the survival of one man. For the good of the United States of America, General Bradley Middleton had to die.

  General Turner had made a tactical verbal mistake in his eagerness to rescue Middleton by unveiling his determination to use only Marines. Buchanan had captured one of Turner’s pawns in that move, because he would now be able to confine his search for just the right man, someone qualified to carry out the order, to a handful of Marines to put U.S. military fingerprints on this assassination.