Clean Kill

by Jack Coughlin

  Small scale protests were underway already in several locations. As scheduled, the religious leader Mohammed Abu Ebara was emerging as a spokesman, cloaking his fiery words in the mysteries of Islam. The correspondents were getting interviews, and were putting the bearded face and burning eyes before an international audience of viewers. He turned off the television set and decided to take a nap.

  The wide windows in his bedroom of his mountain mansion were open to the sea, with the heat of the afternoon broken by the shade of large trees and a nice breeze that stirred through the big house, heralding an evening rain. He dropped the sarong and climbed naked between light sheets of cool cotton.

  No one on the island knew his background. There was speculation, but no one ever asked about the webs of white scars that were lined starkly on the tanned skin of his face, neck, and left shoulder. He had the use of only his right eye and wore a patch over the other. The mouth was always down-turned on that side of his face, as if the muscles were awkwardly locked. The left ear was only a shriveled piece of skin. There were no mirrors in his home and the locals felt an unusual presence of sorcery about him, for how could anyone who had endured so much exterior damage possibly still possess a spirit that had not been equally crippled?

  The islands of the Pacific were magnets for such broken men. Throughout the years, soldiers and sailors, writers, adventurers, criminals on the run, businessmen, and others who tired of their old lives, wives, looks, and luck drifted to such havens in Asia and stayed. Many would become bent into commas from spending too many hours leaning on bars and drinking away their dreams. Life could be quite pleasant, but those with get-rich-quick schemes always learned the hard way that the poet Kipling did not lie in warning Occidentals of the fate that befell those “who tried to hustle the East.”

  Most of them were merely part of the human flotsam and jetsam on the Pacific trade routes, pushed about by the tides of centuries until they eventually were washed away. Nevertheless, generations of gaijin in Tokyo, the farang in Bangkok, the gwai-lo in Beijing, the tipua among the Maoris and generations of expats from everywhere had come to Asia to scrub off their homelands and make a new try at life. The Australians said such men had “gone troppo.” However hard they tried, they would always remain the big-nosed foreigner, a large person who usually had filthy manners, a loud voice and strange customs and would be welcomed and tolerated, but never truly accepted, even by a new bride’s family. There were rare exceptions and the disfigured man on the mountain was one of them.

  He knew all about the negatives of living in Asia and did not care. After all, he had to live somewhere and there were not many choices left; certainly none as pleasant as being in this rambling house that overlooked the ocean on one of Indonesia’s more than 13,000 islands. Maybe he had gone troppo himself.

  H ERE ON THE ISLAND, the scarred man was known as Hendrik van Es, a reclusive Dutch entrepreneur, and seemed to be a rather mild person. He stood just under six feet tall, weighed a lean 150 pounds and his full head of hair had turned completely white, although he was still relatively young. His intelligence, generosity, and quiet kindness had won over the inhabitants of the nearby village. Girls who came occasionally to spend the nights would confide to their friends the next day that the lonely man was a good lover, once they closed their eyes, pretending sexual ecstasy but in reality avoiding looking at the awful scars.

  He existed in near seclusion, with a Javanese staff running his house and technicians handling his various enterprises out of an attached office complex. He hired only Muslims, although he had long ago rejected the tenets of any religious faith.

  The perception of gentleness was inaccurate. He had another name, Juba, and he was once the most wanted terrorist in the world for killing thousands of men, women, and children with biochemical attacks in both London and San Francisco.

  Juba lay in his comfortable bed, knowing that sleep would not come. It never did without the aid of narcotics or alcohol. The dreams arrived, however, the pages always turning backward to memories of the man who had turned him into a hideous hermit who lurked on this Indonesian mountain. The thoughts flooded back, unbidden and unwanted.

  As a young man, Juba had been a master sniper in the British army, decorated for bravery and promoted up the ranks to color sergeant ahead of his peers. He had worked hard and believed no one was better, a belief that came to a bitter end when he met Kyle Swanson, the best scout-sniper in the U.S. Marines. Worse, Swanson did it more than once, always one step faster, one thought ahead. What had begun as a once-friendly rivalry eventually became fierce combat duels with many lives at stake.

  After the biochems, Swanson had hunted him down and left him for dead beneath a destroyed house in Iraq. Juba, a legend among Muslim fighters, had been dug out by villagers, barely alive. At that point in the voyage of dreams, Juba could allow himself a smile. He had endured the pain and re-created himself, almost as if he had risen from the dead. Eventually, some day, somewhere, he would repay Kyle Swanson in full.

  The time would come. He would make certain of that. Meanwhile, the burning desire for revenge had become secondary to his resurrected career. Once he had regained his health, Juba organized a private network with a global reach and fielded teams that would provide specialist services for terrorist groups and nations. London and San Francisco had been his high points; now he could reach even higher. It was good to be back in the game.

  H E CLOSED HIS ONE good eye and breathed deeply, sliding into meditation. There was no hurry. He would take the next step later, maybe even waiting until after a nice dinner before pushing a button on his computer in Indonesia and making something happen in Riyadh.

  The e-mail would hurry through a meet-your-true-love Web site to an address in that troubled country, a warm and flirty message that would raise no curiosity. On the other end was supposedly a woman in Medina, but she did not exist. The true recipient was a soldier who had created the account with a false résumé, complete with the comely photograph of a young woman that he had pirated out of Photobucket.

  Who guards the guards? Juba had pondered. More specifically: Who guards the guards who guard the King?

  12

  K YLE SPRINTED FOR THE front entrance of the clinic, with Sybelle on his heels. A large police sergeant stood in the doorway, arms outstretched and three stripes on each sleeve. “Here now!” he bellowed. “Stop right there! You cannot go inside!”

  Swanson raised the FBI credentials.

  The cop stood his ground, barely glancing at the wallet. “Sir, I must point out that I don’t take orders from you. Would you step back, please?”

  Kyle brought the big Colt.45 up and leveled it at the policeman’s nose, the smell of burnt cordite still oozing from the barrel. “Get out of my fucking way,” he said.

  The man still was not budging, despite the pistol. Kyle lowered the weapon. A rugby player, with muscles that bred confidence, he thought, and used the hard metal barrel of the gun to punch him in the solar plexus, folding the sergeant up like a shopping bag. Another guard moved to help, and Sybelle raised her Glock and said, “No.” The second policeman stopped.

  Kyle put away his Colt and rolled the guard on his side as the man gasped for breath. “We don’t have time for this, sergeant. The clinic was just attacked by a suicide bomber. Have your men block every road with their cars and then call for support. Get your SWAT teams, Scotland Yard, or the military, and the sooner the better. I don’t think this attack is over. More terrorists may be on the way.”

  The husky sergeant stared blurry-eyed at the two Americans, then grunted that he understood.

  Kyle nodded in sympathy and helped the man to a sitting position. “I’m sorry about hitting you. We are going upstairs to Sir Geoffrey Cornwell’s room and set up some interior security. Really, friend. Please. Take this seriously. You absolutely must get some armed security in place, and do not let any unarmed policemen come rushing inside if they hear gunfire. We will handle it.”

&nbs
p; The second guard protested. “We have two dozen officers protecting this site!”

  “This is a war, officer, not some traffic disagreement on a roundabout. That ambulance went right through your police cordon and almost blew this place to hell. My friend and I are standing here holding weapons and you can’t do a damned thing about it. How much more proof do you need that your security is for shit? Call now and get some help, for God’s sake. Get help!” Swanson and Sybelle left them and barged through the heavy glass doors.

  The sergeant sucked air to fill his lungs, then picked up his radio. “Lad seems a bit touchy,” he observed to the other officer.

  In the distance, they heard the faraway buzzing drone of an approaching small plane.

  “W HERE ARE S IR G EOFFREY and Lady Pat Cornwell?” Sybelle had stuffed her weapon into her belt and flashed the FBI credentials as she spoke with a courteous lady at the reception desk at the main entrance. She had moved to the front because she didn’t want Kyle blowing away some snotty orderly.

  The middle-aged receptionist wore a starched white uniform, buttoned to the neck, with silver hair pulled back in a tight bun. She was polite, but frosty. She had seen what had happened just beyond the glass door and rubbed her hands together in worry. Violence was quite unnecessary, in her opinion. “I cannot reveal any information about our guests, but I have already summoned the clinic administrator. You may speak with him.”

  Sybelle looked as though she had swallowed a trout. A suicide truck and a possibly imminent terror attack being countered by unarmed cops and a proper stiff-upper-lip Englishwoman at the front desk. “We can’t wait,” she said, and reached across the desk and snatched several clipboards filled with papers. “Look, ma’am, we have quite an emergency going on right now, and we need to move in a hurry. Some terrorists may be on the way to murder your…guests. If and when your supervisor arrives, tell him to put the staff into rooms with any other patients, lock the doors and stay put. Help is on the way.”

  The reception lady protested, “You are not authorized to see those documents. The police are right outside! I shall have them remove you both from the building.”

  “Whatever.” Sybelle had chatted long enough. She knew the woman was not really being contrary, she was just in shock, and would be all right in a few minutes.

  Kyle was waiting at the shiny metal doors of the elevator, and Sybelle flipped through the clipboards as she joined him. “Jeff is on the top floor, at the east end of the building. Pat is right next door.” The portal opened with a quiet hiss and they stepped inside. The elevator was wide enough to ferry patients on gurneys and smelled antiseptic but with a whiff of lavender. She pressed the button and it lit. “Why do you think more bad guys are on the way?”

  As the elevator lifted, Kyle switched magazines in his Colt. “I don’t know for sure, but that minivan that we saw pulling away from the ambulance obviously contained at least one more man, the driver, probably more. He might have just been hauling ass away from the area, but the reverse may also be true. These terrorist assholes have evolved in their tactics. Like in Iraq, they are using the old Irish Republican Army trick of staging one attack to draw a crowd and then hitting again.”

  “A follow-up attack.” She continued to check the clipboard.

  “Possibly. Maybe a second suicide bomb. Maybe they were planning a ground assault once the bomb went off. Better not to take a chance.” The little button lights flashed on the elevator panel when they rose past other floors. “Are there any other high value targets in this place?”

  “Are you inquiring if there are other important people amongst our guests?” She mimicked the proper reception desk lady.

  “Yeah. Guests who already have had their shit blown away once and are receiving the best medical care money can buy, but nowhere near the best protection.”

  “There is a Saudi prince who happens to be their ambassador to the United States occupying the suite at the west end of the corridor on the top floor. Must have been at the castle.” Her mind whirred with computations and possibilities. Two of them against who knows how many terrorists, using who knew what kind of weaponry, with no armed and trained counterterrorist force around. Not so much as a kid with a peashooter. Sybelle, however, was confident that the odds were not insurmountable. She was pretty damned good at this game and Kyle was focused and steady. He already had that cold sniper look in his eyes, the curtain had lowered over his emotions and he was easily the most efficient killing machine she had ever met. He caught her glance and winked. She tossed the clipboards aside and made a quick check on her Glock. Hell, we’ll just kill them all by ourselves.

  The elevator stopped and they stepped out with their pistols sweeping the area, Sybelle going right and Kyle heading left. Not a guard beside any door, emphasizing the quietness of a private hospital for the very wealthy. It was a genteel place, more used to providing services to drugged-out entertainers and cosmetic surgery to ladies of a certain age. People on the National Health Service didn’t come here, and, to the staff, protection meant keeping away nosy photographers. It was not designed to stop terrorists.

  Two nurses behind a central counter looked up, startled. One was young and the other middle-aged, both wearing hospital scrubs with pastel flower tops. Sybelle put a finger to her lips for them to remain silent.

  “I’ll get to Jeff and Pat,” Kyle said. “You take one of these nurses and bring the prince down into Jeff’s room. We can set up a barricade in the hallway.”

  The older nurse instantly sized up what was happening and had no questions. She marched around the counter and told Sybelle she would escort her to the prince’s room.

  “Kyle!” A shout came from the east end of the hall.

  He turned and saw Delara Tabrizi running toward him. With his Colt still in his right hand, Kyle swept her off the floor in a big hug, followed by a kiss that was not much more than a peck. He could not afford to let anything, even happiness, slow him down until they were all safe. Kyle pushed her back gently, bent over, and pulled the.22 caliber pistol from his ankle holster. “Great to see you, honey, but we have to take care of some business before we can celebrate properly. We just nailed a suicide bomber downstairs and there may be another assault. Your car got scratched. Here. You know how to shoot, and we may need the extra firepower.”

  “You have the strangest way of saying hello,” said Delara, examining the little pistol with the practiced eye of someone used to handling weapons. “Come on. I’ll take you to them. What happened to my car?”

  “Sir! Mister!” the young nurse called to him. “I have a policeman on the line who says it is urgent that he speak with you.” She handed him the telephone.

  “Are you the FBI bloke what just punched me in the gut?” It was the big cop.

  “Yeah. What is it?”

  “One of me lads with binoculars says three skydivers have jumped from a little plane about a kilometer away and are using those dark, elliptical airfoils that can be steered. All three are angling this way, coming in fast and hard toward the roof of the clinic. And, mate? They seem to be strapped up with automatic rifles.”

  13

  “S YBELLE! T HREE MORE TANGOS parachuting in!” Kyle dropped the telephone receiver and his voice rang loudly in the spacious hallway. “We need to get up there.” He looked at the young nurse. “Where is a service door that leads to the roof?”

  She was a pale blonde, whose sky blue eyes were huge in confusion and fright. Frozen. Glanced down. “I don’t know. Never go up there, do I?”

  The senior nurse looked at her, rimless glasses low on her nose. “It’s the helicopter landing area, Pauline. Where we bring in guests with serious conditions.”

  “Oh,” said the girl. “I just thought…” The rest of the sentence was lost.

  “Never mind, dear.” The older nurse had been through more than enough emergencies to keep her going straight through a crisis. She pointed to a small door next to the elevator. “Right behind you there, that gree
n door beside the lift,” she said. “One flight of stairs up to another green door. It opens outward beneath a sheltered overhang. There is another entrance two floors below, going to a lower roof on the adjacent wing.”

  “What about the Saudi prince?” Sybelle asked.

  “Never concern yourself. I’ll get the guests together in the room with Sir Geoffrey,” said the nurse. “You two, up the stairs!”

  Kyle flashed a smile. “Yes, ma’am. You heard her, Sybelle. Let’s go.”

  They slammed through the door and into a wide, brightly lit stairwell with yellow and white stripes painted diagonally along the edges of the steps. The walls were blue, with neat white trim, and the antiseptic smell trapped in the windowless shaft was almost overwhelming.

  “They’re going to be armed and might be wired to blow,” Kyle said as they took the stairs two at a time. “So we have to kill them before they can land and take control.”

  “Shit,” Sybelle exclaimed. “If these guys are good enough to parasail onto a roof, they’ll be well trained.”

  “Fucking Alamo time. No retreat from here.” Kyle held up his hand, in a fist, when he reached the top landing and Sybelle pressed back against the opposite wall. “Probably rigged their harnesses so they will be able to fire while still in the air. As soon as we open the door and step outside, they will try to lay down some suppressive fire.”

  “Yeah, but they can’t work the toggles of their chutes and aim at the same time. Their first job is to get down, and then to use the superior firepower in the attack. Until then, we have an edge.”