Clean Kill

by Jack Coughlin

The cleric sighed. Perhaps he had made a mistake there. Temptation had ensnared him again when the unexpected gift of nuclear weaponry had fallen in his grasp. With those horrible things, Ebara thought he might accelerate the timetable and reach into countries beyond just the surrounding nations. Juba, however, was proving to be uncontrollable, condescending, and rude. If Ebara could rekindle the rebellion, Juba might no longer be needed at all. There was enough money available to hire a team of devout Muslim scientists from Iran or Syria to replace him.

  He turned from his reverie when there was a soft knock. His wife entered the room to tell him the driver had arrived with the car. It was time to go to the mosque to demonstrate his power. He rose with a sigh that only he could hear and ignored his two young sons, who were standing beside the door, their heads bowed in respect and trepidation, wondering if they would receive a pat on the head or a slap to the face when he passed. It was also time to deal with Juba and the banker again. But he felt good.

  T HE TWO REAR DOORS of a dented Ford E-150 cargo van stood open as Kyle Swanson and Jamal finished loading it. A wooden crate weighted by sandbags rested firmly just inside the sliding side door, leaving plenty of room for Swanson on the other side. A black cloth curtained off the driver’s cockpit to block any outside view of what was in the rear. The van was meticulously checked, everything from tire pressure to fluid levels. Jamal lubricated the runners for the side door to help it open and close smoothly.

  Then he opened the garage and got into the driver’s seat. Kyle jumped in back and closed the rear doors. They did a time check-fifteen minutes until noon-then drove out, heading for the main square of Jeddah. Kyle unlocked a long, narrow gun case and removed Excalibur from its cushioned resting place.

  Fifty caliber. A fiberglass stock exactly molded to fit him. A telescopic sight that was almost magic and comparable to any pilot’s heads-up display panel-computerized and extremely accurate, with an internal gyrostabilizer, infrared laser, and a GPS transmitter-receiver. The scope did the math on everything from target range to barometric pressure. It was a long-distance, precision-firing miracle that he had helped develop for Sir Jeff, simply the best sniper rifle in the world. If Kyle could see a target a mile away in daylight, he could put a handcrafted bullet through it.

  By necessity, this had to be a one-shot job. With Excalibur, one shot was enough.

  “A NUCLEAR MISSILE IS waiting for you.” Ebara looked with disdain at the over-bearing Juba. He longed to administer to this deformed infidel a punishment similar to that awaiting the three men in the square.

  “Where?” Juba and Nesch were standing, while Ebara was seated, confidence building by the minute. He had deliberately chosen a room in the mosque that had only one chair, and he occupied it, so the others had to stand before him.

  “It is at the army base of Tabuk, in the north, near the Jordanian frontier and Israel.” Ebara took a small sip of tea and picked up an envelope from a side table. “The commanding general is a faithful brother who is among the true believers to our cause. The details are written here.”

  Juba rubbed his chin and passed the envelope to Dieter Nesch. He assumed that Ebara knew that the mutiny at the base in the south had been defeated. “As I expected, the coup seems to have stalled. You guaranteed a spontaneous uprising of the citizens, Ebara. Why did that not happen?”

  Ebara rose from the chair and stood to face Juba. No longer would he be cowed and insulted. “I see now that I was wrong to bring you here,” he said, with a snort of derision. “You, Juba, have failed to deliver what you promised for our revolution, so I am now forced to assume the overall command of the military situation as well as the spiritual and political. Your only remaining assignment now is to go and take control of this remaining missile in Tabuk, an assignment that I have made as easy as possible for someone of your obviously limited capability. Then launch it immediately and lay nuclear destruction upon the infidels and our enemies. You get your choice of targets. Tel Aviv would be good. After that, you can flee back to where you came from and hide from the world.”

  Nesch cleared his throat. “Be careful. Both of you. We can still make this happen, but we need to work together, not kill each other.”

  Ebara maintained his aggressive posture. “Banker Nesch, we have not received the services from Juba for which we have paid so dearly. I suggest that you pass that exact message, from me to your paymaster in Moscow.”

  Juba only smiled, the insults rolling harmlessly off of him. There was a playful glint in his eye. “Ebara, you have to be smart, not crazy, to overthrow a government. Nuclear weapons were never part of my plan, which was going fine until you reached too far above your head and meddled in things about which you know nothing. Still, we might as well play out the game. The fact is that I am here, and once I take possession of that missile, perhaps I can still rescue you from yourself. You may win this thing despite all of your bungling.”

  “I am done with you,” Ebara declared, his voice rising. “Go now, while you still have your impertinent tongue.” The cleric stalked from the room, satisfied with having placed Juba and Nesch in their proper, subservient roles. He had other, more important business waiting for him in the square.

  It was noon. The crowd for the triple execution was huge. Four television cameras were present.

  A S M OHAMMED A BU E BARA emerged into the sunlight and strode halfway down a small flight of stone steps to where three bound men were on their knees, a traffic problem was taking place on an overpass some distance away. A dirty van had chugged to the side of the road, steam rising from the engine, and the driver was out of the vehicle with his head beneath the hood.

  Jamal muttered into a small radio transmitter, “Right on time. He’s coming out.”

  The side door of the cargo van slid open about six inches. Kyle Swanson was squeezed into a tight sitting position, with Excalibur solid on a sandbag atop the crate beside the door. “Okay. I see him. Target acquired.”

  Swanson’s instincts took over as he let the numbers scroll through the scope’s powerful computer. The target was painted at 1,420 meters, almost a mile away. A light breeze was projected to be blowing right to left across the flight path at four-point-one miles per hour, so the bullet would move slightly to the left. The downward trajectory required an adjustment to compensate for the drop, for a bullet would otherwise tend to hit high. He agreed with Excalibur’s computation and fine-tuned the scope four and a half minutes right, down two clicks in elevation. An azure stripe blinked down an edge of the scope to confirm all settings were accurate.

  Ebara came to a standstill on the steps. He had memorized the words he would say to the large crowd and the condemned men, intending to send an ultimate warning that would instill fear into every corner of Saudi Arabia. He spread his arms wide to silence the bloodthirsty mob. The time had come for him to cast off any doubt and publicly emerge as leader of the glorious revolution.

  K YLE SQUEEZED THE TRIGGER, slow and steady, and the big weapon barked one time, loudly, but the sound was mostly obscured by passing traffic. At the sound of the shot, Jamal let the small hood of the van slam back into place and climbed into the driver’s seat without any sign of haste that might draw attention. The engine had been running the entire time.

  As soon as he was done with the rhythm of the shot, Swanson reached forward and closed the sliding door. There was no time to watch what happened next, for he no longer was in control. Either the bullet did its job or it didn’t. For the sniper, it was time to disengage and disappear. Jamal put the automatic transmission into gear, checked his mirrors, and the vehicle was disappearing into passing traffic as chaos erupted in the park.

  T HE BIG. 50 CALIBER round split the air with a ripping hiss and punched a hole the size of a quarter just above the right nipple of Mohammed Abu Ebara. It spread catastrophic internal destruction around it before blowing out a hole as big as a fist from his back and ricocheting off a stone step. The cleric jerked like a puppet, and his knees buckled,
toppling him face-first down the few remaining stairs. His body, with blood spurting from the wound, bounced to rest in front of the men he had picked for execution.

  Dieter Nesch, standing off to one side, flinched when he heard the distinct gunshot. He watched Ebara collapse, then the crowd broke and was running wild in every direction, with people falling and being trampled. “The Americans are here,” he told his partner.

  Juba had not moved a muscle. His combat sense clicked into play and he instantly reversed the path of the bullet, concluding that it had come from a vehicle along the elevated highway about a mile away. It was an amazing shot, something that could be done only by a very experienced sniper. He agreed with Nesch. “Yes,” he replied. As if he had been expecting this all along.

  As they hurried to their car, heaving people out of the way, Nesch was puzzled. Juba suddenly seemed happy.

  43

  JEDDAH

  D IETER N ESCH SPED HIS black Mercedes sedan away from the plaza and dropped back to a safe and legal speed only when they reached the highway. Back at the square, the stunned crowd degenerated into a mob and broke into spontaneous demonstration for the new martyr, Mohammed Abu Ebara. The cleric’s bloody corpse was picked up and passed above the frenzied crowd on a moving bed of open palms of men who wiped his blood on their faces and clothing.

  “The Jews did this! Kill the Zionists!”

  “Death to the king!”

  “Death to the Shi’ites!”

  “Death to the Americans!”

  The spectators had come to the square to see death and had found much more than they had anticipated. More men were flooding into the plaza by the minute, drawn by the allure of blood and violence. After passing the body around for a while, the frenzied mob fell upon the three condemned men and hacked them to pieces.

  “Death to the enemies of Allah!”

  The central square of downtown Jeddah was gripped by unreasoning madness as thousands of people rioted. A traffic cop was snatched and thrown into the mob, looters broke into stores and shops, children were crushed underfoot, and in dark places, women were raped.

  “Ebara! Ebara! Ebara!”

  N ESCH AND J UBA MADE the drive back to the villa in silence, each lost in his own thoughts. The German banker was mentally sifting a cascade of financial figures, adding up the potential damage and trying to forecast the next move in this deadly game in terms of risk-reward, profit, and loss.

  Juba pushed the soft seat all the way back, crossed his legs and began to softly recite a nursery rhyme to himself. He had learned it while growing up as a child in Great Britain. Most people believed it was about an egg, but Juba had always been more drawn to the first verse, and the part about the master sniper with only one eye had become particularly appealing to him.

  In Sixteen Hundred and Forty-Eight

  When England suffered the pains of state

  The Roundheads lay siege to Colchester town

  Where the King’s men still fought for the crown

  There One-Eyed Thompson stood on the wall

  A gunner of deadliest aim of all

  From St. Mary’s Tower his cannon he fired

  Humpty Dumpty was its name

  Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall…

  N ESCH DROVE THE M ERCEDES into an enclosed garage and they walked into the main room of a villa. The whisky bottle, Johnnie Walker Black Label, came out and they each had a stiff jolt.

  “Tell me about the shooting. You know something.” Nesch needed to see behind Juba’s mental veil. He poured another round.

  Juba grunted. “Yes. It was a magnificent shot under very difficult conditions. The sniper knew exactly where the target was going to be and at a specific time. That required excellent intelligence, so it was not some random event. Ebara was targeted.”

  He took another swallow of whisky, paused to collect his thoughts, then continued. “The shot itself came from a vehicle that stopped for a moment on a busy highway overpass a mile away, again something that did not happen by chance. Then the bullet went over the crowd and hit Ebara almost the moment he stepped outside. The shooter vanished into the traffic without a trace, almost before the shot hit the target. A lot of moving parts were involved, and I agree that the Americans are the most likely ones who could have pulled it off. Low-key, effective, and spectacular.”

  “So?” Dieter’s round eyes were almost in slits as he took off his glasses and polished them. “The world is full of snipers for hire. You can buy one off the shelf whenever you need one.”

  “Not for this kind of job,” Juba replied. He poured another splash from the bottle. “Maybe four snipers in the world could have made that hit. It took a totally experienced specialist. Since it was probably an American show, my money would be that it was a Marine named Kyle Swanson. He sometimes does work for the CIA.”

  Nesch looked curiously at his friend. “Why? Do you know this man?”

  Juba pointed to the blind eye covered by the black patch. “He’s the one who almost killed me in Iraq. I can smell his fucking stench on this hit!”

  The banker shrugged. “Well, my friend, it makes no difference. We have bigger problems than him.”

  “It makes a difference to me,” said Juba. “I want to kill him.”

  “Fine. Then kill him. Let’s finish this job first so we can get out of here.”

  “The job? You mean this silly rebellion? Dieter, the coup is over.”

  “I think so, too, but we don’t want to make any rash decisions in the heat of the moment. There is too much still in play and we need to do some serious thinking when our emotions cool. So, I’m going to take a shower and a nap. Look, some spots of blood are on my suit pants. Damn. You should get some rest, too. We’ll get up in a few hours, be refreshed, have a nice meal, and I will call our Russian employer. Then we will decide what to do next, if anything.” The banker walked toward his bedroom.

  Juba just nodded his head. He did not need to let his emotions cool because he was dead calm inside his head. He stood by the broad window, looking out at the sunlit Red Sea and thinking about the possibility of taking down Swanson.

  A NOTHER M ERCEDES SEDAN, A white one with heavily tinted windows, was still on the road. Jamal and Kyle had ditched the van for the luxury car and were heading southeast from Jeddah toward the holy city of Mecca and into the Hada mountains.

  Their destination was the city of al-Taif, about a two-hour drive from Jeddah on a remarkable highway that lifted motorists from the seaside and desert up through a series of tunnels to the green and cool summer resort some 2,000 feet above sea level. The Mercedes hardly drew a glance, since it was a favored style among the wealthy Saudis who frequented the long highway. Jamal kept the accelerator down as they climbed.

  With periodic checks by his sat phone, Kyle had finished arranging events at the huge military base outside of the small city. Everything would be in place for the arrival of the handover team. Any luck at all, and things would be done before darkness fell.

  Events were moving faster and faster, and Kyle believed they were entering the critical period in which things were not going to be happening in weeks and days, but in hours. Maybe minutes. He thought: Do the fourth nuke in Taif this afternoon, then yank out the final one tomorrow. Get it done. He hardly gave any thought at all to shooting Ebara. That was truly in the rearview mirror and fading with every kilometer the Mercedes put them farther away from Jeddah.

  Jamal worked the car through Mecca carefully. “Check it, dude. Things are stable here. They have to know about Ebara’s death by now because we can’t outrun the radio and TV broadcasts. I expected this place to be in an uproar.”

  “Maybe they haven’t figured out which way to jump yet,” Kyle replied, his eyes sweeping the area for danger signs. No roadblocks. No rioting. “Keep going. Sooner we get to the base, the better off we will be.”

  “Particularly since we’re hauling around your big-ass sniper rifle.”

  “Gotta put it on the plane back to
Kuwait, Jamal. Remove any chance of the bullet ever being matched up to an American weapon.”

  “I want to get on that plane, too. Doha sounds great about now.”

  Kyle laughed. “I need your sorry ass to stay here with me. Anyway, you’re a CIA assassin now.”

  Jamal looked over, taking his eyes off the road for a second. Then he smiled. “Mom will be so proud.”

  44

  RIYADH

  “T HANK YOU FOR CALLING, Mr. President. I appreciate the information. It will make things much easier on this end. One less worry.” King Abdullah was agitated but kept his voice neutral and pleasant. He listened a moment longer, then said, “Yes. We’ll speak again soon. Goodbye, Mr. President.”

  He hung up the secure telephone but let his hand rest on it for a moment. His experience as a diplomat served him well in such situations. It was indeed good news and he would take time to be angry later on, when he was alone. He had bigger responsibilities now than spending time being furious with Gunnery Sergeant Kyle Swanson. It had to be Swanson!

  This role of eternal dignity was already growing stale to Abdullah after a life of movement and excitement. Servants everywhere, anticipating his every need in this gilded cage. He was determined not to become just another isolated monarch who was distant from his people. Abdullah was playing a role that he did not particularly like. The time of the autocrat was over. The House of Saud had to change. He picked up another telephone and buzzed for his secretary. “Bring them in,” he said.

  The door opened and a half-dozen counselors appeared for one of his daily briefings. He motioned for them all to sit, and they did. Every command was obeyed. It felt strange. He got right to business.

  “How did the unexpected removal of that dog, Ebara, impact the overall situation?” he asked his military chief of staff.