by Marc Cameron
Hyatt watched the missus for six days, logging visitors, building patterns of life, noting how often she made the six-kilometer journey to the other compound, and, more important to him, where the kids were at specific times during the day. Most of his shift was during the nighttime in Afghanistan, so the bulk of his images were ghostly infrared images like something out of a video game. But a kid’s head poking out of a window helped him avoid collateral damage in the event Zamil did show up.
And then the wily bastard just walked out of the house. He didn’t go anywhere at first, he just took a stroll around the inner compound, and then ducked inside. Captain Hyatt had written a report, and Brian, the CIA drone guy, showed up in the middle of the next shift, less than twenty-four hours later. He wore a flight suit like everyone else, but with no nametag, unit patch, or rank insignia, there was no doubt to everyone on base who he worked for.
A good deal of Hyatt’s job could be a lot like watching paint dry—but life got a little more interesting once Zamil actually came into the picture. He was wanted directly in connection to an attack that cost the lives of three American soldiers and fifteen Afghans. This would be a preplanned operation. A targeted killing based on evidence. A team of lawyers checked the law, then policy, and then the boxes to say it was okay to pull the trigger. These suits made certain any proposed strike met the laws of armed conflict, the preordained rules of engagement, and the top-secret instructions known as “spins” put in place by theater command. No laser was aimed and no trigger got pulled until the lawyers at the Air Force head shed signed off on all three.
The CIA had lawyers, too, and their own checklist, but they operated under different ROEs and had a little freer hand to pull said trigger when the time came.
That’s where Brian came in.
“Movement,” Staff Sergeant Deatherage said, toggling the Reaper’s cameras to follow Zamil out of his house to a waiting Toyota pickup. The truck had arrived the day before, a green tarp covering a load of something that was stacked in the bed.
Captain Hyatt tapped his joystick slightly. At twelve thousand feet, it didn’t have to move far or fast to keep up with the pickup. He shot a quick glance over his shoulder, but Brian held up an open hand. “We have a ‘concur’ on the death warrant, but let’s see where he goes.”
“Roger that,” Hyatt said, inching along, unseen, the wrath of God more than two miles above this death-dealing asshole who was about to become one with the yellow dirt over which he now traveled.
“Second truck coming in from the north,” Staff Sergeant Deatherage said, calling out what all of them were seeing.
“A transfer,” Hyatt said, zoned in now. The crosshairs on his console stayed on the Toyota.
The two trucks stopped nose-to-nose in the middle of the deserted road. It was late, a half an hour until sunset. The trucks, along with every rock and pebble, cast long shadows over the orange ground.
“The new guys are wearing shemaghs,” Deatherage said. “Impossible to ID them.”
Brian was standing now, hovering just off Hyatt’s left elbow, as if the extra eight feet of distance would help him see the images on the screen any better. All three men watched as Zamil and his second-in-command walked to the rear of the Toyota. The second man was Omar Khalid, who, though not quite to the level of Zamil, was adjudged bad enough by the head shed that he’d be worth qualifying for prosecution. That was the word they used. Prosecution.
The men in the air-conditioned trailer leaned forward slightly as the two Afghans they’d identified threw back the tarp.
Hyatt stood up without being told, and Brian slid into his seat. Agency rules of engagement were more permissive. Their lawyers said it was okay to fold unidentified third parties in with the death warrant, if those unidentified third parties were doing something illegal. Nobody wanted these guys running around with a dozen new French Mistral MANPADS. Like its American cousin the Stinger, the shoulder-fired Mistral could wreak havoc on coalition aircraft—especially the MQ-9s, which were sitting ducks if they ventured below ten thousand feet.
By the time Hyatt handed off the controls and Brian plugged in his own headset, Omar had climbed into the bed of the Toyota.
“Master Arm on,” Brian said. “Weapons hot.”
“Lasers hot,” Deatherage said.
“Three, two, one, rifle,” Brian said, pulling the trigger. “Missile away.”
Standing behind his chair, Hyatt looked at the instrumentation.
The hard work had been the endless hours of waiting, watching, logging patterns. It was largely academic from this point. A single AGM-114R Romeo Hellfire II missile locked on immediately, flying toward the lased target as if on a wire. Traveling at 995 miles per hour, it took just over seven seconds to make the trip.
Zamil and the others were in the process of unloading the Mistrals and pulled the tarp a little farther, displaying the rest of the Toyota’s contents the instant before the Romeo turned them to a flaming ball of fire and dust. A secondary explosion—really a series of them that happened almost too fast to distinguish—touched off just after the initial splash.
Hyatt watched the wind blow away smoke and dust.
“Master Arm off,” Brian said. “Weapons safe.”
“Laser safe,” Deatherage said.
Brian sat still for a moment.
“Did you see that?” Captain Hyatt said.
“The secondaries.” Brian gave a low whistle. “I know, right.”
“That, too,” Hyatt said. “I’m going to rewind the video feed a little. I think he had some MICAs.”
“French MICAs?” Brian stood now, unplugging his headset and making way for Hyatt.
“Pretty sure,” the captain said.
“I call that a well-armed enemy,” Brian said. “French Mistrals, French MICAs. I’d like to know where they’re gettin’ their shit.”
“That’s your battle space,” Hyatt said. He set a course for Kandahar. The guys on the ground there would land the bird, perform any needed maintenance, and then do a refuel so she could jump up on station for another ten to twelve hours.
A few clicks of his keyboard later, the report and relevant video were on their way to Hyatt’s commanding officer at Creech. She’d run it up the chain, where it would be reviewed and discussed every step of the way, before being sent to encrypted servers at Langley, the Pentagon, and the director of national intelligence’s staff at Liberty Crossing, just to make sure all bases were covered.
Brian put a friendly hand on Hyatt’s shoulder. “Not to be a sociopath, Captain, but we did a good thing here. It needed to be done.”
Deatherage still had the cameras focused on the carnage of the kill site.
“Yep,” Hyatt said. He could get over the splashes, but he didn’t get off on talking about them. “Done deal,” he said.
Brian took the hint. “What’s that written on your hand?”
Hyatt gave an embarrassed shrug. “A note to myself so I don’t forget something for my kids’ birthday.” He took a final look at the smoldering crater that had once been Faisal al-Zamil before he turned his palm upright.
Balloons.
Some terrible god of war he was . . .
4
If Portugal was the westward-looking face on a map of the Iberian Peninsula, then the pinnacled rocks and secret grottoes of the Algarve coast made up the whiskers below a pointed and somewhat pensive chin. The coastal village of Benagil lay in a deep valley, equidistant from the coastal towns of Albufeira and Lagos to the east and west, respectively, one of countless whitewashed jewels on the limestone cliffs above a half-moon beach of honey-colored sand. The proximity to Africa made the Atlantic here seem almost—but not quite—like the Med.
While tourism had certainly come to this tiny village of fewer than three thousand, Benagil still had a robust fishing fleet and boasted a charm reminiscent of a
quieter, more innocent Portugal. This naïveté made it an excellent location for Hugo Gaspard to conduct his business. There were enough tourists with money that the arms dealer did not have to go without the creature comforts to which he’d grown accustomed. The local gendarmerie, though intelligent enough, tended to attune themselves to car break-ins or burglaries at holiday villas. The mere idea of an international crime boss completely overwhelmed their radar.
Gaspard had been down to this same beach three days in a row, while he waited for the Russians to show up. He made the mistake of walking the hundred fifty meters down the hill from his Mercedes on the first day. There was parking along the narrow road on the cliffs overlooking the sea, but the corpulent Frenchman was much too fond of fine wine and rich pastries. Walking more than a few meters aggravated his gout—and his heart, and his lungs, and the bone spurs on his heels. Worse than that, walking made him feel poor.
Today, he’d ordered his driver to drop him off near the handicapped parking spot, as close to the trail to the beach as possible. The driver would stay with the car while the other three accompanied him to the beach. One could not be too careful these days.
Gaspard stripped off his loose shirt as soon as he got out of the Mercedes. He would have done it earlier, but his ponderous belly made much movement in the backseat problematic. He’d already changed into his swimsuit in the villa and stepped out of his trousers on the side of the road, throwing them into the car on top of his shirt. The suit, a small triangle of red spandex, would have been considered tiny even on a man of much smaller stature. Gaspard’s belly hung low enough that a casual observer could be excused for thinking he wore nothing at all. Gaspard didn’t care. He had little to prove—and enough money that he could even buy respect if anyone had a problem with the way he dressed.
His meeting with the Russians was two hours away. The turquoise-and-cobalt water was much too cool to swim, but the air was a pleasant—and a slightly unseasonable—twenty-five Celsius. The cloudless sky made it feel even warmer. He would use the time waiting to work on his tan.
Praia de Benagil was not an incredibly large beach. It could be packed with pale British tourists in the summer, but now, in May, he had the place almost to himself. A few climbers, probably Americans, scrambled up the rock cliffs to the east. A Nordic-looking couple with a small child braved the chilly water, splashing in the surf near three wooden fishing boats that lay on the sand on the western end of the beach, by the walkway up toward the village.
Gaspard spied a slender woman in a black two-piece as he tromped along the beach leaving splay-footed divots in the sand. She had staked her claim in the center of the beach. She lay provocatively on her back, her head propped up on a woven-grass beach bag, the brim of an almost comically huge hat shielding her face while she read a paperback. Gaspard thought she might be a blonde, maybe with a splash of freckles across her nose, but the hat made it difficult to be sure. That did not matter to him. She was a leggy thing, with all the right swells and curves and a minuscule suit that obviously meant she sought companionship. Anyone with a figure like that, who wore such tiny bits of cloth, was . . . well, looking for it.
He would sit near enough to strike up a casual conversation, and see where it progressed. The French were not animals. He was not an animal—not any longer, having attained a certain amount of refinement with his newfound wealth. He would be discreet, smooth, the perfect gentleman. If that did not work, he would let her know how rich he was. Whatever method he employed, Hugo Gaspard intended to take this nubile creature to his villa by midafternoon. She could drink wine and eat chocolates while he met with the Russians, and then they would spend the evening together.
It was a good plan. Gaspard was a man of vision—and he could envision it—every delectable moment.
Gaspard’s three bodyguards flanked him, gazing outward with the predatory looks he paid them for. Gaspard himself had carried a pistol most of his life—since his time as a thuggish youth running a string of hundred-franc whores in the Bois de Boulogne. His lunatic mother—a prostitute and a heroin addict—had passed to him one single piece of worthwhile wisdom during her short life: A man who carries many keys may look important—but a truly important man hires someone to carry the keys for him. Now, having made enough money to buy all the whores in the park, Hugo Gaspard paid others to carry the guns.
Sun glinted off the thick gold chain that nestled among the rolls of his fleshy neck. Lines of sweat dripped down his chest. He nodded at a spot two meters from the woman, standing by while two of his men laid out his towel. It was extra large, to provide coverage from the sand against his sizable breadth. The third bodyguard, a bulldog of a man with a nose flattened by many fights, eyed the young woman suspiciously. His name was Farrin, and his threatening glare was certainly overkill. The woman had not approached them. They were setting up near her. And anyway, she could not be dangerous. She was so young, so deliciously . . . breakable.
“Relax,” Gaspard said, loud enough for the young woman to hear. It would not hurt for her to know that Gaspard was a man in charge of other men. “This peach is nearly naked. What harm could she possibly bring to me?”
She glanced up from her book—a mindless romance written in English, judging from the bare-chested muscleman on the cover—and then she looked away, pretending to ignore him. Faint parallel scars on her upper thigh, like a tribal initiation or ritual, became visible as Gaspard got closer. There was a story there, to be sure, and he would have it before the night was over.
Gaspard situated himself on his belly, grunting a little as he wallowed a depression into the sand beneath his towel, enabling him to lie relatively level. Resting his jowls on stacked hands, he could ensure an even tan on his back while still gazing sideways at the young woman.
“Are you American?” he asked, eyes half closed, sleepy from the radiation beating down from the sun and the exertion of walking fifteen meters up the beach.
She raised the brim of her hat and gave him a long look, as if considering whether or not to reply.
“Dutch,” she said. “Why do you ask?”
“Your book is written in English,” Gaspard said and chuckled. “What do the English know of romance? French romances are much better, both in the writing—and in the flesh.”
“You read a lot of romance novels, then?” the young woman asked.
Gaspard shrugged. “It is a logical argument. The French language is a romance of the tongue. Just speak a few words of it and you will see for yourself.”
“I am to assume you are French?”
“Oui,” he said. “Tu parles français?”
She held up the thumb and forefinger of her free hand. “Un peu.” A little. “I prefer English.”
“Pity,” Gaspard said. “‘Please rub my back with oil’ sounds much too forward in English.”
The young woman stifled a laugh—a good sign, to be sure. “You are certainly the bold one.”
“I have a very important meeting in two hours. That allows me only a finite amount of time in which to meet you, dance around the niceties of social discourse, and then invite you to my villa before dinner.”
The woman lowered the book to her chest, still open, and cocked her head to one side. Perfect brunette locks brushing tan shoulders. Not a blonde after all, but, oh, the glorious freckles splashed across her nose. “Before dinner?”
The young woman scooted into a sitting position, hugging exquisite knees. Gaspard could plainly see the lines of many scars along her thighs—an automotive accident, or possibly an athletic injury. He could picture her, splashed with freckles while she played football with the local boys. She may have been a garçon manqué—a tomboy—growing up, but she was certainly all woman now.
“I see no point in wasting time,” Gaspard said. “As I mentioned, I have a meeting in two hours.”
She finally closed the book, but kept it clutched in her han
d. “An ‘important meeting,’ you said.”
“I said ‘very important meeting,’ to be precise.” Gaspard rolled half up on his side so he could look more directly at the object of his conquest. A line of sand pressed into the edge of his belly where it had escaped the confines of the beach towel. He brushed it off with sausage fingers. Two gold rings caught the sunlight. “No point in beating around the bush—”
“Or wasting time,” the young woman said.
“Quite,” Gaspard said. “I am already rich, but this meeting will make me richer, I dare say, than anyone you have ever met.” He leaned forward, looking back and forth from the sea to the cliffs before lowering his voice. “My meeting is with the Russians.”
“The Russians?” the young woman said, wide-eyed, mocking him just a little. “All of them.”
“You are quite the forward girl,” Gaspard said.
She smiled playfully. “No point in beating around the bush.”
She scooted across the sand on her knees, extending her free hand.
“I am Lucile,” she said.
Gaspard brightened. “A magnificent French name!” Still on his side, belly and chest sagging toward the beach, he took her hand and kissed it. “I am Hugo. Encantado.”
“I thought you were French?”