On Scope

32

Hours later, when Swanson was standing in the customs line at Terminal Four of the Kennedy Airport, he still had not untangled what had happened at the Torreblanca hacienda back in Seville. Perhaps a deep thinker like Sun Tzu or Nostradamus might have come up with an idea, but Swanson doubted if either had a lot to say about what happens when you do everything right and the grenade still explodes in your hands. Swanson shuffled with the line of passengers as it edged forward, intentionally trying to look very American with a maroon golf shirt hanging outside of his worn jeans. He could have used other credentials and breezed through the security barrier, but he wanted to take the slower road, hoping an answer would come to him. The line for citizens returning home from abroad was shorter than the one for foreign nationals, so he would be clear soon enough anyway.

He had tried to keep the moving parts of his little plan in Seville to a minimum: draw away the cops with a crude deception, then break into Torreblanca’s house for a private chat when the Spaniard returned. All plans, however, are as fragile as Venetian glass. Somebody else obviously had another plan, and that shattered his own with an unexpected volley of gunfire. Kyle was not saddened by the death of the banker, but now thought himself naive for not considering that there might be competition in the sticky world of terrorism.

During the flight back across the Atlantic, Swanson had replayed the scene a hundred times, trying to remember anything he might have ignored at the time because he had been so focused on that front door. Kyle recalled hearing the muffled bark of a suppressed rifle off to his left, and had turned that way in time to see a small fluff of dust rise above the decorative bushes on the hillside. That was the result of the muzzle blast jarring the ground immediately in front of the gun barrel. The sniper had not used a mat to keep down the dirt, either counting on the bushes to do that or not being professional enough to think of doing so. The only person in view when Kyle had parked was the old man in long-sleeved green overalls who had been lazily working the landscape. Rake and shovel handles stuck out of his rolling plastic trash can. That guy had dived to the grass when the sniper fired, a normal reaction. Running away from the sound would have been even more normal, but he did not do that. Was he ducking to hide from the cops? Kyle considered there was a strong possibility that he was working with the shooter as the lookout. The rifle could be stashed in the cart and hidden beneath plastic. That made sense; they were a team.

Kyle moved forward again in the long trek to the customs agent, getting near the counter where weary travelers were being scrutinized by officers who were as alert as the police roaming nearby. He had never gotten used to seeing cops with automatic weapons inside an American airport. Swanson exhaled a full breath and readied his passport and entry declaration form.

What about the timing? How could the sniper have known Torreblanca was going to come outside at that moment? Was it Kyle’s plan that had drawn him out? Or maybe there had been another ruse he knew nothing about. Coincidence or just Murphy’s Law at work, proving once again that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong, and at the worst possible time. He had seen that happen before in other places, and had no answers then either.

Then he was at the counter, handing over the documents while being eyeballed by the officer and video cameras. She was a curly-haired woman with brown eyes and thin lips that needed new lipstick. Her attitude was professional, not bored, and she studied the papers and the computer panel that crunched the information. The eyebrows rose as she read the unusual data on her screen, then settled into place as she smoothly handed back his passport. “Welcome home, sir,” she said. “And thank you for your service.”

Swanson walked through the portal and was only fifteen minutes from downtown Manhattan. He knew the interlude would not last long as soon as his name and number hit the electronic grid, so he had not even bothered checking the connecting flight to Los Angeles.

Reluctantly and because he could not put off the inevitable any longer, he powered up his cell phone, fully expecting what was waiting. Under MISSED CALLS were a dozen text messages from Lieutenant Colonel Sybelle Summers. The first had been a polite inquiry about his location, but her choice of words had changed remarkably when there were no replies, and the last bluntly ordered him to put his ass on a plane and get to Washington, like right now.

“Tell me you didn’t do this.”

“I didn’t do it, sir.”

“Did you?”

“No. I just went there to try to talk to him about the Barcelona raid. I thought that I had everything under control.”

“And then it went all FUBAR.”

“Fucked up beyond all recognition does pretty well describe it, sir.”

“Weird,” said General Brad Middleton.

“Very,” echoed Sybelle Summers.

“We were killing these people. Then we stop and somebody else starts,” observed Commander Benton Freedman. “That is indeed strange.”

“Another dog in the hunt,” said Master Gunny O. O. Dawkins, his forearms folded across his big chest and his boots crossed at the ankle. He looked comfortable, like a rhino after a good meal.

Middleton had not been angry, only perplexed. “You did not disobey orders, did you? I forgot the precise wording.”

Swanson shook his head and lied. “No, sir. This was a last-minute thing. I really was going to California, then thought, what the hell. With the heat off, Torreblanca might be curious enough to meet me in person. I hoped to get intelligence on the tactical commander in Barcelona.”

“I don’t like you going off our grid. Disappearing like that. Don’t do it again.”

“Sorry, sir. Of course not. Are you through chewing me out now? Can we get on to other things?”

“Yeah.” The general got up and refilled his coffee cup. “Put your thinking caps on, boys and girls, and let’s comb through this Barcelona thing step by step again. Lizard, crank up your machines. The answer on who led the attack team is right under our noses. Got to be.”

“Hey, everybody!” Coastie came in and grabbed a chair. She had been back in Washington for a day and had already checked in with Trident. “Sorry to be late. Kyle, did you try to take down Torreblanca without me?” Her brightness had returned to full glow.

“What’s got you so happy?” Kyle asked.

“Oh, nothing. It’s just nice to be home.”

Nice to be home? Kyle looked over at Sybelle, who winked at him.

The entire group worked the rest of the day, dissecting the attack and follow-up with the Group of Six and coming up with more questions than answers. That someone had overheard Kyle’s call to Torreblanca and timed his own plan to match was impossible. Timing alone would have ruled it out, since Kyle had left only a narrow window of minutes for someone to snatch the information and get into position for the shot.

Benton Freedman tapped his keyboard to call up the reports of the Spanish police, who had found a shooter’s position in a narrow trench that had been dug beneath the bushes on the hillside. No brass or other data, no fingerprints, just a hole in the ground and crushed dirt and leaves. “The gardener that you saw had the right tools, so it could easily have been prepared in advance.” The Lizard made a note. “A prepared hide.”

“I think they also had time to make a ghillie suit, using the exact foliage from his surroundings. He would have been impossible to see,” said Swanson. “I didn’t ping on the danger until after he fired, and still never actually saw him.”

“Any best guess on what kind of weapon was used?”

The Lizard studied the cop report. “Police say they were 7.62 rounds. Fits a lot of rifles.”

“AK-47? Plenty of those around,” Coastie suggested, fully engrossed in the topic.

“Too much of a precision shot for an AK,” said O. O. Dawkins. “They are more for spray-and-pray attacks, not drilling somebody at long range.”

“I could do it. Kyle could do it,” she challenged him.

There it is again, thought Kyle, smiling inside. That confidence was back.

“I’m not talking about you two space aliens,” drawled O. O. Dawkins. “I’m talking about a regular humanoid with basic military skills.”

Kyle made his own guess. “A Dragunov with a scope is easy enough to get, if they didn’t already have one. Not great, but dependable. Most likely the cops also have found a nice little tunnel trimmed out through the brush, straight toward the target area.” He remembered the actual sound of the shots.

They talked for a while about the remaining two live members from the Group of Six and agreed that they were now targets for the mysterious shooter. Both men would realize that and have increased their own protective measures.

“OK, everybody go on home and get some rest,” Middleton said. “I’ll see you back here tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, I will confirm for the president that we were not involved in this latest shoot, although Swanson was sitting right there and watched it. From what we know, the police have not pinned this on an American, because Swanson only spoke to Torreblanca. Maybe the escort service guy can be traced, but that proves nothing. However, you can bet the president is going to keep us in stand-down rather than risk further exposure.”

Nobody moved. “We need a goddam break,” the general grumbled. Then he added in a softer tone, “Beth, I wish you would have spoken up sooner about what was going through your head.”

“I was afraid that if you knew, you would throw me out of Trident.” She locked her blue eyes on him.

“Never happen, and you should know that. We would have helped. We want to help. Everyone in our line of work must deal with the demons. We have medical experts who see this all the time.”

“I realize that now, sir, but so many emotions are involved, and I was scared. Being able to work with Trident is the best thing I have ever done.”

“So you’re good?”

“Good to go.”

Middleton pushed away from his desk. “Let me know if you want anything. I hope you let us set you up to see a doctor and talk it out. Don’t you ever forget, Coastie, we didn’t pick you for Trident out of thin air, and nobody gets into our little club unless we want them. You are one of us. We need you and respect you and trust you. Whatever decisions you make, we will be there for you.”

This had to stop. Marwan Tirad Sobhi was getting calls and electronic messages that were bringing him to the surface as surely as a steel hook hauling up a sailfish. The sailfish might not want to go up, but did not have that option. Even the media was awakening to the story, with Al Jazeera, the BBC, and the Spanish press leading the charge. The American press ignored the murders because they happened abroad and there was little sign of U.S. involvement, but conspiracy rumors were bouncing all over the Internet.

“Another member of the controversial Group of Six has been assassinated,” intoned a blank-faced news reader from London. “The murder of Daniel Ferran Torreblanca in Seville yesterday has brought to four the number of Islamic-connected financiers who have died in an unexplained series of recent attacks in Spain and France. The Group of Six were creators of a multibillion-euro package of bailout loans designed to assist the Spanish government’s economic rescue efforts. That offer was withdrawn earlier this week, following the third murder, that of Mercedes Bourihane in Paris. Police said their investigations were continuing.” When the reader took a breath to start another story, Sobhi muted the sound.

He was not taking any calls from the press. Publicity was no friend of a man who made his fortune in the shadows and the corridors of real power. His barrier of aides told almost everyone that he was in conference and could not be disturbed, and they took messages from well-wishers who hoped he was safe. The banker personally contacted leaders throughout the region. They wanted to know more about the killings, but he had little to give them.

There was only one call that Sobhi really wanted to receive, and it had not come. Yasim Rebiane had telephoned him right after the morning meeting with Torreblanca, outraged at the decision to halt the Spanish episode. He described with cold fury how Torreblanca had also insulted him in public. Since then, nothing.

Sobhi was certain in his soul that Djahid Rebiane, not any American, had pulled the trigger on Daniel. It was not for some overarching financial scheme or a change in government, but for old-fashioned revenge. The father had coated the bullets with his poison of hatred, and the son delivered the final message. Sobhi was just as certain that Djahid would do the same to him, if given the opportunity.

Heavily lined curtains were drawn across the windows of his office to prevent anyone from seeing inside, and the sheikh’s security people had been put on a higher alert. The police had been asked to participate and they had stationed uniformed men at the doors of the office building and sent marked patrol cars to cruise the streets around his location in Abu Dhabi. When the influential financier grew tired of waiting for Yasim to call, he summoned one of his assistants, a smooth fellow from the United States who had read his law at Yale University, and told him to pack a bag and get to the airport, where a private plane would be waiting. He would leave soon for Cairo.

It was different this time. Kyle Swanson had been to this place many times before, when the black water of the imaginary swept by with unrelenting force, conquering everything with its roaring tide and hauling the booty to hell. Sound asleep and dreaming, his body felt nailed to the spot on a narrow bloodred beach at the border of a stinking marsh. This was the domain of the Boatman, Charon, the skinny, frightening figure in black rags that waved like pirates’ flags, who seemingly could visit Kyle’s dreams at will to taunt him about the many deaths on his account. The Boatman’s job was to ferry souls into the underworld, but over the years of nightmares, he had mellowed enough to communicate in rhyme and riddle. Swanson really hated the Boatman.

Yet there he stood once again in his long skiff, idle in the storm, facing Kyle. The steering oar was under one arm, and his eyes glowed. The ruined skull face smiled, and the voice inside Swanson’s head said, “My boat is already full tonight, but I can always make room for you.”

“Why am I here? I’m not killing anyone.” He saw the dead bodies of Cristobál Jose Bello, Juan de Lara, Mercedes Sarra Bourihane, and Daniel Ferran Torreblanca all seated neatly along the benches. “I only did two of those. The woman and that guy in back aren’t mine.”

A discordant thunder of laughter bellowed from the Boatman. “That doesn’t matter tonight. Don’t you see?” He waved his ragged sleeve. “Look and see.”

“See what? I see you and some corpses, all of you on the way to the nine circles of hell. Big deal. I’ve seen it before.” Kyle put his hands up to shield his face from the tremendous amount of heat searing the water. That was a difference this time. The Styx normally was black and cold and evil, but tonight it was alive with rolling waves of intense flames that torched the dead bodies in the boat and caused them to scream over the hissing din.

The Boatman was motionless, watching him. His rags caught and burned brightly, but the demon was unaffected. Swanson felt his own flesh start to blister, and he thrashed for freedom. At the far end of the marsh was a little sign in the air, a single green word: EXIT.

“Ha. Now you see, so now you know. Farewell.” He spun the oar a little, and the burning hulk moved off along its boiling path, trailing the first screams of the souls heading to everlasting punishment and maybe eventually to Satan himself, who was trapped in the middle of hell, from where even he was unable to escape.

A horn sounded inside his head and Kyle jerked awake, soaked with sweat, swatting at his arms, smelling the stench. He realized that he was not on fire, and he saw rain falling against the windows. Swanson hurried to his balcony, threw open the door, and stepped into the spring shower to wash away the dream. Then he held his arms above his head like a boxer dancing after winning a fight. He saw—he knew—just as the Boatman promised.