On Scope

33

The little sidewalk café, shaded by old cypress trees and climbing bundles of oleander, was located three bridges away from the Piazza San Marco. The distance was just enough to deter tourists who did not like to walk. Yanis and Djahid Rebiane shared a table at the edge of the stone street, near some gigantic potted plants. The only other customers were a young couple at a table beside a weather-beaten statue. The paving stones were still wet from the previous night’s high-tide flood, and almost everyone in the city wore rubber boots to work that morning, changing into regular shoes once at their offices. Both father and son were booted as they sipped tiny cups of espresso con panna, double shots of caffeine topped with whipped cream.

“I have been considering ways that we may have our revenge on that pig Marwan Sobhi.” Djahid’s manner was casual and quiet, appropriate for the morning, but his father knew he was wound tightly.

My son is mentally unstable, he thought, not for the first time. “Good. I agree.” Yanis spooned up the thick cream and tasted it while the puttering motor of a passing water bus echoed in the courtyard. “For now, Djahid, we must be careful until we determine what the police and intelligence agencies are doing. Our sources remain active and will stay in contact.”

“I am not afraid.” Spoken with the bravado of a careless warrior.

The father gave a rueful shake of his head. “I am afraid enough for both of us. Things went well for us in Seville because of a mixture of preparation and surprise and good fortune. After I telephoned Torreblanca with the fake warning, it was obvious that he would be coming out quickly. I just did not expect him to do so immediately. It was fortunate that we had built that sniper’s hole for you during the night so that you were in position and ready. There was no time to spare.”

Following the morning murder in Spain, they had been able to board an international flight without a problem, and it took them directly to Marco Polo Airport in Venice. They used trains and a private water taxi to reach their hotel by nightfall. Less than twenty-four hours after the assassination of Torreblanca, the Rebianes were more than a thousand miles away, in another country, sipping coffee, just two of the some two hundred thousand visitors who would enter Venice that day.

Djahid pulled up the collar of his light jacket, for the day was still cool and a strong wind stirred the greenery. “How long must we wait, father?”

“As long as it takes, my boy. This is not over. Marwan will tire of the tight protection soon enough. Having to employ guards in plain view is bad for business, for they are a sign of fear. Marwan loves his freedom of movement too much to sustain a long siege.”

Djahid raised his cup, licked off some foam, and drank the strong coffee. “What if he acts against us?”

The elder Rebiane was certain that would not happen. He held too much evidence of Marwan’s years of corrupt practices, and it was all safely hidden. The scale was in a precarious balance between them, and if neither side moved, it would stay that way. Sheikh Marwan Tirad Sobhi, the shrewd billionaire businessman, would understand the same thing. There was nothing personal in the dispute between the two old acquaintances; this was just business, and time would heal the wound, and life would go on for both of them. In fact, he planned to telephone the sheikh in about a week to be certain both of them were on the same page. He did not plan to tell Djahid about the call, because he would not understand settling of differences without spilling blood. Yasim did not want Sobhi as an enemy. The man had too many resources.

“If he tries anything, then you will kill him,” Yasim said, and his son smiled, content for the time being.

The morning briefing in General Middleton’s office did not add much to their base of knowledge, at least during the first hour. The killer who had taken the life of the last Spaniard still had not surfaced in the Lizard’s international law enforcement databases, so they chewed around the edges of what they knew some more, getting nowhere slowly.

Swanson chose his words carefully when he told them about something he had realized subconsciously late last night, not wanting to mention the Boatman, his own private specter, to the group, who would think he was nuts. “The thought came to me while I was taking a shower,” he said. “I do some of my best thinking in the shower.”

“Were you showering alone?” Coastie needled.

He flashed a look to shut her up, then continued. “The First Amendment guarantees us the right of free speech, but it is a limited right; that means you can’t shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. I was thinking about how Torreblanca came charging out of his house so fast. I had given him plenty of time to meet me at the café, and the cops were already there. His movement seemed rushed and awkward from where I was in my car. For the sake of this argument, let’s suppose he was not coming to see me at all, but was reacting to something entirely different, something more urgent.”

Double-Oh was nodding his head, getting the picture straight, thinking tactics. “Maybe somebody was saying his kids were in danger, or another attack was coming his way, to draw him into running.”

Kyle had closed his eyes and leaned his head back, trying to get it straight himself. “I had called the private number of the cell phone that I left behind, so the rest of his lines were open.”

“You think somebody else called him between the time that you did and the time you got to the house?” Sybelle frowned. “I don’t like it, Kyle. We don’t do coincidences.”

Middleton carelessly sloshed another mug of dark coffee. “No, we don’t. But strange shit can happen at any time. Carry on, Gunny Swanson.”

“I think he got an emergency call, sir, just like Double-Oh says. And just like anybody sitting in a dark theater munching popcorn and someone yells ‘fire,’ he reacted immediately by heading for the green exit sign, to clear out of there as fast as possible.”

“Right into the kill zone,” said Coastie. “Wow. What a slick move.”

Middleton said, “Maybe. That would explain the how.” He went back to his big desk. “Still leaves the big question of who, as in who done it, and why?”

They all fell silent for a while, mulling the possibilities in a group-think of veteran special operators who didn’t always need words to communicate. Commander Freedman screwed up his lips, blinked a few times, then spoke. “We have been saying this sniper is a mystery man. Since we are opening up to coincidences, try this: That was the second time our people had been chased away from that hacienda because of a botched operation.”

Coastie picked at her fingernail. “First time was when we got the call to abort the mission because our identity had been compromised. Now Kyle has to egress because the cops were about to swarm down on the place following the murder. Same force behind both the leak and the hit?”

Silence again. Kyle said, “It fits. So the dance started with Senator Jordan giving up my name and that of Trident to Yasim Rebiane. And Rebiane is someone to whom Torreblanca would listen in an emergency. He could have made the call in Seville.”

They went silent for a minute. Double-Oh asked, “How is that old bastard Monroe, anyway?”

“He’s sucking oxygen and morphine in the ICU at Walter Reed, with the FBI parked at his door but not allowed to question him right now. Stable condition, but it could still go either way. Quadruple bypass surgery tomorrow morning.” The Lizard had checked his laptop computer. “No help to us.”

General Middleton interrupted. “Maybe the senator doesn’t have to talk. The Feebs are trying to figure out how to use him anyway, maybe through his administrative aide, the little rat they have in custody as an accomplice.”

“Where is he?” asked Swanson.

“Some safe house, probably. Why?”

“Maybe I should talk to him personally. Give him some encouragement to help. Like you said, sir, we need a break.”

Douglas Jimenez stared across the small table at the meanest-looking man he had ever seen. An open set of handcuffs lay between them, reflecting the fluorescent lights of the tight interview room. There was nothing and no one else in the room, which was bare of shelves and the usual cop junk like dusty computer screens and file boxes. Two blue plastic chairs and one small table on an easy-clean floor. Nothing else, not even a pinhole camera, microphone, recording device, or the obligatory one-way mirror. He had grown used to the austere surroundings of police work in the past few days, but this was extreme.

“Put these on me,” the stranger ordered with the tight-lipped grin and the hungry gray-green eyes of a predator who has found easy prey. He wore faded jeans and a loose sports shirt that showed strong muscles in the forearms. “Nice and tight. I want you to feel safe.”

“No.” Doug held up his hands as if surrendering, trying to make peace. “That won’t be necessary. I’m good. Who are you?”

Without another word, the stranger put both hands on his side of the table and violently shoved it into Jimenez so hard that it knocked away the lawyer’s breath and toppled him backward out of the chair. He gasped like a fish on a rock as a broken rib radiated a sharp sting in his chest, and his vision reddened.

By the time Doug was able to catch some breathable air again, the man was back in his chair, the table was back in place, and one of the handcuffs was dangling from the stranger’s right wrist. “Get back in your chair and sit back down. Now do my other wrist.”

Doug struggled up, grabbing the injured and throbbing area, which only made it hurt more. “Goddamn, man, you broke my rib!”

“I used measured and minimal force. It should be just a contusion. Hurts about the same but is not broken. Doesn’t matter anyway. Now, if you please, hook me up.” The man held out his arms, and Doug reluctantly locked the other cuff in place. Then they both settled back.

It happened instantly. The stranger lunged across the table and looped the handcuffs behind Jimenez’s neck and yanked him forward and smashed his own forehead on Doug’s exposed nose, which gave way with a snap from the bone-on-bone strike. Pain flooded through Jimenez, the sharpest he had ever felt in his life, and blood poured out of the broken nose, coating his mouth and chin. Without releasing Doug’s neck, the man whipped around the table and got behind him, so that the steel handcuffs twisted and became a noose, and then he kicked the plastic chair from beneath Jimenez. It went clattering across the room and bounced off a wall. He let the victim sag downward, pulled by his own weight. Doug’s fingers clawed helplessly at the chain that was crushing his throat.

He was allowed to sink all the way to the floor before the man knelt beside him, maintaining enough of a grip with the cuffs to choke off the air, and Douglas Jimenez’s eyes bugged from his head as he passed out, certain the last thing he would ever see was the gray-green eyes that were studying him as if he were nothing more than a dust bunny beneath a bed. The last words he heard were, “My name is Gunnery Sergeant Kyle Swanson, you shitbird, and I hear you have been looking for me.”

Jimenez slowly regained consciousness on the floor as the room swirled and he gagged. Blood was caked on his hands and had formed a stiff mask on his face and coated his tongue and blocked his nose. He was on his side, so the puke and blood spilled out of his mouth instead of clogging his throat. He was hurt, but he was alive, and heaving to get some air into his starved lungs.

“Get up. You’re not hurt.” The sharp voice was accompanied by the vise grip of a strong hand that lifted him by the collar, then gave a rough shove to put him back in the chair, and he was back at the table, everything in place again. Swanson moved around to his own chair, fished a key from his pocket, and unlocked the cuffs, putting them once again on the slick table surface.

“That little demonstration was necessary to prove a point without wasting a lot of time. If I can come this close to killing you so easily while in restraints, imagine what I might do with no cuffs on. Back in the day, I learned hand-to-hand combat from a little instructor who really knew his stuff. He was so small, like an elf or something, and looked totally out of place among us badass Marines sitting around him. When he asked for his first volunteer, I made the mistake of standing forward. He whipped my ass for about fifteen seconds, leaving me on the dirt in much the same shape that you are in right now. After that, I became a believer and his best student, and have gone through a lot of even better instructors since then. In other words, I can always find you and kill you in a hundred different ways even before needing to reach a gun. And I can make it pretty painful, you fucking terrorist wannabe.”

Jimenez glared blearily at Swanson. “I understand, Gunny. I’m not a terrorist. I have been cooperating to the best of my ability.”

Swanson stood and checked his shirt to be certain that it had no bloodstains, then took it off and set it aside. The muscles on his torso stood out in sharp definition. “It would be best if you continue to do so.” He balled up his fist and struck Jimenez squarely on the mouth, splitting the lower lip in another shock of pain and sending out another big splash of blood.

“Get it through your thick head that you are a terrorist, asshole! Just because you wore a coat and tie and worked on the Hill doesn’t make you any different from some raghead on a donkey packed with explosives. You were helping a guy that put six of my fellow Marines in coffins. You revealed classified information that has put more special operators, including me, in danger, and you fucked up a sensitive operation. So I’m giving you a little look into our world.”

“Stop! Please stop. Why are you doing this to me? You don’t need to beat me up. I’m already helping clear up this mess. Anyway, you are violating my rights as an American citizen!”

A quick twist of the right ear, with Kyle digging his fingernails into the soft flesh, brought another yelp, and Swanson was in his face again. “You don’t like me, do you? You want to hurt me like I’m hurting you, but you’re too much of a pussy to even try.”

“No! Owwww!”

Another twist on the opposite ear, and a spark of anger flared deep within Douglas Jimenez, the part of his mind from the street days reacting. Swanson caught the flicker, and it earned a hard slap that spilled Jimenez from the chair again.

“You don’t like me, Doug, and I don’t care. In fact, I want you to hate me, to think about me all the time, knowing I’m likely to keep coming back and hurting you on my days off when I have nothing better to do. Fucking piece of horse crap.”

Jimenez, on the floor, kicked out, and Swanson stomped on the extended ankle and heard it crack. Jimenez curled into the fetal position, crying and holding his leg. “The only way you can stop me is to kill me, asshole, and you can’t do that by yourself. You need big-league help.” Swanson walked away and leaned against the smooth wall. A splatter of blood had crossed his chest.

“Here is your only way out. You are going to be asked pretty soon to call the terrorist that your boss had talked to earlier. You will have to do the sales job of your life, because I want him to break cover and try to take me down. Who knows, you and your terrorist buddy might even get lucky. Then I won’t be able to slap you around anymore.”

Swanson stepped easily across the floor with a leopardlike economy of movement, grabbed Jimenez by the lapels of the orange jail suit, and slammed him against the wall, raising him up on his toes and pressing a knee into his groin. “I want you to hate me as much as I hate you, you little prick. I can see it happening already back there deep in your eyes, the way your mind is shifting from outright groveling fear to a hope of some revenge. You want somebody to bring me down. This is your only chance.”

Jimenez spat a gob of blood and mucus on the floor. He had been brutally handled, but that part was over. His ankle and nose were broken, but not his brain. He wiped his face with a sleeve. “Don’t you ever hit me again,” he warned, and Swanson laughed at him.

Kyle walked to the door, putting on his shirt, certain that the attitude adjustment had been successful.

Doug stared with fury at the man who walked out of the room. Jimenez had always prided himself on his gift of gab; he could talk his way out of tight places, peddle backroom deals for votes, and even make people donate cash to candidates they really did not like. When it came to making deals, he was in his element. So he would make that call to whoever it was, and do his best to paint a target on the back of that fucking Swanson.