The First Casualty

58

Only a sharp eye could have detected any lightening of the dark in the east. The brightness of Venus, the morning star, alone announced the approach of dawn. Already, a few worshipers, mostly elderly, had gathered in the mosque’s courtyard, robes and shawls drawn tight against the early-morning chill. They filed into the courtyard and lined up at the fountain-fed trough of water for wudu, the ritual ablutions required before prayer.

It would be almost an hour before the first of the five daily prayers, Fajr, the predawn worship service, began. Only a flickering gas lamp illuminated the protocol of the righteous. First, plunging the hands into the trough three times, being certain water ran between the fingers. Next, water applied three times to the mouth, sniffed into the nose, and then rubbed on face, arms, and feet as the worshiper recited the Arabic for “I witness that none should be worshipped except Allah and that Mohammed is his slave and messenger.”

Once so cleansed, men and women used separate entrances, the latter clad so that only face and hands showed from garments intentionally bulky enough to make the shape of the body indistinguishable. Among the last to enter the courtyard were two men with the cheche, the indigo blue veil worn by Tuareg men. Had anyone noticed, they would have found it strange neither did more than mimic the rites of purification even though they stood beside the trough. Stranger yet, they made no effort to enter the mosque, edging toward the doorway to one of the minarets where half a dozen men in Bedouin dress also showed no inclination to join the worshipers inside. It would have been obvious to the keen observer that something unusual was taking place, something that had little to do with the religious service inside.

Six football fields away and up a steep slope, the 50-caliber Barrett’s bipod rested on a table, its muzzle only inches from the hotel room’s open window. But for the moment, the rifle was ignored. Jason was holding a Speedtech SM-28, a calculating device about the size and shape of a photographer’s light meter, but serving a far different purpose.

A 9-millimeter pistol shot at fifteen to twenty feet, a .30-30-round from a hunter’s rifle at a deer fifty yards away, if properly aimed, were likely to find the mark. A shot from nearly half a mile’s distance with a projectile varying from 440 to 700 grains was another matter. Wind velocity, for example, could push a bullet right or left of the target. A hundredth of an inch deviation every hundred feet would make the difference between a hit or miss at the yardage from which Jason would be shooting. Friction with the air would slow down a bullet significantly over long distances, heavy or humid air more so than lighter, dry air. Distance, weight, temperature, relative humidity all needed to be ascertained and figured into the equation. Add the fact that no sound suppressor system yet invented would dampen the crack of a high-powered rifle bullet shattering the sound barrier and the conclusion would be that the first shot was most probably the most effective. No sane target would stand still awaiting the second.

The next ten shots in the clip would likely be for matériel, not personnel.

His calculations complete, Jason used a pair of night-vision binoculars to scan the mosque’s courtyard. He could easily see Emphani and the Chief and was relieved no one seemed to be paying them particular attention, not even the six Bedouin-dressed men none-too-subtly guarding the entrance to the minaret. They seemed more interested in cupping hands around a lighted match to ignite the single cigarette they shared like an Indian peace pipe.

And why not? Earlier that morning, they had departed the hotel, uniformed similar to the other home-bound members of the establishment’s night crew. An observer would have seen nothing abnormal. At least, that was the plan — an apparently successful one if the inattention of the men at the minaret’s door was any indication.

Reaching into a pocket of his cargo pants, he pressed the button on a miniature transmitter. “Chief, you got the guys in Bedouin costume?”

A voice made metallic by the tiny electronics but still recognizable as Andrews replied through the set wrapped in his turban-like headgear, “Got ’em, Artiste. Any word from the Roosian?”

“Not yet. But he’s not supposed to move for another”—Jason consulted his watch—“twelve and a half minutes.”

“Let’s hope he gets his job done. We’re royally fucked if he doesn’t.”

“Any reason to think he won’t?”

“Depends on whether he found another bottle of that South African vodka.”

“Black Horse?”

“Yeah,” Andrews agreed, “the shit tastes like it came out of a horse, all right.”

Jason’s experience had been the no amount of vodka seemed to diminish Viktor’s capability, but it didn’t hurt to be sure. “Kremlin, you online?” Jason asked, using Viktor’s code name.

No answer.

“Kremlin…”

There was nothing but a whisper of static.