Time to Kill: A Sniper Novel

22

Swanson had frozen in place, nose to the ground, when he heard the long burst of automatic weapons fire in the distance. AK-47s were buzzing in a sustained staccato of fire, but it was far behind him, somewhere back in the city. He glanced at his watch: nine o’clock. Plenty of time.

Slowly, he surveyed the area around him again and saw nothing had changed. A static guard position forty yards away still remained quiet, with one soldier sitting on a lip of sandbags, a rifle across his knees, and talking down to his partner in the hole. The Iranians had not yet even thrown coils of barbed wire around the ammo dump, depending for security on the human eyes of men with guns, who generally saw only what they expected to see.

By ten o’clock, he was within a quarter mile of the small mountains of cases and crates, which were showered with bright lights. To Kyle, that also meant the reverse — those same glaring lights created helpful corridors of darkness between the stacks. He paused and checked his surroundings once again. The static guard post was now behind him, and a single roving soldier was on duty around the dump. Swanson had timed the man passing the same point every ten minutes. That opened a huge window of time.

Their training was working against them. The commandos were honed to be frontline fighters and were not accustomed to the rear-echelon garrison duty that had been thrust upon them; it was demeaning, and they were not good at it. When the rover guard passed the next time, Kyle eased his right leg forward and untied the drag bag, then slowly and softly assembled the M-16A3, putting in a fresh magazine. The faint clicks of the metal against metal sounded like thunderclaps to him but were unheard by anyone else. He waited another ten minutes for the guard to pass again before moving to his final position.

It was a little after eleven when the guard went by on his usual route, watching the ground as if studying his own footsteps, and ducking his eyes from the bright lights that blazed from portable wheeled stands all around. Kyle grinned: He’s blind as a bat!

Swanson had maneuvered to a spot where the illumination changed sharply into shadow, and slowly rose up beside a row of tall telephone poles, letting them mask his bulk. Five yards away was the deep valley of crates and containers, and he crossed it with three easy strides that would not draw a curious eye. Then, once in the wider cavern of shadow, he ventured deeper into the complex, his path determined by the patches of dark, until he was fully surrounded by the peaks of the containers loaded with explosives, bullets, grenades, and shells. No guards patrolled the interior area.

He took his time to plant bricks of C-4 at various points, picking out containers that he thought would cause the most damage. He was not after a hit-or-miss fire-and-light show but wanted to create a volcanic bonfire that would be almost impossible to extinguish. Then, when the rocket-propelled grenades exploded, they would fly all over the place, igniting even more explosions. Cases of hand grenades would pulverize whatever was around. Fifty-caliber bullets would cook off hot and punch through other cases, and the entire thing would sizzle and boom for hours. Knowing the Pathfinders would be bringing in more ammunition of all kinds, Kyle decided to expend all of his C-4 but for a single brick to be kept back for an emergency. The det cord was strung, and the timers were all set for 0230.

It was almost midnight when he left the place as quietly as he had entered, moving faster once he got past the guard post. He wished he could have taken those guards out, but their bodies would have called attention to the fact that somebody had been in the area. Anyway, those two would have enough to worry about in a just little while.

At the edge of the final field, he stripped away the ghillie, broke down the rifle again, put it all in the drag bag, and, once again in his baggy Egyptian clothes, walked back to the waiting 4Runner. It was time to go pick up his people.

Tech sergeant Bubba Talbot suppressed a smirk as he cocked the unique scarlet beret that identified him as an Air Force Combat Controller to just the right angle so the wind across the flight deck would not sweep it off his head; he was the man tonight. Four of the deadliest men on the planet walked with him to the Black Hawk helicopter that was sitting in the busy gloom aboard the giant aircraft: a two-man SEAL sniper team, a Marine Recon explosives expert, and some weird-looking dead-eyes dude with a big gun from the Christians in Action, better known as the CIA. All were sneak-and-peek gunslingers, and their job was to protect Talbot, the Combat Controller. The five experts had been chopped without explanation for temporary duty with something called Task Force Trident, assembled at Fort Bragg on the double, then flown across the Atlantic, and finally boarded the COD for the final leg to the carrier.

Talbot, the burly Air Force Combat Controller, had spent more than a year going through rigorous training on everything from advanced communications to parachuting out of airplanes to swimming underwater before being allowed near a battle zone. Four years later, he was one of the best in the business, a combat veteran, a dead shot with rifle and pistol, physically superior, fearless, and a respected brother within the tight special operations community. He had been at home watching television when he got the call to drop everything and get his ass over to Bragg.

For Bubba did something special, something none of the others could do, which was the purpose of tonight’s mission. In exactly one hour, at 0300, the Black Hawk would deliver them to a designated spot on a beach in Egypt, they would slide down thick ropes while the loadmaster simultaneously lowered extra gear, and the helo would turn and return to the carrier. Waiting on the ground as their guide would be a Marine who had been caught behind the lines when the Iranian attack had hit. Must have been on a diving vacation, Talbot thought. Wrong place at the right time.

Once proper security was established, the show belonged to Bubba, the man who could talk to the sky and make amazing things happen. With his specialized comm gear, he would organize and bring in the main assault when it happened — everything from guiding helicopters toting giant fuel bladders for building a temporary forward airstrip to calling bomber strikes on targets and targeting the thundering offshore naval gunfire. The Iranoids have no idea how much shit I can bring, thought Talbot. He had no pity for his future enemies.

The Black Hawk noisily spooled up its engines, the loadmasters finished strapping everything down, and the five men of the Pathfinder team settled in for what was going to be a long ride over a lot of water because the fleet was so far away from the target area. They were patient men who were used to such intervals, knowing that by daybreak the insertion would be complete.

Bubba ran through his mental checklists and stared at his radios that had been lashed down nearby. He would not put on that heavy pack until they were only a few minutes out from the target. Only then would he replace his beret with a helmet. OK, here comes Bubba and his boys. Finally, he settled back, closed his eyes, and jacked up the volume on his iPod to let Johnny Cash wail the “Folsom Prison Blues.”

The Black Hawk lifted away from the lighted deck, banked to starboard to reach clear space, and was soon swallowed by the darkness.

It took thirty minutes of lying prone on the bathroom floor, a time during which Major Shakuri dared not summon his aide or call for help out of fear of starting a rumor that he was a coward. He would rather be dead than disgraced. Eventually, the nerves settled and the heartbeat slowed. Convinced that he was still alive, he struggled to his feet and took a long, soapy shower to wash away the imaginary blood that seemed to cling to him like a coating of accusation. The major smeared on cologne and brushed his teeth and put on a fresh uniform. Back to work.

His spirits rose sharply about midnight, when his intelligence officer arrived with good news that helped push away the memories. One of the objects of the manhunt that had been ordered by Colonel Naqdi, the mysterious archaeologist from Great Britain, Dr. Tianha Bialy, was back on the scene, not in hiding after all but checking into the elegant Four Seasons Hotel, and under her own name. Shakuri would go see her first thing tomorrow, and that would certainly please the colonel.

So, progress was being made, despite the bloody business in the park, and he was able to enjoy a late-night salad and fish dinner that was sent up from the hotel kitchen. He finished his paperwork at two o’clock in the morning, by which time his feelings of guilt were solidly back under control, so the major retired to his suite and took another quick shower before crawling, exhausted, between the clean sheets. He immediately fell asleep.

At two thirty, detonator timers simultaneously registered 00:00 and triggered the chain of explosions throughout the Iranian ammunition dump at the airport. Brilliant and silent flashes rent the darkness as fast as an eyeblink, followed immediately thereafter by earth-jarring thumps that seemed like the old gods of Egypt were angrily stomping the planet, and a heartbeat later came the first thundering crashes that stopped time. A false sun began to coagulate above the Sharm airport.

Kyle Swanson heard it begin from miles away, as he waited for the Pathfinders beside the shoreline in the north. The sky colored with pulses of gold and yellow and red as the ammo cooked off with wild abandon, each exploding crate feeding the ignition of its neighboring containers. Rockets began to zip out of the inferno only to fall back and explode elsewhere and start other fires.

The big hangar adjacent to the stockpile of ammo was crushed by the pressure; the roof fell in, and the big Boeing transport airplane inside was blown to pieces, along with the mechanics working on it. Deadly shrapnel scythed through the air, and the wild fire churned into a concentrated inferno within the first minute, oozing a giant mushroom cloud into the night. By the time the alert sirens started screaming, they were useless. No one needed to be told that something huge was happening.

Major Mansoor Shakuri was thrown off of his bed by the harsh detonations that shook the hotel like an earthquake. An instant later, one of the big windows in his bedroom crashed inward, and a shower of glass splinters lanced across the mattress where he had been resting a moment before. His head was woozy and his ears were battered, a staccato of major explosions as he scuttled into the dark bathroom and curled up in the tub, knees to his forehead and hands over his head.

A similar experience rocked Tianha Baily awake at the Four Seasons Hotel, but her reaction was far different. She rolled onto the floor beside the bed, reached up to the night table, and grabbed her cell phone as it chirped. Omar was calling from the rooftop plaza and reported that the ammo dump was blowing sky high. “There’s no danger to us here at the hotel, but all hell’s going on at the airport. Come on up and watch the show,” he said. “Nobody’s getting any more sleep tonight.”

A peculiar-looking airplane known as an E-2C Hawkeye had been carving a long oval high in the sky far in front of the USS Kennedy for three hours, with its advanced electronics suite sweeping the sky and ocean alike, simultaneously monitoring a multitude of tasks. The Hawkeye’s crew and computers were out there to detect any long-range threats to the carrier, which was a vital mission since Iran possessed both ground-to-ship missiles and submarines. Among its other duties was to monitor the flight of the stealth Black Hawk helicopter of the Pathfinders and act as a communications relay point for the ship.

Technicians had detected a new heat bloom at the Sharm airport, which also had shown up on satellites and was being tagged for further investigation. That did not skew the total attention of a crewman tracking the inbound Black Hawk, which carried a transponder that automatically registered its position on a radar screen. Suddenly, he blinked, then fidgeted forward in his seat as much as the seat belt would allow. The blip was gone! He did an automatic reset, and the screen did an instant reactivation, but there was nothing there.

“Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown,” he spoke into his headset, calling the aircraft carrier’s Combat Information Center, keeping his voice neutral. “This is Snoopy Two.”

“Copy, Snoopy Two. Send your traffic.”

“We have lost track of Red Box. Repeat, we have lost all signal from Red Box.”

“Hold one.” The tech in the carrier CIC checked his own screen, which confirmed what the tech in the plane was seeing. “Same on my screen, Snoopy Two. No signal from Red Box. Alter course for a closer look.”

“Roger that.”

The Pathfinder helicopter had disappeared. The CIC launched helicopters to the last known location and to vector any allied warships into the area. A covert insertion had changed in an instant into a massive search-and-rescue effort.

Going through the checklist, a Navy lieutenant dialed a number that activated the portable satellite telephone that was on the ground beside Kyle Swanson at the rendezvous site. After some buzzing interference while the connection was made and the proper code words given, the lieutenant said, “Bounty Hunter, be advised that the mission is off.”

“Say again your last, Charlie Brown.” Swanson looked up into the night out over the sea. No sign of any Black Hawk. The voice from the carrier confirmed the notification that the mission was now inoperative. Kyle thought the choice of words was interesting; the guy had not said it was “aborted” or “ordered terminated,” just that it was “off,” which left Swanson with no idea of what had happened to the Pathfinders and their helicopter.

That did not matter. He immediately moved out, stacking his gear in the 4Runner and hitting the road, back toward where the sky was absolutely glowing with deathly colors and thunder rumbled. Whatever happened with the chopper was no longer his business, because he knew all too well that unexplained shit happens in war. Plans can fail in a moment, and a new plan has to be implemented.

Meanwhile, the ammo dump was back there exploding like the biggest Fourth of July celebration he had ever seen, and that was just too damned good a diversion to pass up. He could still make something happen.

Colonel Yahya Ali Naqdi of the Army of the Guardians was sitting on the side of his bed in Cairo, taking deep breaths to control the emotions churning within him. It had been a rather pleasant night at the end of a work-filled day, and he had left work behind at five o’clock so as to have a very private dinner with a beautiful yellow-haired young Swedish woman who was hired because of her skills at pleasing rich men. It went on for hours. Their lovemaking had reached a fever pitch, and afterward she departed quietly with a full purse and left behind another satisfied customer. Naqdi had immediately fallen asleep.

The private military telephone beside his bed blinked a red light and purred softly, just enough to alert the occupant that he was being summoned. It took a few moments for Naqdi to unsnarl himself from the tangled sheets and deep sleep before he answered, and the operator, an enlisted man, politely said, “Colonel. You have an urgent call from General Khasrodad in Sharm el-Sheikh. He insisted that I connect him without delay.”

Khasrodad? Why is Khasrodad calling me directly? General Khasrodad normally was the commander of Iranian’s airborne division and had been temporarily assigned to lead the commando forces down in the peninsula. Naqdi considered him competent and loyal. The general, however, answered up the military chain of command, and he was under orders that Naqdi was in overall command of the Egyptian invastion and that Major Shakuri was on site down there and should be handling whatever this was. The colonel took a drink of water from a bedside bottle. “Put him on. Don’t listen in.”

“Yes, of course, sir.” The operator made the connection with a clicking sound.

“Has Shakuri called you?” The gritty voice of Khasrodad jarred the colonel. He was clearly furious about something.

“No. Why?” He looked at the small clock on the dresser. Four o’clock.

“Let me report, then.” The voice was almost a venomous hiss. “I’m sure you’re aware of his reprisals against the civilian population last night, but listen to this…”

Reprisals? He had heard nothing about any reprisals. The colonel was now wide awake, then stood up as the sound of explosions came through the receiver. “I have been out of contact this evening. What is happening, General?”

“Our main ammunition dump at the airport has been attacked by unknown forces and is in flames. It is so wild right now that we cannot get near it, much less contain the damage, which is going to be substantial. The cause is unknown, so I can’t say whether it is sabotage or a military assault. I’ve taken steps to draw in our perimeter around the airport for better protection.”

“Isn’t Shakuri out there? Let me speak to him.”

“That’s the reason I’m talking to you directly, Naqdi. Your man Shakuri is not answering his telephone. I’ve dispatched an officer over to his headquarters to find him.”

There was a pause. “Thank you for alerting me, General. I will come down to Sharm in person as soon as I can.” Now for the delicate part. “Have you notified your superiors in Tehran?”

The general’s tone eased. “Not yet, both as a favor to you, my old friend, and because I do not have enough specifics. I do not think your man Shakuri is up to this job.”

“You have my gratitude, Medhi.” It was a huge favor from an old friend, and a costly debt that would have to be repaid at some later date. “Now, let me ask you plainly. What is the overall situation in the area? Is this serious?”

“The ammo dump will be a hard blow to us, but it is not fatal. We can make do until we get some resupply and the Brotherhood reaches us, although we will have to be even more cautious. I hope those Brotherhood people get here fast. The reprisals in the city are a problem. In my opinion, those have put Sharm on the brink of switching sides, and the ammo dump blowing up shows weakness on our part. Serious mistake, Colonel. Very serious.”

Naqdi sat back down, telephone to his ear, elbows on his knees, eyes closed. “For some reason, the major has neglected to inform me of any reprisals. Tell me what happened. From the start, old friend.”