Time to Kill: A Sniper Novel

6

A TV set in the colonel’s office was tuned to the live coverage of the airport arrival of the Iranian national soccer team. Shouting fans surged along the police security cordons, cheering wildly.

“We have a good team,” observed Colonel Naqdi. A newspaper lay folded on his desk, with a front-page photograph showing strong young men in Iranian soccer uniforms, those in the front row kneeling, and all smiling for the camera. “A very good team,” he repeated.

“We are favored to win the Asian Cup,” his chief of staff agreed. “They are rising in the world standings.”

“Which is exactly why this exhibition goodwill match with Egypt is so special. I am pleased that the Cultural Ministry pushed through a popular sports competition so quickly.” He looked across at Major Mansoor Shakuri. “I will not forget that this was originally your idea. Well done.”

“Thank you, Colonel.” He had several months ago suggested a friendship match, not something like what was unfolding before him at the moment; never something like this.

On the screen, the aircraft came to a halt far short of the terminal. Stairs were pushed into place when the door opened at the front, and a welcoming group of Egyptian sports officials boarded, along with the customs authorities to clear the visitors.

Major Shakuri went to a sideboard and poured them both tea. The colonel gave him a hard look and said, “Let us hope it all goes smoothly. You could use a win about now yourself, Major, after that failure in America.”

“No excuse, sir.” Shakuri stiffened in the chair. Any thought that the arrest of the sniper would be treated as a minor mishap was crushed. This man never forgot failure.

“I like you, Chief of Staff, and you have great potential, but you must consider more variables in your planning. I detect a sense of urgency in your work, when you should be more patient. Get it done, but do it properly. Time is our ally,” the colonel cautioned. “The historic events that will break the stranglehold of the Egyptian army on the current government’s leadership are well under way. We will get there eventually.”

“I understand clearly, sir,” said the major. Change the subject! “We hired some hooligans in London through several cutouts to kidnap the Cornwell woman. It was better to send local infidels to do the job rather than use brothers of the faith who might be under police surveillance.”

The colonel rubbed his hands together. The soccer team was deplaning and waving to the cheering admirers. “Keep me informed on that one. The old man who is her husband is a dangerous enemy.”

A large blue-and-white bus was waiting for the team, parked between a lead army truck that would push a path through the crowd and an armored car in back for extra security. Uniformed Egyptian army troops were seated in the open-back truck, and another helmeted soldier manned the .50 caliber machine gun atop the armored vehicle. A phalanx of civilian police on motorcycles would stop traffic at the intersections all the way to the hotel where the team would stay overnight. Security was ironclad.

The athletes boarded the bus, took seats, and pushed open the sliding windows to continue waving. They were goodwill ambassadors, and it was easy for sports heroes to be friendly. The door hissed closed, and motorcycle engines roared to life.

“Watch now. Now we start,” the colonel said, picking up his teacup.

The helmeted gunner in the rearmost armored car opened up with a long rip of fire that destroyed the engine in the back of the team bus in front of it; then more bullets crashed the length of the bus toward the front. The heavy armored car accelerated out of line, bent into a sharp turn, and headed straight for the immobilized bus as the heavy machine gun pumped short, sharp bursts into the trapped soccer team. The army troops piled out of their truck and began shooting into the shocked crowd of onlookers.

Inside the bus, the athletes and trainers scrambled over the bodies of their teammates to try to escape through the windows on the far side away from the incoming fusillade of bullets that ripped and tore without mercy. Before they could get out, the armored car slammed into the thin skin of the bus with such power that the two vehicles were meshed into a single tangle of metal. Then a bomb exploded, lifting both vehicles off the ground for a moment before they crashed back down to burn furiously.

In his office at the Palm Group, the colonel and his chief of staff watched and drank their tea. Idiot television announcers were horrified, and that weakness was passed along to their tens of thousands of viewers. The screen showed the welcoming crowd breaking apart and stampeding like a herd of goats. Many had been killed or wounded, and others were trampled. The station switched to a replay of the armored car shooting, then ramming the bus and exploding, and then the Egyptian government ordered the station to shut down. The screen faded into a fuzzy, buzzing blackness that only fed the fears of those watching.

“It appears you have your win today, Major Shakuri. My congratulations,” said the colonel. “The team was martyred for the greater cause.”

The major was trying hard to keep himself together. “It is sad that such fine young men had to be sacrificed.”

“Nonsense, Major. Your plan caught the attention of the world,” the colonel said. “Any investigation will show this to have been an outrageous attack by the renegades within the Egyptian army. People will lose trust in all of their security forces.”

“How will our country respond?”

The colonel smiled. “Demonstrations in Tehran and a very strong diplomatic protest.”

Kyle and Sybelle dumped Pejman Mobili back with the U.S. Marshals in Atlanta and flew back to Washington. Major General Bradley Middleton, the two-star commander of Task Force Trident, was waiting behind the big desk, rocking slowly with a foot braced on a lower drawer. Master Gunny O. O. Dawkins was immersed in his favorite pastime, reading online newspapers and blogs and Web sites on his iPad tablet, with his big fingers scrolling on the little flat screen as smoothly as those of a texting teenager. Commander Benton Freedman was picking at the information from the prisoner.

“He didn’t know much, did he?” Freedman, the Lizard, asked.

“Wouldn’t expect him to, Liz. He was a shooter. Nothing more.”

“This name of his partner might be good, and I’ll get that over to the FBI right away. He’s probably changed it by now, but who knows?”

Sybelle Summers spoke. “And give priority to that other name he dropped, that Major Mansoor Shakuri who gave him the order.”

“On it,” the Lizard confirmed. “He may have been lying.”

Summers shook her head. “No. He wasn’t lying.”

“What did you do to him?” asked O. O. Dawkins, glancing up from the business page of the online International Herald Tribune.

“Nothing, really. Not a mark on him. He just felt like talking, I guess. Guilt, maybe.”

Dawkins snorted, grinned, and started clicking through some broadcast network sites. A celebrity mother and her two daughters, all strikingly beautiful, were having a public quarrel over a sheer dress the mom had worn to a premiere, and every network was running pictures as if it all meant something. “I don’t even know why these women are famous,” he said, nevertheless deciding to check out the dress that was causing the furor. It wasn’t all that sheer. Couldn’t really see anything.

Kyle Swanson moved to the window and looked out at the bright, chilly day. “Liz, that major is stashed somewhere in Iranian intelligence, but I think you can narrow the search to the counterintelligence units. He’s got some power.”

General Middleton pushed back his chair and suddenly stood up, leaning on the big desk. “Goddamn it. I cannot believe the Iranians were so stupid as to actually attack the United States in the open.”

Dawkins shifted back to Binging hard news sites. “But they did. Hey, guys, terrorists just blew up the whole Iranian soccer team during a goodwill trip to Egypt. The Iranians are blaming the Egyptian army.”

“Fuck. Still something else that does not fit,” the general snapped back. “Tehran traditionally keeps a low profile beyond their borders because nobody trusts them. Eventually, we will probably have to go after them because they are developing a nuclear weapon. To pick a fight with us over something like an accounting scam makes no sense because it gives us a valid excuse to bomb their nuke facilities. That’s just the way it works.”

Swanson turned toward him. “I talked to the prisoner about nukes. He knew nothing. Is the White House considering a strike?”

“They consider everything. Now that we can prove the sniper was Iranian and his orders came through the Iranian command structure, political pressure will build to do something.”

Summers, wearing battle dress fatigues, crossed her legs and picked at her boot laces. “We will be extra cautious, sir. Nobody wants to be wrong about this one.”

General Middleton absently waved a hand. “What has gone on before is ancient history, Summers. I want you to continue working the sniper angle. See where it leads.”

Swanson’s eyes moved from face to face. “Then my next move should be to get to the U.K. and see if Jeff can help us unravel it. He gave MI6 everything he remembered about the accounting deal, but if the two of us go through it a couple of times together, maybe something else will pop up.”

The general nodded in agreement. “OK. Get your butt over there. Remember you’re a Marine and you’re working for me, not him. Do that Excalibur shit on your own time.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“And give my regards to Sir Geoffrey and Lady Patricia.”

Lady Pat loved the theaters of London, having never totally extinguished the actress spark. She had abandoned a stage career when she met and married a rugged, handsome young captain in the Special Air Service, Geoffrey Cornwell. That had been years ago, and many things had changed. They had become wealthy, received awards, and seen the world, but she still dearly loved the boards. Instead of begging for a minor role in a play, perhaps being rejected because the director didn’t like the shape of her nose, she was now courted as a potential investor. Being a financial angel opened all doors. Although she was now sixty years old, she yearned for the burn of a spotlight.

She and her private secretary, the beautiful, dark-haired, and efficient Delara Tabrizi, had been making the rounds all day. A new musical was being cast, and they lunched with the producer before moving on to a fringe venue that was struggling to put together a small production by a dynamic new writer. She was unimpressed but gave compliments to the creator and his four-member cast. Lady Pat always had kind things to say to actors, whose fragile egos could be crushed with a glance. She gathered this group in a hand-holding circle, smiled, and started reciting “An Austrian army, awfully arrayed,” the first line of the alliterative poem by Alaric Alexander Watts. The verse was about a battle fought so long ago that it had been forgotten, except for the poem about it that became a voice exercise practiced by almost all actors.

“Boldly by battery besieged Belgrade,” continued the ingenue, and the leading man boomed out, “Cossack commanders cannonading come,” then the breaking voice of a boy, youngest of the troupe, followed with “Dealing destruction’s devastating doom.” They continued, line by line, through the entire alphabet. She led them in applause and hugs, for she was one of them.

Then it was out to the West End for some street shopping at the Chapel Market before a rehearsal at the historic King’s Head Theatre, of which she was a patron. She and Delara preferred to leave the car behind on such days and do their London prowls by taxi, foot, and subway, for they could see so much more. The chauffeur, alerted by Delara’s cell phone, would be waiting to take them home when they got off the train. If need be, they could always spend the night in the city. They were in no rush, and now that the workday was over, they decided to take the tube back to do some more shopping.

They joined the steady, jostling crowd entering the Islington High Street station and stepped carefully onto the first of two long, steep escalators heading down. Staying to the right side to allow others to pass on the left, Delara found herself wedged between a large man immobile on the step in front of her and Lady Pat behind her shoulders. They rode down with the crowd in silence and made the right-angle turn for the second escalator, facing another sharp decline. Delara was jammed against the same man, and when she glanced back, there was another large man right behind Lady Pat. Turning to face forward, she tapped her left hand against Pat’s leg hard to alert her to the possibility of trouble.

Almost immediately, Lady Pat felt a sharp point against her back, and the man behind her, with a knife covered by a folded jacket, leaned in close and said with a soft but threatening voice, “You and your friend will be coming with us now, ma’am. Any trouble, and I will be havin’ to put this blade between your ribs.” The man in front of Delara turned and glared at her.

Lady Pat took a deep breath and unleashed a tremendous scream from deep in lungs that had been trained to reach people in the last rows of a theater, and it almost stopped time. The eyes of the man in front of Delara Tabrizi widened in surprise, and Delara hit him on the bridge of the nose as hard as she could with a downward strike of her fist. The nose cracked, blood flew out, he saw stars, and his knees went wobbly on the moving escalator. Everyone was turning to stare.

The man with the knife momentarily froze, which was enough time for Lady Pat to turn and jam a wedge of stiff fingers into his testicles. The sudden pain made him drop the knife, and she grabbed the front of his shirt and jerked him forward and to the side, letting gravity and momentum roll him over her left hip. She had not lived with an SAS officer for so many years without learning some self-defense tricks. The attacker went tumbling past her, then past Delara, who kicked him in the face as he went by. Both of the men were down and entangled in a clump as others in the crowd piled on them in a noisy rugby-style scrum.

By the time the escalator emptied onto the long station platform, a pair of constables of the British Transport Police were waiting with handcuffs to take charge of the bewildered assailants. Delara gave them her business card and said that charges would be pressed against the hooligans who tried to steal her purse.

Lady Pat had stepped into the background and refused to be fussed over. She was fine, she said, but had a constable escort them back to the surface and into a taxi. When they were finally alone, she told Delara to immediately call for the Bentley to come into the city and pick them up at Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair as soon as possible. The chauffeur should bring along a few of Jeff’s security lads, for there had been a spot of trouble.