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  Swanson slipped the transmission into gear, pressed down hard on the accelerator and the powerful engine roared as the 23,000-pound vehicle lurched into motion. Its rolled aluminum armor made quick work of the closed, thin door and he plunged through, straight out onto the concrete apron. He turned the steering wheel to the left without touching the brakes, as easily as he would have turned a pickup truck. Lining up with the secondary gate, he stomped the accelerator and the APC chewed across the open area. The improved tracks and suspension kept the ride steady and the big machine smashed through the locked gate.

  Off to his right, tips of fire still pierced the dark sky as buildings blazed in the foreign compound and Kyle took a side road that led far around the fighting. Within five minutes, the broad tracks of the APC were off the concrete and onto desert sand as he headed into the deep nowhere.

  30

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  “H E DID WHAT ?” S TEVE Hanson, the chief of staff for President Mark Tracy, pushed away from his desk in surprise. After a career in the turbulent world of high-tech start-ups, bitter political campaigns, and a long stint in Washington, Hanson believed he was immune to shock. “Are you bullshitting me, General?”

  “Not at all. You heard me right.” Major General Bradley Middleton, the commander of Task Force Trident, was seated in a brown leather chair in front of Hanson’s desk. A small fire burned in the fireplace, giving off a faint, pleasant tinge of smoke. “Gunny Swanson stole a nuke last night.”

  “Good Lord. The man never does things by half measures, does he? Just outright stole it?”

  “Like a thief in the night, Steve. He broke into the Khobz military facility, found the tactical nuclear warhead mounted in its very own APC beside the missile launcher and drove off with it. With CIA help, a heavy-lift CH-43 helicopter made a rendezvous with him in the desert about twenty klicks outside of town and Swanson took the APC straight on board. The TNW is secure in the weapons bay of the USS Enterprise even as we speak. The armored personnel carrier was dumped overboard.”

  “Incredible. The Saudis have no clue?”

  Middleton shook his head and ran a hand over his close-cut hair. A big smile spread over the square jaw. “No. That’s the real beauty of it. Swanson also snatched up some terrorist beforehand and abandoned him inside the missile storage building, where he was killed during a shootout with the Saudis. They look at the corpse as proof that the terrorist was part of the group that had also attacked the Khobz oil workers’ compound. He actually was to be part of a rebel RPG team that ambushed a convoy rushing out of the military base. So the obvious conclusion was that his terrorist buddies took the TNW. Is that confusing enough?”

  “And Swanson is okay?”

  “Yep. The chopper dropped him off on a stretch of beach north of Khobz and he walked back to the CIA safe house. He radioed a report to Major Summers in Kuwait and she forwarded it to me.”

  Hanson stood up, holding the yellow legal pad on which he had made notes. “This might be a game-changer, Brad. We know something the Saudis don’t, about their own nuclear weapon.” The chief of staff lapsed into a terrible Hispanic accent for a quirky Ricky Ricardo imitation from I Love Lucy: “The new king has got some ’splainin’ to do.”

  “Right.” Middleton laid a folder on Hanson’s desk. “Steve, you keep that copy so you can brief the boss and I’ll privately feed you any more details as they come up. The CIA and the Pentagon obviously already know about what happened, but I told them to keep the secret compartmentalized since it was a black Trident operation. I told them that President Tracy would land on them hard if there were any leaks. So, you need anything else?”

  Hanson placed the folder atop his tablet and headed for the Oval Office. “Yeah. Tell Kyle to find another one.”

  31

  KHOBZ, SAUDI ARABIA

  N O LOOSE ENDS. K YLE Swanson remained absolutely still, concentrating totally on the final stages of the fighting that had unrolled at the mosque only 400 meters from his hide. The window on the far side of the shadowed room was open and his emotions were replaced by purpose.

  Since the Saudi authorities did not know what had happened to the nuclear warhead, other than that it had disappeared, he intended to keep the mystery tight and intact. To do so meant he was going to have to kill some people. That did not bother him, because in his judgment, they were enemy combatants. Swanson’s personal habit was that when presenting a gift to an enemy, one should wrap it very carefully so as to keep their attention on the unimportant things, like the shape of the box or the crinkly yellow paper wrapping, and not the bomb inside. The trick was as old as the wooden horse at Troy and usually worked. Today, he would add a final flourish of distraction on his theft at the base by tying a big bloody red bow.

  Kyle had returned to the safe house just before daylight and found both Homer and Jamal busy closing up shop, arranging det cord and explosives in a pre-arranged pattern that would not only destroy the structure but make it cave in upon itself.

  “The Boykin Group is out of business,” Homer declared. “It won’t be long before the Saudis start wondering about how a handful of foreign workers just happened to have enough automatic weapons, ammo, and grenades to whip a pretty big onslaught of rebel bad guys. Come dark, we will be gone.” He rubbed his eyes, and then looked fondly around the well-stocked basement that had been maintained over the years. “Shame to lose all this, but we’ve got no choice. Our cover is blown.”

  “Probably,” Kyle agreed. He got a cup of coffee and sat on a foldout cot. “How’d it go out there?”

  Jamal was planting C4 bricks beneath the communications console, and his voice had a dim echo. “The soldiers in the Saudi relief column were pretty pissed off that they had been ambushed back at their own front gate. Came barging in on the left flank of the rebels with lots of firepower and pretty good maneuvering. The terrorists were pushed back into the urban area.”

  Homer was puttering with a timing device. “That’s when we gathered up our toys and came back here. A while later, when they got the word that their nuke was gone, the Saudis went big league mean and are still bringing in more troops and armor and attack helicopters. It has degenerated into house-to-house fighting.”

  Kyle finished his coffee. “I assume that all of the action is pointing toward the mosque?”

  “Yep,” replied Homer. “That’s their problem. Despite the king being assassinated and the nuke being gone, the commanders are hesitating. They are squared off against the Religious Police and the Committee on Virtue as well as the rented terrorists, which means a Muslim-on-Muslim showdown.”

  Swanson walked over to the sand-table model of the city and studied the area. “Will they attack the mosque?”

  Jamal came out from beneath the counter and got busy with a screwdriver and pliers to pull out hard drives and memory boards on phones and computers. “No doubt,” he said. “They have to capture the mosque in order to get some prisoners to question about the nuke.”

  Homer agreed. “I wouldn’t want to be in the same room when the prisoners are being asked to assist with the investigation. Gonna be messy.”

  “Torture,” Jamal agreed.

  “Big time. They know that anybody will crack under torture, sooner or later.” Homer’s eyes suddenly came up and met the steady gazes of Kyle and Jamal. “You think the prisoners might actually convince the Saudis that they really don’t know anything about the missing weapon?”

  Swanson walked into the armory cage. “We won’t take that chance.”

  S NAVPERSKAYA V INTOYKA D RAGUNOVA. N OT his first choice of a sniper rifle, which would have been his custom-made Excalibur, or even his second choice, the familiar U.S. Marine M40A3, or even a Barrett, or an Armalite. But this wasn’t a gun show. He needed a good sniper rifle with no American fingerprints on it, and Homer Boykin had both the SVD Dragunov and a Chinese-made NDM-86. Swanson took the Dragunov. In his opinion, the rough NDM was only a small step up from an AK-47 and had the look of being s
tamped out in an old Commie tractor factory. Not what he wanted for prime-time combat.

  Jamal helped Swanson find a deserted third-floor apartment in a building that provided an unobstructed view of the mosque. The sun was almost directly overhead, so the room was darkened by shadows while he crawled around to set up his hide. He wiped grime from the floor and rubbed it onto his face and neck to camouflage the white skin. Jamal helped push the sparse furniture around to further break up his silhouette and also to create a firm rest for the long rifle. Kyle braced the Dragunov in a comfortable position and took his time adjusting the PSO scope with its red reticle in the illuminated range finder. It read exactly 347 meters to the front plaza of the mosque. Smoke from the sporadic shooting outside the building hung thick in the air before drifting away on a light breeze from the north and he fine-tuned the scope for a minimal wind. It would probably be no factor because he was so close to the target zone.

  Jamal left him alone and went down to their car. Kyle needed a getaway driver more than he needed a spotter.

  The eerie sense of once again entering a slow-motion film flowed over him. Noise faded and his vision sharpened, but he did not sweat, even though the mid-day temperature was hot. In a combat situation, it was normal for his senses to heighten, for the mental thought to give way to the physical muscle memory of years of scout-sniper training. His body already knew how this movie would end.

  O NCE THEY RECEIVED AUTHORITY through their own chain of command, the Saudi soldiers had moved in with admirable violence of action. They assaulted the mosque by savaging the building with helicopter gunships and raking it with.50 caliber machine guns and mortars, pounding the exterior into rubble. As soon as the heavy fire lifted, infantry assaulters went in to finish the job.

  After about twenty minutes of searching, and with sporadic fire, they had yanked out three survivors and brought them into the plaza of smooth stone. A badly wounded man lay sprawled and moaning, bleeding from the gut and in obvious pain. To the right stood a sullen fighter wearing the red headgear of the Religious Police, wiping dirt from his eyes. In the middle was a stout, middle-aged man in a turban, the imam of the mosque. He was moon-faced and arrogant.

  Swanson watched dispassionately through the scope of the Dragunov. He had nothing personal against the three men, even though two were obviously terrorists while the imam was the instigator of the attacks. Kyle didn’t care, for his own secret was much bigger than any of theirs. He rested his finger lightly on the trigger, looking over the heads of the Saudi force that had relaxed after capturing their objective. No one looked his way, up and behind them. It had been assumed to be empty and secure. He wanted to shout: Where is your fucking rear security?

  His hand was comfortable on the grip and he held steady on his first target, the religious cop. Although the man’s wrists were tied, he would be the most likely to make a quick move upon realizing the threat. His tunic was torn and the beard was caked with mud. Kyle had him center-mass and squeezed straight back on the trigger until the Dragunov roared and bucked against his shoulder. The shot ripped across the small distance and into the man’s throat. The bullet tore out the neck and spinal cord before exiting lower through the back. Firing a little high, Kyle thought.

  The semiautomatic rifle cycled another round into the chamber as the target flipped over, the bolt moving with such smoothness that he silently thanked Homer and Jamal for keeping the weapons so clean. The Saudi guards stood frozen for a decisive moment, never having considered an outside attack on their prisoners. Beads of sweat were starting to worm through Kyle’s scalp as he firmed up the sight picture on the imam, who had been allowed to remain standing untethered.

  The man had his arms crossed, his hands hidden within sleeves, and was haughty even in captivity, certain that no harm would befall him. From his height of piety, he had sent many men to kill many infidels with his heated, distorted versions of hate from the Koran. The imam was part of the religious food chain in Saudi Arabia and answered to the leaders of the entire religious establishment in his country. They would protect him. Reality was dawning on him as he stared at the blood and gore that had splattered his robes.

  Swanson paused his breath, waited for the instant between heartbeats, never wavered the crosshairs and with a liquid smoothness, squeezed the trigger for the second time. The bullet struck solid in the center of the imam’s body, taking out the lungs, with splinters angling down to chop the kidneys. The moon face was seized in shock as the target jolted back, somehow remaining on his feet for a moment before slumping to his knees and keeling over forward.

  Kyle was out of time. Three shots and move! The Saudis were stirring, horrified that their prize quarry had been murdered before their eyes, and so fast that they could not react immediately. After all, nobody was shooting at them! Swanson brought his scope on the wounded man on the plaza. He was dying anyway, but why take the chance that some medical miracle might save the bastard’s life. The final bullet gouged into his heart, the force making the body bounce on the stone.

  Swanson left the rifle, dodged out of the door, and pounded downstairs to the waiting car.

  Nobody would be questioning those three prisoners, with or without torture. No loose ends.

  32

  INDONESIA

  J UBA POPPED A V ALIUM and slugged back a stiff Cragganmore single-malt Scotch, hating himself for being weak. It was not really a weakness of the ravaged body, but an invisible curse: He was claustrophobic.

  In his home on the mountain, the windows were always open to usher in steady breezes, even on the hottest days. Overhead fans and plenty of shade trees kept the place cool. Long, overhanging eaves blocked the rain out except during typhoon blows. Air-conditioning was allowed only in the servants’ quarters and the hot kitchen, because maintaining a chilled temperature meant closing doors and windows. Wide doorways led into spacious rooms and onto the open verandah. The light and airiness kept him calm. In the house, he could work and exercise and eat proper food and feel good.

  So there was an unusual tightness in his throat and chest as he climbed into the small executive helicopter for the journey to Jakarta. When the hatch closed, Juba felt chained, and as the bird lifted away from the ground, the feeling grew into one of total imprisonment. He broke into a sweat and released his knuckles from the grips of the seat only long enough to take another Valium. It did little good. He was glad to be alone in the passenger compartment so no one would hear him groan as the panic pecked at him.

  In the British Army, he had learned to control his nerves, and by the time he became a terrorist, his heart had grown too hard to accept emotion. That singular ability had abandoned him in his new life. He looked out the window of the helicopter, through the rolls of clouds and down to the verdant green of the islands and the sun-stroked waters, wishing there was some way out of the buzzing bubble that confined him in the sky. He no longer held any belief at all in any Higher Power of any name, so there would be no spiritual comfort. He felt truly alone.

  On the mountain, Juba did not even own an automobile. To squeeze into one made him feel like he was climbing into his own coffin. Now he was faced with a monstrous endurance test, flying 4,500 miles from Indonesia to Saudi Arabia, trapped inside a tight little cocoon of an airplane for hours on end. Juba bit his lip.

  His manner was already curt when the helicopter reached the private terminal in Jakarta and he was immediately shuffled aboard a luxurious Bombardier Challenger 604 twin jet. It was larger than he thought and he was surrounded by comfort and treated with respect by the three crew members. Still, Juba could think of nothing but the ordeal that lay ahead and he seized up, feeling old and crippled.

  When the slim hostess pulled the door closed and the tube shut around him, it was as if he was being held in a fist. There was no space, no room to move, no ocean vista, no air, no way out, and no real air to breathe.

  “Get me a drink,” he snarled. “Not any of that piss in a bottle in your bar. Some good gin out of
my valise. Ice and a slice.”

  The uniformed young woman found the bottle, made a double martini with a slice of fresh lemon and gave it to him. The passenger had a mane of totally white hair, was horribly scarred, and wore a white patch over his left eye. He shot her a defiant glare.

  “Why are you staring, you ugly cow? Go away!” Juba took a deep swallow and fished around in his shirt pocket for the green plastic bottle of medicines. He hurt, dammit! The mental fear was changing into sharp physical manifestations. The tunnel! Oh, it hurts. Somebody help me! He gobbled two Percocet and drank some more of the strong martini as the engines whined. His stomach churned as the plane lifted into the air.

  The nervous hostess called the flight cabin and a tall, neat man in dark trousers and a starched white shirt bearing golden wings above his left chest pocket came down the aisle and sat across from the lone passenger. The flier had a look of concern on his face. The one-eyed man looked like hell and for a moment, the copilot thought they might have to return to the terminal and get him to a hospital. “Are you all right, sir?”

  “No, I am not all right!” The single eye rolled wildly. “Get me another damned drink, bitch.”

  “Sir, please. Calm yourself.” The copilot reached out his left hand to touch the man’s shoulder in sympathy. Juba grabbed the wrist in a lightning-quick move and twisted over hard, pulling the flier out of the seat and throwing him into the aisle.

  “Try to touch me again and I’ll kill you. I’m stuck up here with you fools and you will do only what I tell you. You get your ass back into that flight cabin and I want to hear the door lock behind you. Then fly the fucking plane and if I want you, I’ll call.” He twisted harder on the wrist and jammed his thumbnail into a pressure point.