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  Behind him, the rest of the command group was moving across the road, following him. From the top, he was able to see the missile and the arid acres of debris. He removed his sunglasses and brought a pair of binos to his eyes, swept the area, and decided that this position would do. He raised his hand to signal the command group.

  The sudden slam of a heavy rifle barked from somewhere in the junk yard, and a heartbeat later, Captain al-Muallami was staggered as a big bullet punctured his throat. His eyes flared wide in surprise as he grabbed at his neck, then he toppled to his knees and fell sideways.

  P RINCE C OLONEL M ISHAAL WATCHED in disbelief as his aide fell, mortally wounded. Al-Muallami, always so sure of himself and seemingly indestructible, now lay dead only thirty yards away, his life erased in a blink. When Mishaal broke into a run to reach the fallen captain, Kyle Swanson reacted immediately, took two steps forward and drove into a hard tackle that knocked the prince sprawling. Kyle immediately rolled free but kept a strong hand on Mishaal’s arm as a deafening staccato of return gunfire erupted from the gathered troops to answer that deadly single round. The soldiers had not seen the source, so they did not have a target. After the initial volley, all shooting stopped and silence covered the wadi.

  “Stay down, Mishaal,” Kyle ordered. “Juba is doing exactly what a good sniper is supposed to do: take out key officers first. Captain al-Muallami had the look of being important and walked into the open, so he became a natural target. If you go over there, he will pick you off, too.”

  Another shot lashed out and the sergeant wearing the heavy backpack radio for the command team caught a bullet in his chest and fell backward, pulled down by the weight of his communications gear. The long aerial on his radio had pinpointed him for death. Juba was throwing the entire attack off balance. A thousand eyes scanned the battlefield. Where is he?

  When an armored personnel carrier roared off the road and lurched to a stop to provide a shield of protection for the command team, Swanson released Prince Mishaal and helped him up. “Sorry about the tackle, sir. Juba would love to clip you, and we can’t afford that. Keep control of the situation from here and tighten the net so he can’t escape,” Swanson quietly told the prince. “Please stay under cover. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  J AMAL AND H ENRY T SANG had worked their way up the backside of the ridge where Captain al-Muallami had been killed, and found an observation point behind a rusted Volkswagen bug that was resting upside down on its curved roof. They could see through the blown-out windows. Kyle wiggled in beside them. The interior of the skeletal automobile was shaded. A scattering of rocks and a few bushes provided concealment while they surveyed the area. A tremendous amount of noise covered the place as helicopters took off, big vehicles growled about, men shouted, and gunfire chattered. “Spotted anything?” he asked.

  “No shooter,” Tsang answered and rolled onto his side. He smoothed some dirt with his palm and poked a finger down to make a hole, then drew a straight line. “This is the missile and this is the road. No more than 200 meters. Can’t-miss range for a decent sniper.”

  Kyle agreed with the judgment of the Chinese operator. “That can work both ways. He could see those two targets that he took down, so there has to be a sightline from this ridge to his hide, with nothing in between that would block a clear shot.” He let his eyes roam the area. Where would I hide?

  “We don’t care about him,” Tsang said with a sharp tone. “We are here for that nuclear weapon and to prevent a real war. The deaths of a few soldiers mean nothing.”

  Kyle was getting edgy himself. “But Juba’s the one who will launch the damned thing! We spot him and we can end this.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I say we have the Saudis go charging in there immediately and take it down. Deal with the sniper and anything else later.”

  “Major, he may be using the missile as bait, but he would sure as hell launch it the moment he sees an attack start.”

  Tsang and Kyle reached the same conclusion at the same time and the Chinese commando officer said, “If he has control of the weapon, then why isn’t it already in the air?”

  Jamal edged in closer. “Simple answer, guys. Like Kyle said before. He hasn’t fired it because he can’t.”

  Kyle said, “Because it’s his best leverage. As long as it is there, Juba still has a chance that I will be exposed for that one second he needs to get me. And as soon as the missile flies, the Saudis will roll this place up like a rug…he dies and I’m still alive.”

  “No, no, no, no!” Jamal replied, shaking his head. “I mean it literally: I don’t think he can make the shoot.”

  The surprise explosion just behind them was like a shout of doom, a warning they heard too late.

  58

  A ROADSIDE BOMB DETONATED by a cell phone signal went off with volcanic force, the violent explosion destroying a Humvee that was on the highway. The unarmored vehicle flipped end-over-end in a bloom of flame, and the driver and three soldiers inside were killed instantly.

  The tsunami of shrapnel scythed through a nearby squad of soldiers walking nearby, causing more injuries, then the blast force reached into the position where Kyle, Jamal, and Henry Tsang already were on the ground. It picked them up and slammed them back to earth with bone-jarring suddenness. Needles of shrapnel pinged and clanged against the upside down Volkswagen, which teetered from the pressure and started a slow topple down the ridge like a large pebble. They were showered with a hurricane of dirt that caked their faces and left all three of them momentarily dazed and blinded.

  Swanson was on his back, stunned and gasping for air, with brilliant colors swirling in his mind as he lay semiconscious, aware only of the desire to fight back, the need to be a warrior, not a victim. The brush with death had forced him into a zone of comfort and familiar feeling in which everything but survival became secondary, and new strength was pumping through his body with each heartbeat. The world was a slow-motion, black-and-white movie that he was watching alone, in the private theater of the mind. The zone: his private roosting place when fighting loomed, an exclusive and wonderful place. Usually, Swanson would wrap himself in that comfortable cocoon just before he squeezed the trigger. His sight and hearing grew sharper and his senses of smell and touch began to return. As his thoughts reassembled, he wanted to grab a long rifle and finish this private fight. He had gotten the better of Juba in previous encounters and he could do it again! Just the two of them! I’ll blow his ass away!

  Kyle staggered to his knees, starting to stand, but Henry Tsang grabbed his arm and pulled him down hard and, as he fell, a bullet sizzled through the airspace where his head had just been, and the sound of the shot followed.

  Ambush! Juba had planned the ambush in advance, picking the wrecked VW as the logical observation position on the high ground. The bomb was hidden specifically to hit it, but at the last moment, the Humvee arrived and soaked up most of the devastating blast.

  Jamal was muttering a string of Arab curses and holding his blood-spattered leg. Henry Tsang was shaking Kyle and yelling into his face, and Swanson slowly swam back to the surface of consciousness. He blinked his eyes, knowing that the automatic killer instinct in him had almost been his undoing. He hauled himself back under control and felt pain jabbing in his side, where his vest, shirt, and skin had been ripped in a six-inch gash by a piece of sharp flying metal. His leather belt had been sliced neatly apart as if by a razor. A Saudi soldier arrived beside him and poured water into his eyes and the cool wave cascaded over his face and into his mouth. He swilled it around and spat onto the ground. The medic began to clean the wound.

  “Damn!” he said, collecting his thoughts. Juba had come close, but he had not won. Kyle steeled himself now from moving quickly, determined to make this a different kind of fight. His enemy had almost made him step into the trap, but there would be no personal gunfight in this godforsaken valley today. I once bombed him, and now he has bombed me, and we both lived through it. I played right into his ha
nds.

  Swanson looked over to where another medic was working on Jamal, whose face was contorted in pain. The leg was bent at an impossible angle and was bleeding hard. “How about you, Major?” he asked Tsang. “You okay?”

  “Yes. A couple of scrapes. This was a boobytrap,” he declared with a sweep of his hand. “This Juba is a tricky one.” The Chinese commando was bleeding from his nose, a result of the concussion, but wiped the crimson stream away with disdain.

  Swanson sat still while a pressure bandage was applied. Speaking in Arabic, he told the medic to concentrate on the more seriously wounded men. “Jamal, you look like hell,” Kyle said in English.

  A syringe of painkillers had taken hold of Jamal, and the CIA agent managed a weak smile, then his eyelids fluttered and he passed out. Medics tore at his clothes to get to the multiple wounds. He was out of the game.

  Kyle pushed his right hand firmly against his abdomen to hold the bandage in place, and wormed backward down the slope. “Come on, Major Tsang. Stay low, but let’s get back over to the prince and finish this off.”

  Kyle hobbled along with his left arm across Tsang’s shoulder until they reached the safety of the armored personnel carrier where Mishaal had organized a makeshift staff. Two more APCs had moved into flanking positions to provide even more protection. Swanson leaned against one and drank some more water.

  “Can you still function with that wound?” Mishaal asked. He was all business as the situation seemed to be deteriorating.

  “Jamal is down. The major and I are good to go. This is just a flesh wound. It looks worse than it is.” He kept his hand on the bandage but refused to let any clue of discomfort reach his face. Christ, that stings!

  Mishaal was studying him carefully and Kyle quickly changed the subject. “We need some confirmation,” he said. “Can you call the commander of the unit that had operational control of the weapon?”

  A young captain at the edge of the command group raised his hand. He was anxious, expecting the worst, feeling disgraced that his missile had been taken from under his nose and had created such a dilemma. He believed he faced certain demotion and perhaps even a court-martial.

  The American who was with Prince Colonel Mishaal spoke. “Do you speak English, Captain? We need your expertise.”

  The officer replied in English that he had carefully examined the scene before them through his binos. He started to apologize again, but Mishaal cut him off. “You did nothing improper, Captain,” Mishaal said. “Give us your best advice.” The captain did not smile, but a sense of relief flooded him.

  Kyle continued, “There are no cables visible between the missile launcher and the command and control track. They might have been buried, but there is no linear sign of disturbed dirt between the APCs. So is there any other way to fire that bird by an electronic signal, just by pushing a button?”

  The captain was at rigid attention. He knew his job and his reply was unambiguous. “No, sir. A full mission cannot be carried out unless the launch platform is mated exactly to the package in the C-and-C vehicle. The weapon was never meant to be simple enough for a common soldier to operate. The cables are needed to update the targeting data and feed auxiliary off-site electrical power to the missile before launch. It is a somewhat archaic system, but provides a good redundancy. Electronic signals can easily be jammed.”

  Kyle came to the main point. “What about the warhead? Is it still operable?”

  The captain’s face brightened. “Sir, in my opinion, the warhead may not even be properly connected and aligned. Assembling the entire system requires precise steps and special tools. Certified technicians, not infantrymen under battle stress, are needed to arm and fire it.”

  “So that warhead is just sitting up there?”

  “That is very possible, sir. It fits into place easily enough and can be held in place by a few clamps and bolts. But again, special connections between the warhead and the missile must be made before it is fully seated. Only then can it accept the targeting data, which is another intentionally complicated procedure.”

  “So they were able to steal it, but ran out of time for the assembly?” Mishaal said, putting his hands on his hips. “It is just an empty threat?”

  “No, sir. Not that. It is still a nuclear device.”

  Mishaal made a decision and turned to Kyle. “I’m going to call in an air strike and incinerate the thing.”

  The captain shook his head, gulping as he faced down the prince colonel. The calm he had felt moments before vanished. “Sir, to do so would risk cracking the warhead shielding. The bomb would not explode, but the core might be exposed. Radiation would spread on the wind.”

  T HE NEW COMMUNICATOR MINDING Prince Mishaal’s radio network called to him. “Sir! Someone has come up on the command net, an English voice identifying himself as Juba. He demands to speak to Gunnery Sergeant Swanson.”

  “Ignore him. He is trying to find out if I was killed in the explosions,” Kyle said. Let him stew.

  Mishaal spoke: “Major Tsang? Are you satisfied with the inert status of the nuclear warhead?”

  The Chinese operator had studied the missile carefully and weighed his delicate situation. “I agree with the circumstantial evidence. Before I can contact my superiors, however, I still need a closer look.”

  “We’re going to give you one,” Kyle said. He looked over to where an M60A3 tank was lumbering into position beside their cluster of APCs. With laser sighting and a digital ballistic computer on its upgraded fire control system, the tank’s 105 mm main gun was extremely accurate. Swanson pointed to it and said, “Prince Mishaal, please have that tank lay a high-explosive round exactly at the base of the missile launcher. That should wreck the launch vehicle and collapse the entire structure. Cut it down like a tree and the missile problem is solved.”

  “Sir!” the communicator interrupted. “Juba is on the radio again, demanding to talk to Swanson. He is shouting!” The radio operator was nervous. Kyle shook his head. No. Don’t give him what he wants.

  Mishaal summoned the tank commander to join them and personally issued the crisp orders so there would be no misunderstanding. “Fire when ready,” he said, and the commander returned to his huge tracked vehicle.

  The gunner sighted a ruby laser carefully on the slim target while everyone held their breaths. When the big cannon roared, the recoil jarred the sixty-ton tank backward on its treads and the concussion slammed the dirt directly beneath the barrel, raising a torrent of dust. The high-velocity round covered the approximately two hundred yards in a mere instant and crashed into the thin-skinned launch vehicle with a shattering impact.

  The entire APC bucked into the air and crashed back down to a hard landing as pieces flew off of it. The tower of the missile was disjointed from the launcher and fell over on its side. The warhead spun away like a toy top.

  Kyle watched it with satisfaction, still holding his side. The bleeding was not slowing but he would not give in to the pull of pain. There’s my answer, Juba. Long-range precision fire, just like you wanted.

  “Good job,” he told Mishaal. “The rest of the fight is yours. Juba only has a few men racked up in those shells and huts. It’s open season out there now, so use everything you’ve got to pound the hell out of them. And really hammer that little hut next to the command track. That’s where I think Juba is hiding.”

  “Why there?”

  “The first shot he fired did not come through a silenced rifle. Remember how loud it sounded? Still, there was a muffled echo, which indicated that it came from an enclosed space. Not much around here fits that description. Then the same thing happened on the second shot that took down your radio guy. Finally, there was the shot that just missed me. All of the angles are good from there. The darkness inside that single window prevents us from seeing inside. He’s in there in a static position, perhaps in a dug-in and protected position with overhead shelter. He can’t move to a new hide with all of your troops around. My advice is to just run r
ight over him.”

  W ITH A FEW INSTRUCTIONS to his staff, Mishaal quickly got the attack rolling. And for ten minutes, heavy gunfire shook the field. Violent explosions of big shells blew apart junk cars, ferocious machine-gun fire chewed into everything standing, and grenades added to the chaos. When the ground fire paused, two helicopter gunships lanced in on runs with rockets and machine guns. Only after the barrage was done did the Saudi government ground troops move in to clear the few buildings.

  There was some feeble resistance, then things went quiet and Mishaal ordered a cease fire.

  The radio buzzed. A squad had entered the heavily damaged hut believed to be Juba’s hideaway and called Mishaal to report a badly wounded white man was found beneath the floorboards.

  “Got him,” the prince told Kyle.

  Swanson responded, “Good. Glad that’s done.” He took a deep breath and slumped into a sitting position. “Major, Juba was the brain behind the uprising and he’s through. All five missiles are now accounted for. I’ll stay here and get patched up while you two go over and confirm the warhead is no longer a threat. Then the major can pass the word to his people.”

  Major Tsang and Prince Mishaal boarded an APC and it trundled away toward the ruined missile launcher. As soon as it left, Kyle was on his feet again, biting his lip in pain but trotting to the hut.

  Juba lay in the shadows, absolutely mauled and bleeding profusely. Two Saudi soldiers and a medic had already strung up an IV tube. Kyle was startled by the man’s condition, not only the bleeding, fresh wounds but by the hideous old scars and twisted features. Juba stared up with his only good eye. “Swanson,” he croaked.