Clean Kill Page 3

  This one had been removed from a U.S. Army Humvee in Iraq the previous year after an ambush, smuggled into England, and stored away to await a suitable target. Ibrahim looked at his stopwatch: More minutes had flown away and the big hand kept sweeping over the numbers. He was still on time and he crouched beside the TOW, a loader standing by with another missile, and the others taking overwatch positions to keep track of the patrols.

  Bilal adjusted the thermal optic sight until the crosshairs rested on the bright, glowing castle wall. He took a deep breath and pressed the firing mechanism. The missile, more than four feet in length, tore out of its tube with a deafening, thumping roar and a flash of fire which violently jarred them all, but Ibrahim had expected it, recovered and brought the crosshairs back onto the target. The roar was replaced by the hissing whisper of a thin wire unreeling behind the TOW that would relay the built-in computer commands to adjust the small fins on the flying missile. Ibrahim Bilal was sweating, counting off the twenty seconds until impact and holding the thermal sight steady on his target.

  The loader was readying the second rocket. The team would do both shots in less than a minute, and then be gone.

  S OLDIERS ON THE ROVING patrols-in vehicles, on foot, and on the lake-heard the distinctive, muffled pop-boom of the TOW launch and came to a slight halt as their brains began issuing threat signals. Eight seconds had elapsed before any of them spotted the brilliant red streak tearing through the night sky, and three seconds more ticked off before the first man could understand what was going on. He hit the TRANSMIT button on his throat mike and yelled, “INCOMING MISSILE!”

  An anti-missile team stationed in the woods had no chance. The TOW had come and gone before they realized it was even there, and relentlessly plunged over the top of its slight arc and sped toward the castle.

  The security apparatus was big, but had miles to cover, which made it comparatively slow. It was hampered in the struggle to adapt to the instant threat because the multiple nations represented in the dining hall used different radio frequencies.

  In her office, Delara Tabrizi heard the panicked warning being broadcast in several languages as guards tried to cut through the established procedure and reach their own people. She stood rooted in place, unable to mentally process the information. An attack? Here?

  The bodyguard stationed near each dignitary also had to mentally process the alert call that was shouted in their earpieces and a few managed to lurch forward to protect their people, but were out of time.

  The powerful TOW, pushed by its tight tail of fire, slammed into the castle wall with a 12.4-kilogram warhead that was capable of blowing through the armor of a tank. It obliterated the ancient fortification with an explosion that sent chunks of concrete scything through the air, followed by bolts of flame and waves of debris.

  F ROM THE HILL ACROSS the loch, Ibrahim Balil watched a giant fireball rise above his target but did not remove his eye from the sighting scope. Sweat poured down his face and he could feel the vibrations through the reusable launcher as the loader fed the second missile into place. Forcing himself to remain steady, Balil pressed the trigger mechanism again and the new TOW thundered away.

  Thirty seconds after the first missile strike, the follow-up shot plunged down and the old stone wall was no longer there to impede its progress. The missile hit the conference building with another spectacular explosion.

  5

  T HE CONCUSSION BLAST OF the first missile threw Delara Tabrizi over her desk and all the way across her office, and cracked her head against the cement wall. She crumpled to the floor, stunned, and then the second missile tore the place apart. Walls began to sag and fall.

  She dreamed she was struggling against a riptide current as she swam back to reality and found herself in a corner beneath the heavy weight of her desk. Her head felt as if was breaking, breath came hard into her aching ribcage and her ears rang. She shook her head. What just happened? One moment she had been watching the security cameras, getting ready to go back upstairs, and then the world had ended with the thunder of doom, and…? That was all. A horrendous crash, flying through the air, and bright flashes of red and orange. Oh, and something about a missile.

  The castle’s emergency generators kicked on and the remaining light fixtures bloomed, dropping pools of dim illumination through the darkness and piercing swirling clouds of settling dust. Her digital wristwatch lit up when she pressed a button: ten minutes after eight o’clock. They had entered the great hall only six minutes ago, so she had been immobile for too long, but she was covered with debris and junk. Although the office was destroyed, the scattered material provided some inanimate reassurance, for it was familiar and she could recognize individual items. The small desk tilted against her had become a protective shield that diverted much of the blast force. The bottom half of the chair was still on its wheels nearby but the back had been snapped off by a large chunk of falling concrete. She wanted to get up and run, but remembered Kyle’s motto for times of danger: Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Delara took several breaths, counted her hands and feet, stretching her fingers and toes and determined that no serious damage had been done. The air was so thick with dust that breathing made her cough, and jabbed sharp pains through her side, where perhaps a rib had been cracked. When she raised a hand to her scalp, there was a patch of wet blood, but no gaping wound. Her legs worked. She could move.

  Using the desk as a prop, she rose, and then pulled open a drawer in which she kept her jogging gear, found the gray sweatshirt and pressed it against the soggy head cut. The fancy dress shoes were gone, so she rummaged around to find her Nikes. More familiarity, more personal comfort, the dawning realization that she must go find Lady Pat and Sir Jeff. Moving across the room was like navigating a maze, her path hampered by fallen chunks of wood and nails and shards of brick and glass. She worked toward the stone stairs.

  A large wooden beam leaned at a diagonal across the doorway to the main floor, but the big door was gone. Sliding beneath the beam, Delara found herself in a wonderland of destruction, and stumbled into what had once been the grand dining hall. Not another soul was standing, and she rushed into the dark ruins, shouting as loudly as she could: “Pat! Jeff! Where are you?” To her left, several small fires gnawed at the rubble.

  Moans and cries of pain were coming from various points of the big room, and in moments, security men from outside were charging into the area, the beams of their strong flashlights crossing like sabers. Someone shouted orders to put the fire out before it spread. Her hearing was returning.

  Delara recalled the seating chart. Sir Jeff was to have been at the head of the table, but no one had yet taken their seats for the dinner, so he and Lady Pat were both likely still at the far end of the room. She headed that way. “Pat! Jeff! It’s Delara! I’m coming!!” Her foot slipped and she fell hard onto a body in a tuxedo. It did not have a head. She gagged in horror and someone grabbed her arm and lifted her up: a uniformed soldier with a flashlight. He saw her head wound and said, “You’re bleeding, luv. Let’s get you outside for some medical treatment.”

  She shook him away. Pointed to a doorway on the left. “I’m all right, so tend to the others,” she said, her voice surprisingly strong, regaining the tone of certainty that she used to run this massive place. She pointed to a side door. “Go look in there. Prince Abdullah had just gone to the loo when the bomb hit. I am Sir Geoffrey Cornwell’s assistant and I need a torch.” The soldier handed her his own flashlight and ran to the bathroom, calling for others to help.

  Delara worked her way over to the far wall and probed the shining point of the flashlight across piles of debris. The entire wall along the right edge of the room had collapsed, which brought down most of the ceiling with it. She recognized the dark brown tapestry that had depicted a royal hunting scene and had hung on the far wall. It had been thrown down like a blanket. She lifted an edge and shined the light beneath. The legs of a woman and the bottom of a torn navy blue organza gown were vi
sible.

  “Pat!” she screamed and turned back to the soldiers. “I need help here! I’ve found somebody!” Several men jumped through the rubble and knelt beside her, then peeled away the heavy tapestry and the debris holding it in place. With their bare hands, they dug deeper into the wreckage. Pat Cornwell was on her side and Sir Jeff lay diagonally across her midsection, having used the split-second of warning before the first explosion to throw them both beneath the edge of the heavy table and between two sturdy chairs. The soldiers rolled him onto his back and finished clearing the heavy load that pinned his wife. A medical officer wiped away the dirt and blood from their faces and felt for vital signs. “Two live ones here,” he called. “Bring some stretchers!”

  Delara used her cotton sweatshirt to gently wipe Sir Jeff’s face, her fingers gingerly dislodging clumps of dirt from his mouth and nose. He began to cough, and his eyes flew open and he managed a panicked whisper: “Pat…”

  Delara Tabrizi felt a jolt of happiness. He was coming back! She grabbed his hand and placed its palm on the arm of his wife, and let it rest there. “She’s right here beside us, sir, and the doctor says she’s still alive, too. Getting beneath the table saved both of you. You’re going to be okay.”

  His eyes fluttered and he was about to fall unconscious again. “Delara?” he asked softly, and she leaned closer, tears in her eyes. “Delara,” he repeated, the voice just a bit stronger. He had to say something.

  “Yes, sir. I’m right here. Don’t worry. I shall stay with you and Lady Pat.” She took his other hand in both of hers.

  Geoffrey Cornwell shook his head, and looked into her eyes, then whispered, “Delara. Get Kyle. I need Kyle.”

  6

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  I T WAS THREE O’CLOCK in the afternoon. Sybelle Summers had been at work for half of her shift and had not yet come up with a new excuse to get out of her job. She was running out of reasons, and had been turned down by every boss she had, even the guy in the Oval Office. The president of the United States, Mark Tracy, was so tired of listening to her bitch that he had recently snapped that she had better get used to being his military assistant because she was going to be in the position for a while, so just shut the hell up. It was the most boring job she had ever had.

  So she sat in an uncomfortable chair at a little desk just outside the Oval Office and stared at the black leather Halliburton suitcase beside her. The hefty Glock pistol dug into her hip, so she shifted it. The White House Military Office had wanted her to carry a prissy little Beretta, because it was easily hidden and therefore not as obvious when she was in public with the president. The Secret Service would take care of any real threats, she was told. Sybelle liked the Secret Service agents, but no guard detail was ever perfect, and if she ever had to shoot, she intended to blow a hole in any bastard stupid enough to try to steal the Nuclear Football.

  Major Summers, of the U.S. Marine Corps, was one of five military officers, a single representative from each branch of the armed services, who worked in shifts to lug the Football around so that it was always available to the commander in chief. No one knew much about her beyond that she was beautiful and obviously competent. Her life had been studied in detail during the ultra-top-level Yankee White background investigation before she assumed the new job, but it seemed that everything in her personnel folder was stamped “Classified” or “Top Secret” or “Need To Know.” Top marks at the U.S. Naval Academy, the only woman ever to graduate from Marine Recon, and a bunch of decorations on her uniform that signified valor in combat, although the citations gave no clue as to when, what, where, and why.

  Summers had a reputation as an up-and-comer and had come to the White House after being the operations officer of a black ops team known as Task Force Trident. The only time her personality emerged while she was on duty at the White House was when a senior officer from within the elite Spec Operations community came to see the president. Those really hard men always took time to say hello to Summers and joke about the fancy loop of braid on her right shoulder, teasing her about becoming a staff weenie and getting a death glare from the dark blue eyes in return.

  “Can’t cut it in the field anymore, eh, Major?” one lieutenant general had quipped.

  “Your pants are unzipped again, sir. Another senior moment?” she replied in her distinctive, quiet voice that was polite but carried a sense of menace, like the purr of a puma feasting happily on an elk.

  The three-star automatically looked down at his pants. They both laughed. It was the kind of rude exchange that passed for respect among such warriors.

  The weight of history and grandeur of the White House had weighed upon her on that first trip through the uniformed Secret Service cordon at the gates and then on the walk up the long driveway to the main entrance. After that, it became just another job. The suitcase stayed within arm’s reach because it contained everything the president needed to launch a nuclear strike, whether it might be a small tactical weapon or the final, full-blown, tear-the-roof-off attack. Summers was the unanimous choice if somebody had to be on call to help the president launch Armageddon. She would probably just lean over his shoulder, a gentle aura of perfume surrounding her, and casually coach him through the authentication codes and leaf through the pages in the folder that listed the deserving targets, printed in red. She would not flinch from such an awesome responsibility and since everybody was probably about to die anyway, she might throw in a few suggestions of her own and anybody on her personal shit list would be catching a nuke on the head.

  Sybelle got along fine with the other staff members whose duties also put them in close proximity to the Oval Office, and a couple of agents of the Secret Service protective detail had even asked her out for a date. She always declined and the agents grumbled about the wasted personal life of such a beautiful woman. She stood five six, weighed no more than 125 and, since she was currently based in Washington, Sybelle’s black hair was trimmed at an upscale shop, short but flaring just a bit at the collar. She was frequently called upon by the White House Social Secretary to escort a single man at an evening event, but those relationships never left the grounds. Sybelle was fierce about protecting her personal life.

  She looked at the Football again. It hadn’t moved. Still there, with one end of a steel chain attached to the handle, the other end dangling free, a handcuff ready to be snapped onto her wrist.

  Things had been routine around the Oval Office, with a steady stream of visitors coming and going. Then a little after three, the President’s chief of staff threw open the door of his adjoining office and bolted across the narrow hallway, barking at the two Secret Service agents flanking the door. “Code Red! Lock it down,” yelled Steve Hanson. “Evacuate him to the shelter!”

  The agents spun and followed him through the door, talking into their wrist microphones as they went. The entire atmosphere of the White House changed in an instant. From calm backwater to hurricane in the blink of an eye. Sybelle unbuttoned her jacket and pulled out the Glock, knelt beside the Football and clicked the steel handcuff onto her left wrist. Then she stood again, with the pistol in her right hand, pointing it toward the floor as her eyes quartered the area.

  Two more agents ran up and one dashed straight into the office while the second assumed post at the main door, holding a small machine gun. He and Sybelle exchanged the briefest of glances, and he was startled about how cool she appeared to be in this emergency. The White House was plunging into total lockdown, nobody allowed in or out, the threat unknown and security accelerating to a maximum. Snipers removed their rifles from their cases on the roof, the antiaircraft missile system was activated, and uniformed agents scrambled into defensive positions. The big gates were locked.

  Summers stood there unconsciously humming a little tune, her eyes glittering like polished stones. The pistol did not twitch, although it was held in only one hand. It was almost as if she wanted somebody to attack.

  There was a flurry of activity inside th
e Oval Office, since the president had been in the middle of a meeting about the upcoming elections in Iraq. He was whisked out, each arm held by a Secret Service agent. One spoke into his sleeve microphone to alert the agents’ command post: “Buckskin is moving.” The code name had been assigned to the president by the U.S. Army Signal Corps because the president was from Tennessee and had constantly used Davy Crockett symbolism during his campaigns.

  As the group cleared the doorway, the president looked over at Sybelle, gave her a slight grin, and said, “Major Summers, maybe you had better come along. Bring our suitcase.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. Sybelle holstered her weapon, hefted the forty-five-pound case and wrapped both arms around it as a Secret Service agent pushed her into the fast-moving group heading to the secure shelter beneath the second basement. Finally, she thought as she trotted down the stairs, toting the country’s secret nuclear codes, something interesting.

  7

  T HE WEARY T RIDENT TEAM called for a ride home as soon as they were safely back inside Afghanistan and a Dark Horse MH-47 helicopter from the 160th Special Operations Aerial Regiment soon arrived overhead to extract them from a long and barren plateau. Once aboard, the two thundering rotor blades of the SOAR bird prevented any attempt at conversation, so they loosened their gear and got comfortable for the long haul back to a forward operating base.

  When they reached a safe altitude, the crew chief flashed a white greaseboard on which he had scrawled a one-word question: SWANSON?