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  Jimbo Collins returned from the rear vehicle dragging the general’s aide, Captain Linda Hurst, by her arm. She was dazed. Her face and short blond hair were caked with sticky blood, her ribs ached, and a leg was broken. She had barely been able to focus when she was pulled from the wreckage, and thought for a moment that she was being rescued. Instead she was jerked from the car and pulled down the road, the pavement peeling away bloody strips of skin from her legs. She was dropped at the feet of a large man wearing old blue jeans, a brown T-shirt, tan desert combat boots, and a brown scarf that masked his face. Captain Hurst could not hear her own screams, because the RPG blast had destroyed her eardrums.

  “General Middleton! Get out of the vehicle right now, or I kill this bitch!” Logan pointed his rifle at the wounded and bleeding woman.

  Middleton, gasping for breath in the smoke, had his pistol out, but recognized the situation as hopeless. He had seen the lead Humvee evaporate in the explosion, and when the RPGs took out the car in back, he dove to the floor for safety as his own vehicle was shot to pieces. His entire security detail was dead and all he had left was his Colt.45 pistol, while the attackers had automatic weapons, RPGs, and a hostage. Although he knew all of this, he still hesitated, because Marines don’t surrender. Why hadn’t they killed him, too?

  A few seconds later, another burst of AK-47 fire tore into Captain Hurst’s right arm and her screaming rose. Several cars that had slowed on the far side of the highway scurried away when the drivers saw what was happening.

  “I SAID GET OUT OF THAT DAMNED CAR!” Vic Logan roared again.

  Middleton hardly knew the young officer who lay out there. She had been assigned as a temporary aide at the start of the trip, and had done little more than carry his briefcase in Riyadh while he talked with the Saudis. Had he been alone, he might have chosen to fight, but he could not let the kid be murdered. “All right! I’m getting out!” he called, and dropped the pistol. He opened the car door, raised both hands above his head, and stepped into the bright sun.

  Jimbo Collins jerked the general’s arms behind his back and expertly slapped on steel Smith & Wesson handcuffs. Once he was secured, Vic Logan casually double-tapped Captain Hurst. Two 7.62 mm bullets blew off the back of her head.

  The Shark Team pushed and hauled the general away from the burning pyre of the highway, over the sandy ridge, and down to where a dark green Land Rover was parked in the dry gulch. They threw him into the back seat and Logan got in beside him. Collins slid behind the steering wheel and started the engine, and the strong Land Rover surged forward in four-wheel drive.

  Middleton flinched when a hypodermic needle plunged into his arm. He felt the morphine circulate through his system, and hissed through gritted teeth: “I’ll kill you both.”

  “Shut up,” said Logan. “You ain’t gonna be killing nobody.” He tossed the needle out of the window.

  As he collapsed, Middleton’s mind finally registered what he had been too busy to comprehend. The general’s last thought before the morphine swept him into blackness was, My God, these are Americans!

  CHAPTER 5

  YOU ARE A VERY TROUBLED PERSON,” said the sniper to the knight, pointing at a beautifully presented Hearts of Palm salad that was the first course of a fantastic lunch aboard the Vagabond. It was an old Special Forces thing. In desert survival training, with no food, you could chop down a palm tree to get at the tasty, edible centers. Anyone who endured the experience would have done it so many times that they would swear never to eat another Hearts of Palm salad as long as they lived.

  “You ungrateful American! My chef will be crushed,” said Jeff with an easy laugh as he pushed away his own salad. “Perhaps you would prefer a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?” Tim Gladden also passed on the salad.

  The others at the table had no idea what the three military men were talking about, so Jeff steered the conversation into areas in which his business guests could glitter and glow. As if wound up mechanically, they soon were rattling on about new companies preparing IPOs, who got how much of a bonus for leading a company into bankruptcy, and who had been indicted. It was too easy to get those guys to talk about themselves. They did not include or need anyone else in their conversation about finances and the venture capital world. The ladies switched to serious relationship chatter about the breakups and marriages of supermarket tabloid celebrities, and when Lady Pat and Shari tuned in to the gossip, Jeff hauled Tim Gladden and Kyle Swanson out on deck.

  They toasted with cold green bottles of Heineken beer and lit fresh cigars that Jeff vowed had been rolled on the thighs of Cuban virgins who afterward were personally deflowered by Castro himself.

  Kyle said, “You know, I swear that little blonde was giving her husband a hand job beneath the tablecloth. His eyes were crossing.”

  “Gawd. How does one control newlyweds? She’s thirty years younger than he. I hope she doesn’t give him a heart attack before we can cash his Excalibur check,” said Tim.

  “Our bank already confirmed it,” said Jeff. “If he dies, he dies with a smile, we bury him at sea and console the grieving widow.” He turned to Swanson and put on his serious face. “So, what’s your answer?”

  “Same as always. Thanks but no thanks.” The wind pulled the smoke away, toward the distant lights that marked towns along the heel of the Italian boot.

  “Kyle, you are not getting any younger. You cannot do your sort of work forever.”

  “I like what I do, Jeff. I’m a pretty fair sniper, and somebody has to do it.”

  Tim spoke up. “I have news for you, old man. You are not indispensable. When you leave, another Marine will step into your place. I didn’t see how Ten Para could possibly get along without me, either, but somehow they did just fine.”

  Jeff agreed. “The biggest hurdle is the first one, hanging up the uniform. You know it’s going to happen sooner or later.”

  “The time isn’t right. I’ll know when. Not yet.”

  “Don’t wait too long,” said Gladden. “Thanks to this grumpy old man, I found a new and worthwhile career. I used to think a hundred thousand dollars was a lot of money, but with the patents and proprietary interests the company has developed, there is much, much more available. And we desperately need your help on new projects.”

  Jeff emptied his beer, tossed the bottle overboard, and uncapped a new one. “You and Tim and I are the only people who know everything about the Excalibur project. We had the engineers work only on specific sections. Once we finish the field trials, those guns are gold, Kyle. After that show you put on yesterday, those investors couldn’t write checks fast enough. You have more than earned a share.”

  “I worked on it as part of my job, guys,” Swanson replied. “The Marine Crotch would throw my ass in the brig if I got paid extra for it.” The sideways offer had caught him off guard. They were willing to put up part of the action on the future licensing and sales of Excalibur. A fortune.

  “We only bribe politicians,” Gladden said. “We are just pointing out that you would be an extremely valuable asset to our company, and also that we could make it worth your while financially.”

  Jeff looked at Swanson like a priest at a sinner and abruptly changed the subject. “Damn it all, man, why don’t you and Shari both just get out of the military business? I know you want to get married, but you’re wedded to your jobs instead of each other. That is not good at all, lad. You must grab time before it passes you by. Anyway, I want a grandson.”

  “Been talking to her, have you? And you can’t have a grandson by us because we’re not related.”

  “I was speaking in general terms. A granddaughter would be just as welcome. No, we haven’t spoken with her about it, although Pat has been planning the wedding for some time, something terribly romantic and worthy of a pop diva. You may not have reached the point yet where you want to make the change to private enterprise, but you will, my friend. When you do, I promise you a soft landing. We just want you to hurry up.”

>   “You’ll be the first to know.”

  Tim gave him his unsmiling commando look. “Maybe we have a competitor for your highly marketable skill? Has one of those dreadful PSCs come a-knocking on your door, offering some big money to the super sniper?” He was talking about private security companies, the modern mercenaries.

  “Oh, hell, no. I would never be a merc. There are a ton of those jobs out there, but you can never trust them because you don’t know where their loyalties really lie. They’re like Doctor Frankenstein’s monster, and could just as easily spin out of control. Anyway, if I kill somebody while I wear the uniform, it’s okay. I don’t know how that would play out if the mercs take part in combat ops.”

  Gladden laughed. “Oh, Kyle, you are so naïve. They’re already running combat missions. Have been for years. Some PSCs have armored vehicles, choppers, and even some old jet fighters now. Bleedin’ private armies, they are, for sale to the highest bidder. And with the U.S. military heading toward privatization, it’s only a matter of time before they are authorized and paid to fight an entire war by themselves. It just plays better to the public if some South African merc is lost in action for a noble cause rather than the boy next door.”

  “If it’s so great, why aren’t you two in on it?” It wasn’t like Jeff to pass up a good business opportunity. There were hundreds of millions of dollars in the PSC game.

  Jeff shrugged. “Like you, chum. We were professional soldiers for much too long. I’m more than satisfied with my company and its products, and I’m old-fashioned enough to enjoy being in the service of my queen and country.”

  “So, as you Marines would say, ‘Fuck the Frankensteins,’” said Tim Gladden, holding his beer aloft.

  Jeff raised his bottle, too. “Fuck the Frankensteins.”

  Kyle Swanson touched theirs with his own. “Fuck the Frankensteins.”

  CHAPTER 6

  THE IMMACULATE PILATES, a Swiss single-engine private aircraft painted midnight blue with gold trim, lifted smoothly away from a dry riverbed, its powerful turboprop engine leaving a triangle of sand hovering momentarily in the air behind it. By the time the dust settled back onto the desert, the beautiful plane was gone, building to a cruising speed of two hundred knots while skimming no more than two hundred feet above the sand to avoid radar. In the two and a half hours since taking off from a crude airstrip, it had flown northeast from Dhahran, and then dashed out of Saudi Arabia and into Jordanian airspace without being spotted by the air defense commands of either country. It was just another private executive plane in a region that had fleets of them belonging to rich and powerful princes and sheikhs. Even if it had been seen, no one would have questioned it, nor paid it any mind. The color scheme was recognized as that of a powerful Iraqi, Ali Shalal Rassad, the Rebel Sheikh of Basra, and it was best not to be too curious about him.

  A dirty truck was waiting when the Pilates landed on a macadam road outside a village, and the unconscious General Bradley Middleton was carried off the plane by his two American captors and stuffed into the rear seat of a waiting car for a ten-minute drive to a specific address. Vic Logan pulled another hypodermic needle from his kit and injected Middleton to start bringing him up from the blackness.

  Dull colors, garbled words, and a sense of awkward, jerking motions blended in Middleton’s drug-muddled mind. His brain could not separate the individual things happening around him, nor grasp any meaning. The only thing he felt was a pounding headache. Pain got through. Strong hands held his arms and propelled him forward. His feet would not respond; his legs were rubbery. The dragging stopped, and he was forced to sit in a chair. More words he did not understand, and a sensation of something wet cooling his face. Scrubbing hard. Words. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs of scrambled thought, with no result. Laughter. Hands worked with his clothing, tucking in his khaki shirt, smoothing his collar, straightening his tie, and adjusting the shining single star on each collar point, half-inch and centered.

  Pinpoint flashes of shifting light danced at the edge of his consciousness, blinking like a field of fireflies. Then they were gone. The fireflies had flown. A smell of something rotten rose in his nostrils. Camels or goats close by.

  A soothing female voice spoke English words with a lilting accent, and a gentle hand tilted his chin back. “Here, General. Drink this. All is well. Just drink this.” A cool stream of water went across his tongue and down his throat. He gulped it in relief. Thirst. “That’s enough for right now, because we don’t want to make you sick. You can drink more in a few minutes.”

  His arms were tied around the back of a small chair to keep him from falling. He sensed other people.

  A moment of total silence was followed by the blazing lights of a dozen suns, strong enough to make him wince. He began to breathe fast, and unreasoning panic set in, bringing a childhood nightmare of a monster, frothing at the mouth, that chased him. He struggled momentarily, and then settled.

  When he was calm, a soft command was given and a video camera began to record the image of the Marine general bound to the chair, the shining single star of his rank leaving no doubt as to his identity. A man’s voice read a statement in Arabic. The camera caught it all the first time, but the statement was repeated just in case. The lights went out.

  Middleton felt a tiny prick in his arm as another needle went in to return him to the dark world, then strong hands lifted him. A fist slammed into his stomach, doubling him over. He gasped for air, then vomited. Another blow, and he was on his knees, being kicked to the floor. Laughter, fading. Blackness. Pain still got through.

  The cameraman reviewed the scene to be sure his Panasonic PV-GS250 had done its job, and nodded in approval. The low-light problem had been solved by stealing a rack of huge bulbs that a road crew had been using for night work. He plugged a USB cord between the camera and a Dell computer and downloaded the images and soundtrack onto a small disc, which he slid into a protective hard plastic case and handed to the woman. She folded a written copy of the statement and dropped it and the videodisc into a common brown envelope that she taped closed. Licking it would have left traces of her DNA. In an hour, she was in Amman, Jordan, where she handed the package to the front desk clerk of the hotel that was the residence of the local correspondent for the al Jazeera television network. She walked two blocks, paused beneath a tree, and called the correspondent on a cell phone. “This is the Foreign Ministry’s press office, sir. We have delivered a news release to your hotel,” she said in French, cut the connection, and tossed the phone into a trash bin.

  The correspondent recognized her voice, and knew this had nothing to do with the Jordanian Foreign Ministry. A confidential contact had resurfaced, one who had never given him a bad story. He hurried downstairs, retrieved the envelope, returned to his room, and dumped the contents onto his desk. After reading the statement, he watched the video. Unbelievable! He pulled a bottle of Jack Daniel’s bourbon from a suitcase, and only after two stiff shots of whiskey did he call the busy al Jazeera newsroom in Doha, Qatar. It was two o’clock, plenty of time for the evening newscast, but he knew they would not hold the story until then. It was too important.

  When it was broadcast, the sedated General Middleton was finishing a smooth hop aboard a twin-engine Cessna 421 into Syria. A Land Rover hauled him on the last leg of his journey, and he slept for fourteen hours.

  CHAPTER 7

  GOOD DAY, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. I have to brief the President in a few minutes, so let us get right to it. What’s happening with this kidnapped general?” National Security Advisor Gerald Buchanan swept his gray eyes around the White House Situation Room at nine o’clock in the morning. Every chair was occupied and staff members hovered nearby. “CIA. You start.”

  John Mueller, the deputy director of operations for the Central Intelligence Agency, flipped open a folder branded with a diagonal Top Secret red stripe, hunched forward in his chair, and read the cover sheet that distilled the basics. “General Bradley Middleton of the
Marine Corps was abducted just outside of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, about 0300 hours this morning, Washington time. His two Marine bodyguards, his aide, and the Saudi security team were all either killed in the explosion of the roadside bomb or executed during a follow-up attack. Witnesses saw two men take the general away over a ridge beside the highway. Tire tracks led to a nearby paved road, where they could have gone either way. Al Jazeera was broadcasting the story only a few hours later. An anonymous caller to al Jazeera, after the broadcast, claimed credit in behalf of the Holy Scimitar of Allah. The Holy Scimitar, of course, is the name of the militia of the Rebel Sheikh in Iraq. The caller said the kidnappers would cut off the general’s head unless all U.S., British, and NATO troops and citizens leave the Arabian Peninsula.” The CIA man closed the folder and pushed it away. “The demand is obviously ridiculous, so we conclude there must be some other reason or reasons.” Mueller quit speaking and crossed his arms on the big table. He had learned to keep his mouth shut when he didn’t know anything.

  Buchanan glared at him and swore. “Holy Jesus Christ! I heard the same thing on CNN and Fox before I came in here. Does anyone have something that hasn’t been on live television? FBI? Talk to me.”

  “We have a team working with the Saudis on forensics. Nothing conclusive yet. It’s just too early.” The FBI director also knew not to go too far with Buchanan. Answer the question and shut the hell up.

  The National Security Advisor ran a palm across his neatly trimmed hair and sighed. Then he removed his rimless glasses and wiped them with a handkerchief. He wanted these people to stew for a while.

  “Anybody?” Buchanan snapped. “How about you, Homeland Security? NSA? DIA? Pentagon? State Department? Anything other than what al Jazeera has been showing to more than fifty million people in their part of the world? The domestic networks and cable over here are going to run it forever.”