but hitting nothing. The Egyptian terrorist threw down the empty launcher tube and ran.
THE ARMY BASE HAD not been designed to repel any real attack, so the surprise was total. Years of routine patrol duty had dulled a low sense of military readiness and the soldiers, with no combat discipline, were stressing out, fixated on whatever was in front of them and running toward the burning Humvee. The antiaircraft missiles were left unguarded.
Swanson knew that if he did not stop the RPG attack, Saudi soldiers would be killed and the relief column would be delayed in reaching the besieged foreign compound to battle the rebels in the city. Still, it was a sound tactical decision, for this was not about who got hurt, but the sacrifice of a few to be measured against the greater good. The presence of a tactical nuclear missile easily trumped the lives of a few individuals. He would take that opportunity first and worry about the decision process some other time. To overthink the situation would only muddle what needed to be done. He went forward, dragging his prisoner along.
TO MAKE OPERATIONS ON the military base simple, a pattern had matured over the years. Everything from supplies to people alike was funneled through the primary entrance and exit. The secondary gate had fallen into disuse and was secured by nothing more than a big padlock on a chain. Swanson found no fresh tire tracks to indicate recent use.
He shoved Salid to the ground about six feet from the unused gate, beside some scrub brush next to the fence. Using a set of Homer Boykin’s bolt-cutters, Kyle chose a link about three inches above the ground and snipped it, then did the next link and kept going until he had opened a gap about eighteen inches square, held in place by the links at the top. He pushed Junior through the open flap in the wire, crawled through himself and folded the fence back into place. The opening would not be noticed by a casual observer. Any guard would know that the secondary gate was supposed to be chained and locked, and would see exactly that, since the chain and lock were right where they were supposed to be. The nearby fence would not even be inspected.
Swanson led the captured man like a puppy on a leash and went to the side of the long, low building, stopping in the deep shadow of the wall. He wrapped some duct tape around his prisoner’s legs to immobilize him. “Stay, Junior,” he said in Arabic, pointing a finger at him. The young man nodded. He had no idea who this man was, but they were in the middle of an enemy military camp, so there was no escape anyway. Any noise would serve only to alert Saudi soldiers who would kill him.
The front of the building had two large doors in sections that would roll up and out of the way at the touch of a button. A regular door stood between them. The big doors were down but the smaller was open and a long, thin bar of startlingly bright light spilled outside. Kyle hugged the wall as he moved in from the left. When he reached the portal, he leaned forward and listened for any sound that would indicate someone was moving inside. Swanson slid an eye around the edge. No movement. Safe.
At the front gate, soldiers were reorganizing and pushing the wrecked Humvee out of the way to resume their mission into Khobz to save the embattled foreign workers. Kyle cut the tape from Junior’s legs, grabbed him and shoved him through the doorway. They stood exposed in the bright lights of the large building.
Two boxy, flat-tracked vehicles squatted in the middle of the building, side by side, each pointed toward one of the rollup doors. Swanson recognized them as variants of the familiar old M-113 armored personnel carriers that the U.S. Army had introduced a half-century earlier, during the Vietnam era. The basic design had been steadily modified and updated to meet different needs and the versatile APC became a standard armored vehicle for many jobs in many armies.
He climbed aboard the nearest one and peeled away a sand-colored tarpaulin that stretched the length of the vehicle. Below it, a pudgy missile was nested in the cargo bay above a web of pipes that made up the hydraulic launch system. Kyle grunted in satisfaction. From his days of hunting mobile SCUD missile launchers in the deserts, he was familiar with this system.
When ready for action, the rear deck of the APC would be lowered to create extra space, then the missile would be raised into position and it could be fired by remote control from the second APC, the command vehicle. This pair matched up with the modern Humvees parked outside. The entire operation was not for air defense at all. It was a shoot-and-scoot missile launching system. They could drive it almost anywhere and target almost anything.
The missile was blunt on its nose, which told Swanson what was in the cargo hold of the other APC. He climbed down from the first, tied Junior to a protruding metal strut, then jumped aboard the second one. A large weatherproof container was secured in the cargo hold and it was stamped with yellow and black circular radiation warnings: a tactical nuclear warhead.
In his mind’s eye, he could envision the little convoy rushing to a mapped firing position, the removal of the warhead from its box, and how it could be married to the missile body and launched in a matter of minutes. Whether the target was an invading Iraqi army or an Israeli city or an American naval battle group, this was a dangerous puppy. Kyle estimated it was relatively low yield, since it was for battlefield use, but still more powerful by itself than the bombs that were dropped on Japan.
Time was sliding away. Once the military relief column from the base reached the foreign compound, the fighting would end quickly and guards would resume their standard duties, including checking the base. The warehouse building would not stay empty forever. He called Homer on his sat phone and told the CIA agent what he needed.
THE ROUND ARMORED HATCH cover above the driver’s position was folded back and Kyle dropped easily into the compartment on the front left of the M-113 that contained the nuke. Again, he was on familiar ground because he had driven these boxes before. To break the monotony of long hours of down time in Afghanistan, he had occasionally joined some other guys in taking a few old APCs into the empty desert for some totally unauthorized off-road racing.
He adjusted the seat on its post so that he could see through the viewport and also use the infrared periscope. Swanson was not planning to shoot anybody, but did not want to have his head sticking out of the hatch as an easy target. His right foot rested on the large accelerator pedal. He checked the hand brake and the hydraulic service brake pedal. The only major change he could see was that a sort of steering wheel on a yoke had replaced the twin tiller handles to make driving easier. It had an automatic transmission. Sweet.
There was no key, just a switch to turn it on. Kyle clicked it and the big 350-horsepower diesel coughed and grumbled to life. The dials flickered and showed a full tank of diesel, which would give him a range of more than a hundred miles.
Swanson hoisted himself back through the hatch and went over to his prisoner, stripped away the AK-47, and tossed the weapon into the other APC. The young terrorist’s eyes grew wide in fear. “Relax, Junior. You’re free to go,” Kyle said. He removed all of the tape and stuffed it in his pocket so as to leave no sign that the man might be there against his will. “Good luck.”
The prisoner stood perfectly still for a moment, rubbing his wrists as his captor disappeared back inside the big armored vehicle. The hatch slammed and locked. When the engine roared, Junior broke from his trance and ran to retrieve his rifle. He had been left behind as bait.
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
