Clean Kill

what happened to the missing nuke over at Khobz.”

“No,” said Kyle. “They are still blaming it on the terrorists. Tell the general that since King Abdullah is now on the same page with us, I recommend telling him that we have it in our possession. Take some worry off his shoulders. Now do I still have the Green Light for this, uh, other job?”

“Middleton approved it. He is not passing it on to the White House. Pull it off without getting caught and we’re all home free. If you screw up, Middleton will cover it under a bunch of top-secret excuses.”

“Don’t worry. Am I going to get this kid Jamal from the CIA as a backup? He’s good.”

“Done. His contact number is in here.” She handed him a sealed manila envelope.

“And the Lizard is tracking my target?”

“You kidding? Freedman is having a ball with it and the NSA big ears are all over this dude. He’s operating on open frequencies and you could probably just follow him by watching television. His schedule for the next few days is in the package. Un-fucking-believably arrogant and stupid.”

“Finest kind,” Swanson said. “I can let his ego work for us. Have the Liz keep Jamal up to speed on the guy until we get together.”

They both turned as the APC moved to the bottom of the ramp, the engine was gunned and the armored vehicle growled aboard so the loadmasters could secure it with hooks and chains. Darren Rawls saluted the Saudi prince again and marched back up the ramp. “Y’all done here?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Kyle said. “I’m gone. Take this big bird away and secure that TNW. It’s the second of the five.” He stuffed the envelope into a vest pocket and picked up the gun case. “We should have the next warhead ready for pickup soon, but you may have to work a lot faster, so stay ready. See you then.”

Sybelle had a look of concern. “Kyle, be careful. You’re alone out here, like a fisherman on a big ocean with a whale pulling on the hook.”

“I got it. Really,” he said. He walked back out through the cargo bay, past the APC and down the ramp into the heat. The long gun case bumped against his thigh. His personal sniper rifle, Excalibur, was in it and that was a difference-maker as far as he was concerned. A smaller case contained a good map of Saudi Arabia, a battery- powered satellite telephone and a backup cell phone, a GPS tracking device, and a goody bag of things that might come in handy.

At a shout from Darren Rawls, the lieutenant handling the security platoon saluted his own Saudi counterpart and the Marines hustled back aboard the plane.

Kyle loaded his cases into the Land Rover as the Herc revved its engines, which had never shut down throughout the brief operation. It turned around and moved out to the vacant runway, already cleared for takeoff while the Saudi soldiers were dismissed and got aboard trucks.

Mishaal returned to the SUV and started it, clocking the air-conditioning up to high. The chill breeze was delicious.

“One down, Gunny. Three to go. One still missing. What’s in the fancy new luggage?”

He turned to look at the prince. “A secure telephone and some personal shit. Brought along my own weapon because it is custom-made and I might find a use for it. Hope you don’t mind.”

Mishaal smiled. “Not at all. I’ve heard my uncle bragging about you, so I would love to see if you’re up to Ranger standards.”

Swanson grinned as the cool air made life worthwhile again. “I’ll try not to disappoint you.”

An off-key chirp of little bells sounded in the back seat, from the cell phone on the belt of Captain al-Muallami. He flipped it open, identified himself, and grimaced as he listened. Then he closed it, dropped it on the seat, wrote something on a small notepad, folded the page in half, and handed it up to the prince. “From headquarters, sir,” he said.

Mishaal read it. “I may get to see you work sooner than expected, Gunny. All hell has broken loose down in Ash Mutayr, a divisional headquarters on the southern border near Yemen. The troops have mutinied and heavy fighting is underway. They seized some armor.”

Swanson let his head slump forward. “Ash Mutayr? That was going to be our final nuke pickup site,” he said.

“It just moved up the list to be our next stop. It’s more than four hundred miles from here, beyond the biggest desert on earth.” The prince popped the Land Rover into gear and accelerated toward the flight control building. Captain al-Muallami was already on his radio, ordering up a private jet with a fighter escort.

Kyle was silently changing his own plans. He had hoped to go directly over to Jeddah, meet up with Jamal, and go take a look at the guy heading the Religious Police, who was the other half of his Green Light Package. Swanson had to make a decision on whether the man was a true danger, or just a dupe; to kill him or let him live. That trip had just flopped right in the shitter with the uprising at the southern base. Jeddah would have to wait.

38

THE PENTAGON, WASHINGTON, D.C.

LIEUTENANT COMMANDER BENTON FREEDMAN, the Task Force Trident electronics expert known as the Lizard, chewed on the smooth plastic of a blue U.S. Navy ballpoint pen as he read the Bloomberg business Web site. Small importers in America were howling about the disruption of shipping from China.

Kara Henderson in Santa Barbara, California, was experiencing the same problem that was bugging Charles Tyson in Seattle and Eileen McNamara in Chicago. Their ship had not come in. That wasn’t normal and the Lizard was always itchy when “one and one” did not add up to “two.” He checked the source story from the Associated Press, which had gathered specific incidents of the curious small-business crisis from its bureaus across the nation.

The compiled report stated that Kara ran an upscale clothing boutique, Eileen sold leather purses to department stores, and Tyson was a toy distributor. Each had made their annual trips to Japan and China earlier in the year, met with manufacturers, studied the catalogues, attended trade shows, and placed thousands of dollars worth of orders. Christmas would be coming in a few months and time was required to fill those orders, pack the containers, and ship the goods. In the U.S., Henderson, McNamara, and Tyson were already taking advance orders from their own customers. Reliability was important.

Then all three had received startling e-mails from the Chinese shipping agent, a bland, so-sorry announcement that the giant cargo ship Peh Shan was no longer available. Reasons unexplained. Efforts were being made to reassign their cargoes to a South Korean carrier, but a delay of at least thirty to sixty days could be expected.

“Sixty days from now, I may be out of business,” Eileen McNamara complained to the reporter. “If the big stores don’t get those purses that I promised, they will cancel my order and buy from somewhere else.” Tyson had bet the farm on a full container load of the latest surprise toy that was going to sweep the nation during the Christmas season. “What am I going to do with a half-million Marko Giggle Birdies in January?” he asked. Kara’s situation was equally dire: Her boutique would fall behind the fashion curve if those new rags did not arrive on time.

Their protests went unheeded and the three business owners, among many others just like them across America, watched helplessly as their Christmas marketing plans fell disastrously behind schedule.

Freedman knew that it was not at all like the Chinese business world to falter on something this important, but nevertheless the Peh Shan had been unexpectedly removed from commercial service. It was the sixth Chinese container ship in a week to be sidelined without explanation. None were in shipyards for repair. They were just sitting at anchor near the coast, apparently empty.

He called up the specs on the vessel. It was a monster, stretching almost a quarter-mile in length and wide as a football field. The Lizard cocked his head as he stared at a picture of the monster ship and its massive deck. “I wonder…What if…” he whispered to himself, gnawing harder on the plastic.

He logged onto an internal Pentagon network to read the Navy’s study on its own Maritime Pre-Positioning