Clean Kill

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 hands.

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.”

THE 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.