Iraq.” Al-Shoum scribbled a note and handed it to Talas. “This is the license number of the Land Rover he was driving.”
“Why Tikrit?”
“You don’t need to know that, Foreign Minister Talas. Just tell Washington that we hope they find him soon and make him pay the ultimate price for his monstrous deeds.” He leaned forward menacingly. “And you tell no one, not a soul, about our having the formula. If I hear a whisper that you have revealed this information, you and your family will die.”
Al-Shoum was through with diplomats. They bored him. He turned on his heel and walked from the room, back to his office, humming a little tune, two million dollars richer and in sole possession of one of the most powerful chemical-biological agents ever devised. He would hold on to all of it for a while. Saladin had a good idea about the auction, but he had made it too public, and the time was no longer ripe for such a play. Who knew what deals were to be made in future years?
COMBAT OPERATING BASE SPEICHER
IRAQ
The Army briefing officer with the scraped-clean scalp wore spotless and creased camouflage BDUs and had a 9 mm pistol strapped into a leather shoulder holster. Kyle Swanson wondered why everybody wanted to look like a warrior, even the ones whose jobs kept them safely inside the wire at all times. The man flashed aerial photographs on the white wall. “We have ascertained a suggested target that ful-fills the requested parameters to facilitate your mission,” the officer said. Swanson groaned but paid attention rather than interrupt the intel puke. The other members of the Trident team were having the same dual reactions.
“Somewhere along the way, the hajjis came into possession of an M120 heavy mortar. Normally this 120 mm weapon is carried on an M1100 trailer attached to a Humvee, or by truck or tracked vehicle, but the insurgents have developed a suitable alternative method of transport.”
Darren Rawls spoke up, in his Mississippi drawl. “You mean the ragheads stuff it in the trunk of a car.”
The officer cleared his throat. “Yes. Anyway, once it is mobile, the mortar can be moved into position to provide high-angle organic indirect fire support across a wide area with high-explosive, illumination, or smoke rounds. It requires a crew of four men.”
Swanson knew the M120 weapon well and respected its ability to lay down good fire support. It was not only able to be put into a car but also could be broken down and man-humped by the four guys on the crew. One would carry the tube, another the base plate, the third took the bipod, and the fourth would have the lightweight sight and the ammo. Even assembled, the thing only weighed a little over three hundred pounds. Once in place, it could fire up to four rounds a minute, then be torn down and moved to a new location before counterbattery fire could find them.
From Swanson’s viewpoint on this job, it would be almost ideal because that four-man crew would train and fight together, which meant they would be together during the down time, too. He wanted them all. It was important that he have more than one target in order to get the message to Juba.
Middleton and the Trident team had guessed right that Juba had fled to Iraq; then the net was narrowed even tighter, to the Tikrit area, through a diplomatic communication from Syria. Somebody in Damascus had dropped a dime on Juba, and now Kyle had to draw him out.
“And you have this one located? A solid ID?”
The briefer was back on stride. “We have a high confidence in the location.” He clicked on a narrow laser pointer and a red dot ran across the photo on the wall. “There’s the car, and there’s the house that the crew is in. Humint confirms the photo reconnaissance.”
“Humint” was military-speak for human intelligence, which meant somebody actually saw it. The best kind of intelligence there is. He looked over at Sybelle, who glanced his way and nodded.
“How fresh is this?” she asked the briefer.
“The photograph was taken this morning,” he said. “We consider it to be actionable intelligence.”
The area was the hotbed of Iraqi opposition during the opening battles of the war and the violent aftermath, and enemy eyes were still always watching what was happening in and around Combat Operating Base Speicher, only three kilometers outside of Tikrit. Swanson felt that he was always being watched from the other side of the wire, although Task Force Hammer of the U.S. 1st Armored Division kept security tight.
Swanson knew that security and secrecy were two different things, and loyalty to Saddam Hussein ran deep in the dictator’s hometown on the Tigris River. Saddam built his biggest presidential palace there, drew the members of his inner circle from his home tribe, and was now buried near there. Tikrit, a hundred miles northwest of Baghdad, was an anchor point of the hostile Sunni Triangle.
Even at one o’clock in the morning, as Swanson led the Trident assault team aboard the helicopter, he felt as if some Iraqi diehard were counting noses and radioing an alert. They all wore loose local clothing and face paint. As a precaution, the helicopter took off in a direction ninety degrees different from the true target area. It would circle back to the attack path only when it was well clear of the base.
They were dropped in an empty area four kilometers from the town that contained the suspect house and automobile, and Travis Hughes took point as they trotted forward in silence. No talking, no metal jangling, no hard breathing, just a half-dozen shadows moving steadily in the dark of a moonless night. A steady wind helped mask their approach, keeping their scent away from the animals.
Few lights flickered in the windows during this dead time of night, and the group steered clear of them, carefully threading through the outlying streets and clinging to the shelter of walls and alleyways. They seldom paused and entered the tangled neighborhood where the suspects were without detection. Joe Tipp snaked forward on his belly, elbows, and knees to scout the house. No one was on guard, and the old white Ford sedan with a rusting roof sat just where it had been shown in the intel photo, right outside the gate of a small wall around the house.
Hughes fell in beside Kyle to be his spotter, and the two of them scurried away to set up a stable firing position while Captain Rick Newman fanned out the others in a protective arc and messaged Sybelle that they were in place.
“You sure you want to do it this way, Shake?” asked Hughes. “I don’t like being so exposed.” They were in prone position in the middle of a street.
“We want to be seen, Travis. This time, I want people to know that a sniper was at work here.”
“Still. Just saying.”
“I know. Come on. Let’s build the range card.”
At four o’clock, Kyle clicked his microphone twice, and Newman and Rawls set off at a lope around the front of the house. Swanson nestled his cheek into the custom-made stock of his personal sniper rifle, the Excalibur, and brought the scope to rest on the engine of the car. His world began to slow down as the moment of action neared.
Rawls started kicking at the front door, hard and noisily, and Newman smashed his rifle into the glass of a window, shattering it. Voices were heard yelling inside. Newman popped in a red smoke grenade. Neither man had said a word while causing the occupants of the house to head for the back door.
Out they came, some of them coughing and wiping at their eyes as the trails of red smoke followed them. Hughes had his binos on them. “One, two, another, four. That’s all of them. Nobody else coming out.” The mortar crew made straight for the car, and Swanson waited until they were all inside and the doors were slamming. “Fire. Fire. Fire.”
He let his finger pull back slowly on the trigger and Excalibur roared, snapping a.50 caliber round down the street. It burrowed into the engine block, and the car shook with the impact. Now it was a matter of reloading and shooting fast, but accurately, at men trapped in a ruined car only a hundred meters straight ahead of him. He took out the driver first, before the man released the steering wheel.
