Dead Shot

“Target down,” reported Hughes. The man seated behind the driver jumped out and filled the sight. Kyle shot him in the chest. “Target down!”

Swanson shifted to the other side of the vehicle and nailed the man scrambling from the passenger seat. He was part of his rifle, the world a black-and-white place of mechanical action and reaction, and he felt the new bullet reloading as the old brass ejected out. “Target down.”

There was one more, and he ran. Excalibur roared again and the bullet tore out the Iraqi fighter’s heart as the forward momentum propelled him into the courtyard. “Target down,” Hughes said. “Let’s get out of here, Kyle.”

“Follow the plan, Travis. Stay with the plan.” Swanson watched the Marines form up near him, in the shadows, and Hughes joined them. Rawls and Newman were back.

“Helo inbound,” said Newman.

Kyle Swanson stood up in the street, holding the ominously long Excalibur at his side with his left hand, and moved without hesitation toward the car. Lights were coming on, but no one was yet on the street. Fear and confusion were making them pause. He paced deliberately forward until he was standing beside the body of the man who had been behind the driver.

Swanson propped Excalibur against the car and used his knife to cut off part of the dead man’s shirt, which he twisted into a knot. Squatting beside the car, he dipped the shirt in his victim’s blood and slowly wrote a single word on the driver’s door: JUBA. Wherever he found Juba, the secrets to the poison gas would be nearby. The terrorist would never let that information be far from his side, and it was more dangerous than he was. A matched set, and Kyle had to get them both this time.

He picked up his rifle and strode away, a perfect target but also a fearsome figure in the darkness. The neighbors had heard some noise, but no talking, then a volley of five steady shots from a high-velocity rifle. That meant “sniper,” and while no one wanted to stick a head out the door, they did watch from the windows.

When he reached the Marines in the shadows, Darren Rawls grabbed him by the shirt and pushed him forward, making him run, and Kyle’s senses rolled back into normal time. “You a crazy mutha, you know that?” called Rawls into his ear, running right beside him. “Now haul your ass!”

26

HARGATT, IRAQ

THE CITY OF TIKRIT is hemmed in tightly by a dirty necklace of small towns and villages, and in one of them, a tangled little place called Hargatt, a tense meeting was under way. Light razored sharply through the window of a bullet-pocked two-story building, illuminating a husky, bearded man who sat in a worn green chair in the main downstairs room. Guards were at every window and on the roof, and one stood directly behind him. The area commander of the Iraqi insurgency asked, “Why did you do this thing, Juba?”

“I told you. I did not do it. What reason would I have to kill four of your men, who are helping to protect me?” Juba had been staying at the man’s spacious and comfortable home since arriving in Tikrit. He had already secured a new laptop computer and filled it with the data from the disk that al-Shoum had provided in Syria, plus the vital material from the memory stick that he had carried for three days in his rectum. Juba was back in business.

“The townspeople have described in detail that a man wearing our style of garments and carrying a long rifle had the courage to walk down the middle of the street after the murders. He wrote your name in blood- Why?-and then walked away again. Walked, as if he owned the town! No Shiite dog would take that chance, and certainly no American.”

“One would. His name is Kyle Swanson, he is a Marine sniper, and he wants to personally kill me.”

The commander took a few breaths before speaking again. “You did noble things in London and the state of California, Juba, and for that, I have granted you sanctuary. But death follows you like a plague.”

Juba motioned toward the guards and the windows. “How long has this war been going on? You and the people of Tikrit are no strangers to death. I didn’t bring it. It was already here.”

“Why would this Swanson Marine do this thing last night? It was foolhardy. He would be aware of what we do to captured snipers, but his audacity stunned and delayed the fighters who might otherwise have swarmed outside and taken him. That was why many of them thought it was you out there.”

“Swanson was, ah, communicating with me. Telling me he was around here and looking.”

Finally a glimmer came into the man’s eyes. “So he will be back?”

“Yes. No doubt.”

“Are you afraid?”

Juba softly laughed. “No. Of course not. I want him to find me, because I am going to kill him.”

The commander’s mind was suddenly busy with ideas. “Then we shall lure him in close and hope that he brings many friends. You kill him, we kill them.”

“I like that,” said Juba. “Just be sure to leave him for me.” Once he cleared away the Swanson obstacle, he would find a safe haven and resume the auction process. General al-Shoum would not be pleased to learn that he had been swindled, but Juba planned to be a long way from Syria by then. Tahiti and Fiji both sounded good.

“First, let us show the Swanson Marine that what he did will not be tolerated.” The commander smiled. “Go and communicate with him.”

COB SPEICHER

Kyle Swanson was in a bunk, fast asleep after the night’s work. The rest of the Trident strike team was doing the same thing, while beyond their separate building, U.S. Army troops were going about their daily routines.

An armored patrol rumbled out through the front gate of the combat base, large warfighting machines clanking in the lead and helicopters zipping ahead to look for threats along the wide road. A short time later, several smaller patrols went out, spreading to different directions and different roads. Iraqi civilians were also on the move, wary when approaching American roadblocks. Unemployed young men and kids congregated on some corners in the towns as American troops moved through on foot. Shops were open. Business as usual.

Swanson snored peacefully. He had made his move, and now, while sleeping without dreams, he was still at work, a sniper lying in wait for his target. Army psychological operations teams were in high gear all around Tikrit, handing out paper flyers with Juba’s photograph and broadcasting over the radio and loudspeakers mounted on vehicles, promising a five-million-dollar reward to whoever turned him in.

Kyle had nothing to kill but time. It was Juba’s move.

HARGATT

The insurgent commander and Juba stood on the flat roof of the tallest building in town while guards listened for marauding American helicopters that might see them. The advantage of height increased the distance they could see, and they had a good view of the spot where a road crested a small ridge and then came down into a little valley and a bridge under which a canal flowed to the Tigris.

“The Americans always vary their routes of approach, but there are only so many routes they can take. Repetition is inevitable.” The commander pointed toward the ridgeline. “Before they approach our area, they usually stop at the top of that high ground, as you see, and take time to study what is going on before moving forward.”

Through his binoculars, Juba studied the site. A pair of gigantic M1A2 Abrams tanks were on each side of the road, with their 120 mm cannons and array of machine guns having total command of the area. Other armored vehicles, both tracked and wheeled, rolled arrogantly down the main road, occasionally stopping to let a patrol dismount.

The commander had it all figured out. “See? When they stop, you can shoot them.”

“All right,” said Juba, shifting his binoculars around the zone. “See that farmhouse about halfway down the