Dead shot, p.15
Dead Shot, page 15
The push of a lever in front of the trigger took off the slide of the Glock, leaving the pistol in two pieces, the barrel assembly and the butt. With the slide out, he removed the spring and began a careful examination to see that nothing was frayed or chipped. A look down the barrel confirmed it was neither dented nor warped. He only wiped down the butt section, because doing a proper job on an intricate trigger assembly was the task of a gunsmith. Swanson spent five minutes cleaning it, then reassembled the Glock and did an ops check to make sure it worked. He pointed it at the mirror on the back of the door. The trigger clicked on empty.
He had four magazines with fifteen rounds in each clip, and Kyle thumbed out the bullets one by one to personally examine them for any defect. The shiny brass cartridges were laid out side by side on the white towel, gleaming in the overhead light, each a marvelous little piece of engineering built precisely by Beretta to fit the barrel of the 9 mm pistol. They were all soft-tipped rounds designed to avoid a ricochet indoors. The bullet would create an entry wound as small as a dime, but once it slammed into bone, the soft nose would splinter with the impact of a small grenade and shred everything around it. It was not supposed to exit the body. Swanson always enjoyed watching movies in which shooters used their knives to carve an X on the tip of a bullet to make it open up. Fantasy. The rounds were already designed to do that. Start screwing around with your rounds and you will screw up the barrel and the accuracy of the weapon; then you are the one who is screwed. He reloaded the magazines.
The little Ruger five-shot revolver was even easier, but the maintenance was performed with the same amount of care. Open the cylinder, visually inspect it, clean it, load it, and bingo, it was ready. The Gerber knife was easier still. Just wipe down the blade, which gleamed along the cutting edge that had been honed in the armorer’s shop. Field strip and op check on all weapons. Good to go.
Comfortable with his personal arsenal, he slipped into his night outfit: black jeans, black sneakers and socks, long-sleeved black turtleneck T-shirt, and black windbreaker. A woolen balaclava mask was rolled up into a watch cap and adjusted for a firm fit and so his eyes could see out of the openings. The Gerber went into one pocket; the Ruger was on his ankle and the Glock snug in the shoulder rig. He turned out the lights and lay on the bed to let his eyes adjust to the gathering darkness.
Swanson closed his eyes and lay there for thirty minutes, breathing slowly, trying not to fall asleep because he had work to do tonight. Thoughts of Shari Towne flitted at the edge of his consciousness. As a lieutenant commander in the Navy, she had been given a hero’s funeral at Arlington, her coffin rolled to the gravesite on a horse-drawn carriage. The box was virtually empty because she had been riddled by gunfire and blown apart by two satchels of explosives. There was no family present at the funeral. Shari’s father had died years before, and her beautiful mother died in the same attack that stole Shari’s life. Shari was the end of the family line.
Kyle wasn’t there for the ceremony because he had been stashed in a secret medical clinic abroad recovering from bullet wounds of his own. He now considered it ironic that he and Shari were both officially buried at Arlington, yet neither was really in that hallowed dirt. He felt that they were still together, and she occasionally visited him in dreams that were so vivid he could describe exactly what she was wearing. They could not speak to each other, they could not touch, but they could be together for an almost tangible moment, no more than a heartbeat, and she always had that glorious smile. Now another face was also showing up, unbidden, in his thoughts, that of Delara Tabrizi.
Stop it, he commanded himself. This is getting me nowhere. Keep on the mission, and the other stuff will sort itself out. God, I need some rest.
Green Light. That order came straight from the top. Finding out so unexpectedly where the man known as Saladin was provided a very narrow window of opportunity. This was the person responsible for the poison gas attack on London, and he was now blackmailing the world. The decision was made to take him off the board while there was a chance and to seize the formula and plans for the weapon. The president was absolutely right that the United States did not assassinate people. But the dead man who used to be Kyle Swanson did.
Darkness had fallen, and it was raining when he opened the window, a nice French rain that alternated between a fine mist and a wet mop in the face. Anyone watching would avoid looking upward, and amateurs would seek shelter. Since he had turned off the lights, the assumption would be that he was sleeping. Three floors below, an alley stretched along the back of the hotel. Empty. No darker shadows huddled within the other shadows.
Kyle stuffed a hotel towel into his jacket, stepped through the window onto a ledge, faced the wall, and closed the window behind him.
The Lizard had provided maps and layouts from satellite imagery and building blueprints, and the room had been chosen because of its proximity to steel latticework erected for some outside renovation. The Lizard had measured it to be exactly eleven feet from the window. Kyle scooted carefully along the wet ledge, grabbed the scaffolding, and was down in the alley in seconds. He went into the shadows of a garbage bin, dried off with the towel, and tossed it.
Turning his back to the street and cupping his hand to shield the light, he pushed a button and the dial of his watch illuminated with a soft blue glow. It was almost 2200 on the dot, two hours before midnight, and Paris was open for business.
Swanson used a combination of taxis and the subway system, frequently doubling back and walking through stores to check for followers, and only when he was convinced that he was alone did he edge to the northeast and into the Nineteenth Arrondissement.
The first time past the house, he had a cab drive aimlessly around for ten minutes, and they passed the small compound without slowing. He got out of the taxi four blocks away at a small restaurant, where he went in, ordered a glass of red wine, and made a cell phone call.
Sybelle arrived within twenty minutes, dry and playing the part of a girlfriend. “Hi,” she said and touched his hand. She sat down at his table and also ordered a glass of wine, and Kyle explained what they needed to do. Urban warfare is a sniper’s specialty because all windows and buildings and fences offer places to set up a hide. He had no intention of allowing the coming fight to be fair, and he and Sybelle could check out the place as a couple on the street without arousing suspicion. They would look for ways to tilt the playing field in Kyle’s favor.
Swanson put some money on the table, and the two of them left, squeezing beneath Sybelle’s small black umbrella. They approached the house from the north, walking slowly along the old sidewalk, with Kyle’s arm around her waist. She snuggled closer and giggled, working on the cover as both of them swept the area with their eyes and ears.
Saladin had strong security. Two sentries stood in the courtyard, and newly mounted cameras were at all corners to watch the surrounding streets and the interior grounds. Guard on the roof. A street person stumbled past them, drinking from a bottle. External surveillance. Plus whoever was inside. Probably an alarm system. Not just good security, Kyle thought, but too much. Like they were expecting someone. Me?
Sybelle and Kyle walked back to the restaurant, and she pulled a pair of night vision goggles and small binoculars from her purse and handed them to Swanson. He would go back out onto the rain-slick streets now for a deeper recon from the shadows. “I’ll have some coffee so I can be close by if you need backup,” she said.
“I assume you saw everything that I did,” Kyle said. He had a puzzled look. “But did you feel that something seemed out of place back there?”
She crossed her arms. “That flicker of light at the window of the corner building. Somebody else is watching that place.”
“Yeah,” said Kyle. “We’re not the only game in town.”
16
K YLE S WANSON DID NOT try to intellectualize the assassination. He had been ordered to do the job and given free rein to carry it out. Besides, he believed that the bastard had earned this as the price for organizing the London attack on a crowd of innocent people and for slaughtering prisoners in awful experiments. The only question that Swanson had was how soon he could pull the trigger, then go into the madman’s lair and get the data on the poison gas. It had eluded him in Iran, and he did not want to miss again.
The morning after his scouting mission, he had decided on a plan of attack and needed some things. After a quiet breakfast of coffee, a warm croissant, and fresh fruit, he went downtown to find a good sporting goods store that specialized in alpine equipment. Explaining that he was heading off to do some climbing, Swanson bought a mountaineering axe, some good gloves, a pocket set of Zeiss binoculars, a puffy down jacket, and a black hard hat with a battery lamp attached.
He returned to the area near Saladin’s house and scouted for a small quiet street, finding just what he needed only three blocks away. Two warehouses backed against each other, and their windowless rear walls were separated by a shade-filled alley. Using the sharp, curved end of the new mountain axe, he quickly pulled up a sewer lid, climbed down and slid the lid back into position, and put on the hard hat with the bright lamp. With the beam of light boring a hole in the darkness, Swanson began to walk.
Paris had 1,400 miles of sewers, and compared to some places he had hidden during his military career, they were almost comfortable. The sewers were usually as wide as the streets above them, and a channel of water carried the waste down the middle. The walls and ceilings held an orderly array of cables and pipes for electrical circuits and drinking water. Street signs in the caverns were the same as the street signs above.
He easily found his way through the tunnels for a few blocks and stopped at the grate on the curb directly across from the courtyard of Saladin’s place. He stepped up on a ledge and brought the Zeiss binos to his eyes, settling in to watch the place and build a range card.
Promptly at 11:30 A.M., two burly guards entered the courtyard, looked around, and unlocked the parked sedan only after searching beneath it for explosives by using a mirror on a pole. One got into the driver’s seat, and the second returned to the house and returned beside a slim, well-dressed, dark-skinned man. Saladin? The man was heading for lunch. Kyle watched throughout the day and about midafternoon chowed on a baguette with some cheese and an apple. Only when night fell did he return to the hotel and wash off the stink. He needed some help for the next step and went over to meet Sybelle and the Lizard. They had to work fast.
Lieutenant Commander Freedman stretched in his chair before the all-seeing eye of his laptop computer. “Interpol came up with the sketch of the guy they believe is Saladin, based on several sources, including the two al Qaeda operatives who were on the telephone. They were arrested yesterday.”
Kyle only had to look at it for a moment. “That’s the guy I saw in the courtyard,” he confirmed. “The thin face and well-trimmed beard are pretty unique. That’s him.”
“Are the French cops going to hit the place?”
“Not yet,” said the Lizard. “Everybody is still standing around creating elaborate plans. Being the French, I don’t think they really want to make the arrest. They just want him to leave because he is a political embarrassment.”
“Yeah.” Time was ticking faster if others were getting ready to move. He had to be done before the authorities were in place to figure out what happened. Swanson finished a sketch of his plan, using maps that the Lizard had printed out, and gave them their assignments. “We’re doing them a favor. When Saladin sticks his head out for lunch tomorrow, they won’t have to worry about him anymore. Lizard, you find us a little SUV?”
“Waiting downstairs in the lot. A gray Peugeot 4007.”
“Okay. Sybelle, give me a ride back to my hotel, then you do your thing and come back here. I should see you both tomorrow about noon at the front of the Air Museum, and we’re gone.”
Kyle returned to his room, showered, and took some time to clean the Dragunov sniper rifle he had brought along from Iraq. As soon as he had heard it was a Green Light mission, he had wanted a disposable and untraceable weapon. Then he lay down to sleep, telling his mind to awaken him two hours later, before dawn came.
Sybelle Summers telephoned an all-night mechanic and spoke in angry French. A neighbor had parked his blue BMW Mini in her assigned space again, after many requests not to do so, and she wanted to teach him a lesson by having the car towed and dumped in a vacant lot somewhere.
The mechanic said he was not interested and mentioned that it also was illegal. He was not a car thief, he said. She offered a hundred euros with no paper transaction that might lead back to him, and he wavered. At two hundred euros, he changed his mind. Business was slow this late at night.
Soon the tow truck arrived at the intersection the woman had designated, and she waved him down. Still angry, the driver thought, taking the money and watching as she pointed out the little car that was causing her troubles. Neighbors, he shrugged. He went to work, and within a few minutes, the tow truck vanished down the street with the little Mini hanging from its big hook. Sybelle slipped the rented Peugeot SUV into the spot, got out, locked the door, and walked away. The SUV was parked with its rear wheels just beyond the sewer grate and the high rear end shielding the opening from view, directly across from the gate to the courtyard of Saladin’s house. A long, dark ribbon was tied to the rear bumper and moved in rhythm with the passing breeze.
Just before the sun came up, Kyle had disappeared again beneath another sewer lid, clicked on the light of his hard hat, and found his way back to the proper grate, this time with the Dragunov across his back. He snapped off the light before looking out of the grate, keeping the darkness as a guard against being spotted. He was satisfied with the protected and clear view of the courtyard.
The problem was going to be with the timing, for the target would be exposed for only a few seconds, while walking from the house to the automobile. Based on what he observed the previous day, there would be some warning when the bodyguards came into the courtyard first to be sure the area was clear. At that point, Kyle could bring up the rifle, but not before then. Sticking the barrel of a sniper rifle out of the opening of a hide was done only in movies, for it was almost as good as waving a flag. It would be seen, even as well concealed as he was.
The range could hardly be better, close enough to do the job even over the iron sights of an ordinary rifle. The target would appear huge and close in the Dragunov scope. He rolled up the big jacket he had bought and placed it along the ledge just inside the grate opening to provide a more stable shooting platform. He could keep an eye on the windage by watching the ribbon fluttering from the bumper of the Peugeot.
Swanson did not really want to think about how the task would change if Saladin did not go out for lunch today. Then he would have to use the rifle to pick off any outside guards and fight his way into the house, which was as strong as a fort. Too much noise, effort, and danger. But who could resist a nice lunch at a Paris café on a beautiful day such as this?
He drank some fruit juice, picked up his binos, and stood back in the shadows. He glassed the courtyard with intense concentration, for he knew the moment he let fatigue or boredom pull away his attention, the target would appear and then vanish before he could act. Cars and trucks rolled by, the wheels blowing trails of dirt and rocks behind them. The occasional pedestrian hurried along the sidewalk, and the cameras on the corner posts followed. Swanson stood motionless back in the darkness of the wide sewer, his center perfect over slightly spread legs, a position he could hold for incredible lengths of time. He emptied his mind as the minutes went by. For two hours, he remained immobile, except for an occasional stretching of his muscles. Then he changed position, moving closer to the narrow rectangular opening, leaning on the little shelf of molded concrete with his elbows, and continued to watch.
The first guard came out at 11:28 A.M., a muscular young man in pressed jeans, a white shirt, and an open sport coat. He walked out to the street, looked around, and searched the car. Unlocked it and got inside. Turned on the ignition.
Kyle put down the binos and raised the Dragunov, putting the end of the barrel onto the soft, rolled jacket at the inner edge of the sewer grate, with the Peugeot 4007 overhead hiding the opening. The ribbon moved only sluggishly, telling him the wind was not enough to change the scope. He let his breathing slow, and his heart rate, feeling the strap of the rifle dig into his left arm.
The second guard appeared, a large man in a cheap suit, also with no tie. His hand was at his back, beneath his jacket, probably grasping a pistol. This one stepped out of the courtyard and checked the street both ways. He went back to the front door and said something Kyle could not hear.
Saladin stepped into the open for the short walk to the automobile, no more than ten steps. The bodyguard moving ahead of him opened the door. Only forty meters separated Kyle from Saladin, who was talking on a cell phone as he walked, and the shot, when Swanson took it, was simple. Five steps, six steps, squeeze the trigger, and Saladin never made the seventh step. He was hurled upward by the force of the rising bullet and was tossed backward like a puppet whose strings had been cut, dead before he hit the ground. The bodyguard stared in surprise long enough for Kyle to shift the scope onto him and make a head shot.
The driver threw open his door and rolled out, with his pistol drawn but unable to see a target. Everything beyond the gate looked normal, and the tendency was to look up to find a sniper on a rooftop or in a high window. Kyle had him centered in the scope as the man searched for somebody to shoot at, and Swanson once again smoothly pulled the trigger. Since they were almost on the same level, the flat trajectory sent the bullet ripping into the guard’s shoulder, then down through the chest and rib cage before exiting at the hip. He bucked under the impact, and the round wrecked his heart and lungs.
