Jack Coughlin - Dead Shot

Sybelle caught it, for like all Force Recon Marines, she had been schooled in biological, chemical, and nuclear warfare. The weak point of any chem attack is atmospheric dispersion, for the moment the toxin goes into the air, it begins to dissipate and grows weaker until it is of no significance whatever. That is why prime targets for such attacks are normally underground or very confined areas, such as in subways, where the effects can be contained and multiplied. “The wind didn’t carry it far!”

The Lizard stood and looked at her with a smile, a teacher gazing on a prize pupil. “Exactly.” He slapped the top of the television set. “This looks like something new, a heavier-than-air gas that somehow morphs into a sticky liquid on contact with the air. The contamination readings at the center of the attack are still strong right now, many hours after the explosion. This stuff preserves its lethality even in open air.”

“In other words, it stays at home and does what it’s made to do.”

Middleton nodded agreement. “Yep. And that is why we have to be worried. I think this attack was just a field trial. Imagine if huge containers of this stuff went off in the middle of a big city. The death toll could be enormous.”

Sybelle went to a sideboard and poured a cup of coffee, then cocked her head toward Middleton. “Every intel service in the world has to be working on this, and the Brits have to be going all out. Has anybody come up with anything?”

“Nobody has claimed credit yet. No demands have been made. All of the usual idiots are cheering, but none are raising their hands as being responsible because if they do, they get wiped out.” Lieutenant Commander Freedman read some notes on his computer. “The explosion came from a truck in the press area, and the chemical canisters were attached to a second truck. The police identified both as belonging to a rental company out of Scotland called Edinburgh All-Media.”

Middleton was bending a paper clip into different shapes, and it popped apart as he pulled on it. He tossed it aside. “Damned media again. That girl stuck a microphone in the fireman’s mouth just as he realized what was really happening.”

Sybelle wouldn’t buy his anger. “Wasn’t her fault, sir. The terrorists wanted this to be as public as possible, which is why they picked the press that was covering the wedding. It sent a warning straight into the living rooms of millions of viewers. Poor Kimberly Drake will always be the face of this disaster.” She felt a shudder as she recalled the horrible death of the reporter on live TV.

The general stood and looked out the window. “Okay. You’re right. I’m just trying to add it all up in my head. Get your stuff together, because we have to be at the White House in thirty minutes for a national security briefing on this attack and whether it may be related to what we are doing in Iran.”

Sybelle asked, “And exactly what are we doing in Iran, sir?”

“You will find out soon enough. Swanson’s taking another team in, and he wants you over there to ramrod the operation from Camp Baharia. The Lizard is setting up a flight, and you are out of here in a few hours.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” she replied, thinking: Wake up in my apartment in Maryland this morning, go to work at the Pentagon in Virginia, visit the White House for a conference, do a drop-by at the CIA over in Langley for a final situation report, then out to Andrews Air Force Base and into the back seat of a screaming fast military fighter-bomber for a few hours, and sleep tonight in Iraq. Got to love this job.

KINGDOM OF BRUNEI DARUSSALAM

Ambassador Richard Taffe was a professional diplomat who had been entrusted by the United States government with the crucial position of ambassador to one of the smallest, richest, and most strategic countries in the world. It was not a gift position awarded to some political party loyalist or to the friend of a friend of the president. Instead, whoever held the post had earned his spurs through years of experience in the diplomatic world. Taffe peeled off his sweaty orange shirt after a morning round at the Royal Brunei Golf and Country Club in Jerudong Park and concluded once again that the years spent in Nigeria and Bangladesh and Jordan had paid off handsomely for him. What was there to dislike about Brunei?

A Malay club boy in pressed black shorts and a white tunic buttoned at the collar brought him a stack of fresh towels. The ambassador wiped his face and chest, rolled the towel into a ball, and tossed it into a hamper ten feet away.

“He shoots! He scores!” called his playing partner for the day, Zul Jock Matali, a senior officer in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. “Nothing but net.” It had been a good day, and the ambassador had beaten Matali three-and-two in match play. Now they would shower and dress and have lunch in one of the club restaurants and talk about oil.

Brunei was attached by land to Malaysia but floated on a sea of proven oil reserves rated at about 1.35 billion barrels. The country shipped 206,000 barrels every day, and a great deal of it sailed across the Pacific Ocean to the United States. Taffe’s primary job was to keep that black gold flowing.

Taffe took a sip of chilled water from a bottle that had almost magically appeared at his side. There was only one thing to really worry about in this little land where, true, nobody voted, but nobody paid taxes and the country had zero external debt. Oil money did that. The problem was not the human trafficking that masqueraded as migrant labor from other Asian countries, because who really gave a shit? Even human rights groups couldn’t keep track of it. Just don’t call attention to what was, in reality, a booming slave trade. Neither was there any problem with the mandatory death penalty for drug smugglers, which Taffe’s people handled quietly when some stupid American kid got nailed trying to bring in dope in a backpack. There was no official arrest, so there was no trial or death sentence, and the tourist was just turned over to the U.S. Embassy, which sent him home on the next plane. At all costs, keep the black oil flowing.

The real diplomatic problem in Brunei was that the nation’s religion was Muslim. The common law could be overruled in some cases by sharia law, and the sultan himself was the official defender of the faith. The same royal family had run the little country for six centuries, even after it was spun off as an independent nation by the British Empire. They displayed some enlightened leadership in spending great wads of cash on improvements and allowing at least the appearance of listening to the will of the population of 375,000 people, almost all of whom were literate. Things were politically quiet, and Ambassador Taffe wanted to keep it that way.

Still, there was discomfort about the overall anti-Muslim zeal that seemed to be sweeping through American politicians, whose words were studied by the Brunei policy makers. There was always the possibility, too, that al Qaeda would jump over from nearby Indonesia, make militant inroads here, and turn this fabulously rich nation into a powder keg of trouble. So far, nothing serious had happened. It was so quiet that a citizen of Brunei still did not even need a visa to fly to America.

After their showers, the two officials went upstairs to an elite restaurant and were escorted to a private table beside the huge windows, with a ring of empty tables around them. Matali was much more than just an official in the Ministry of Trade, for the graduate of Stanford University and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard also held the rank of brigadier general in the Royal Brunei Land Forces. Part of his portfolio was counterterrorism.

They made small talk as the waiters hovered around to take their orders.