Jack Coughlin - Dead Shot

A dry and thinner towel was spread over his face this time. He closed his eyes and relaxed as the water began to pour, this time an almost unbroken stream, bucket after bucket. He raged silently in his mind: Bring it, you shitbirds! Bring it on!

A minute. Two minutes. Three. He was paddling off the Baja coast near kilo marker 57, going out several miles and just lingering in the hot sunshine. He was diving without scuba gear along the Australian watery wonderland of the Great Barrier Reef. He was in full rig, practicing planting explosives on the hull of a ship at night. He needed air now, just as he had needed air then. Running low on fuel here, gang. Bubbles. Gagging building in his throat. Water winning, seeping into his lungs. Four minutes. Hold on. Then an acceptance of death as the body’s defenses caved in, the physical machine demanding air. Temporary. Five minutes and counting. Nothing left. He gasped and opened his mouth to suck in oxygen and the water poured in. He was drowning.

As he began to black out, he heard sounds, shouting in the room, and the towel was jerked away. Air! The chair popped to an upright position, and one of the white coats was there to help him regurgitate the water he had swallowed. His senses returned, blinking on one at a time like a series of switches, as he shivered violently against the straps, vomited water, and sucked in life-giving oxygen.

More people were in the room, heavy boots, yelling, moving like shadows. His eyes focused on a slim figure, a woman with short hair, dressed in black jeans and a black sweater: Sybelle!

She had an envelope in one hand, a pistol in the other, and a wicked gleam in her eyes. The questioners, along with the two agents that he assumed had been the bucket brigade and one of the white coats, were lined up along the far wall with their hands up, covered by four Marines in full combat gear. Sybelle had brought along overwhelming power for backup.

“Hey there, Dead Guy,” she said. “I have your Get Out of Jail Free card here, and I’m supposed to give it to some chick named Carolyn Walker. What say we just pop these motherfuckers, get you dressed, and go find her?”

“I’m Agent Walker,” Carolyn said, raising her voice to try to regain control. “What’s going on? Military troops cannot be used in America.”

Sybelle sailed the envelope toward her and told her to pick it up but stay by the wall. She kept her pistol trained on them. “You medics un-buckle this man and get him warm, right now. Blankets, towels, your own fucking clothes, whatever. Move!” Her voice was steely with anger, and the menace was not lost on the medical team.

Walker’s look of surprise was total. “Dave, it’s a direct order from the president and countersigned by the attorney general to give her the full and unconditional interagency support of the U.S. government.”

“Jesus,” said Hunt, reading the letter. He handed it back to Walker. “Okay, so you are some kind of undercover agent. We still should have been told you were coming onto our turf. And if you have this kind of pull, why didn’t you just say so?”

Kyle had a jacket over his naked lap, and a medic was vigorously massaging his shoulders with a towel to get blood circulating again. As his voice returned, he issued orders. “Give us all documentation-written, video, and audio-of your surveillance operation in Paris and my interrogation. You keep nothing, no copies or backups.” He nodded toward Sybelle. “We’re special forces operators, so I still can’t give you my name or reveal any details. It would be best for everyone if you just go back to your other business and pretend you never saw me.”

Sybelle holstered her pistol and had the Marines stand down and leave. The agents relaxed, but when Dave Hunt started to talk, she snapped, “No questions. Just gather up that material so we can all get out of here.”

Kyle stood unsteadily as Walker and Hunt left the room. He whispered to Sybelle, “I know who Juba is.”

DENVER

The taxi spun along mile after mile on the long route between Denver International Airport and the city. The afternoon was clear, and the range of jagged and purple Rocky Mountains, some still topped with snow, commanded his attention. They could be a problem.

After checking into a hotel, he strolled into Lower Downtown, LoDo, which had been a run-down part of the city until the Colorado Rockies were given a major league franchise. Coors Field was dark tonight because the Rockies were playing out of town, but Juba studied how the big stadium had been built right in the heart of the area, near Mile High Stadium, the home of the Denver Broncos football team, and the Elitch Gardens amusement park. Redevelopment flooded in and gentrified the entire former warehouse district. Nightlife now throbbed in fashionable LoDo.

Juba slept late and about noon showed up at Coors Field and joined a group of tourists being given an escorted visit through the ballpark by a charming young woman in a cowgirl hat who was a fountain of information. He watched the flags beyond the outfield, which were stuttering in the steady wind from the mountains, gusts that his sniper’s eye judged to be about thirty miles per hour. The guide said high winds were not unusual around the city.

He considered the situation. Looked west beyond left field to the ridges of mountains. That kind of wind would blow the bubble of poison gas…where? Kansas? New Mexico? Empty states. It wouldn’t work. He had misjudged this one, too.

Denver was the metropolitan area, but the real population of Colorado lived far out in the suburbs, and commuters thronged the big highways after work, driving seventy-five miles an hour to reach their homes many miles away in bedroom communities.

The West was too spread out for his purpose, big enough to swallow some small nations whole. He could cause severe damage, but even the new and stable gas would dissipate too quickly on those mountain winds. Coors Field was not the answer.

He was looking for more than just a baseball stadium-something that was more of a net, a trap, somewhere with no way out. He checked out of his hotel and headed back to DIA and bought a ticket to California.

THE WHITE HOUSE

T HE PRESIDENT OF THEUnited States looked over the top of his rimless reading glasses as his chief of staff, Steve Hanson, came into the Oval Office through the door on the left, which led into the staff offices area. Almost at the same moment, the door on the right opened and Secretary of State Kenneth Waring came through the visitor’s entrance. The president tossed his glasses onto the big desk. “Whatever it is, tell me outside.”

The three moved out the double French doors to the right of the president’s desk, across the narrow covered stone walkway, and into the Rose Garden. Secret Service guards shifted their stations accordingly along the columns of the walkway to the living quarters as the president moved down the few steps and onto the perfect rectangle of grass, raising his face to catch some of the bright sun after being indoors all morning. As he stretched his big arms over his head, then bent from side to side, he could see other black-clad agents on the roof of the White House. Sniper teams. Troubled times. “What’s up? Ken, you start.”

Secretary of State Waring’s eyes gave away his excitement. His manner remained formal, but his foot was poking at some grass. “Mr. President, we have good news.”

“Well?”

Waring spoke. “It looks like the whole Saladin thing has been resolved. Fizzled.” He snapped his fingers like a stage magician. “Poof and gone.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“There was a shooting in Paris a few days ago, and some gang lord took a bullet or two in the head. So did a couple of his bodyguards. Police ran his prints and identified him as an Algerian Muslim leader, a rich guy with a lot of terrorist contacts.”