Jack Coughlin - Dead Shot

Then he turned to his laptop and transferred a retainer fee to the account of a private detective in Connecticut who was hired occasionally for discreet jobs and background checks. The detective believed the client was a major computer company that required the utmost confidentiality. When the money transfer was confirmed, Juba sent the detective an e-mail telling him to find former U.S. Marine Kyle Swanson.

T HAT NIGHT , X AVIER S ANDOVALwas in the confessional of a little church in the hills outside of Nogales, Mexico. The religious quandary was nothing new to him, a mysterious puzzle that had haunted him for the past three years. He was not a Muslim, and in fact didn’t believe in any organized religion, but the ancient pull of the Roman Catholic Church still tugged at him. It was difficult to give up the teachings of a lifetime.

As a younger man, he had made his way to the United States to find work only to end up in a bar fight in Texas and be arrested, deported back to Mexico, and slammed into a cell with other failed immigrants. It was shortly after the 9/11 attacks on the United States, and the government in Mexico City was eager to show common cause. Many of the prisoners, including Xavier Sandoval, were declared to be suspected terrorists, and vigorous interrogations followed in locations that were beyond prayer. By the time he was released, he really was a terrorist. He again crossed the border and this time made his way to Michigan, settling into a Muslim area with friends of friends he had known in prison. They were bound by an intractable hatred of the United States.

One day an Englishman appeared and plucked him from the crowd, and Xavier Sandoval went to work for the man everyone respectfully called Juba. He was kind and generous and quite talented at killing.

Still, there was a bit of conscience left inside Xavier, enough so that on the evening of the telephone call from Juba in San Francisco, he bathed, combed his hair, put on his best dark suit with a matching somber tie over a blue oxford-cloth shirt, and went to mass. The deep feelings of the liturgy and tradition and guilt seeped into him and drew him to the next level, staying after the service to give his confession. The priest was puzzled at the vague admissions of carnal and other little sins because it was obvious that the parishioner was greatly troubled, but Xavier knew when to stop talking. He did not expect absolution for his crimes; he had just wanted to hear the calm voice of a priest one last time. Then he walked calmly out into the warmth of the late summer night.

The next morning, he said a final prayer and asked God, if he was really up there, to grant him courage and forgiveness. It was a lot to ask, since he was about to murder several thousand people. The small man put on khaki pants and a yellow shirt and headed off to his job as a truck driver for the Diablo Gourmet Seasoning Company.

Diablo Gourmet was a maquiladoras success story, owned by Americans and operated by Mexicans. Suppliers all over South and Central America cleaned and processed their spices and seasonings and sent them to Nogales, where the company blended and packaged the finished products and sped them on to some of the best restaurants across the American Southwest.

The Diablo operation had been established more than twenty years ago as a false front, a vital part of Saddam Hussein’s Unit 999 operations in North America. The only traces of ownership were a lawyer’s name and the post office box of a shell corporation in the Cayman Islands. Years of legitimate operations had made the familiar blocky buildings of Diablo Gourmet a welcome money generator in the Nogales area and allowed Unit 999 to smuggle almost anything it wanted to across the border.

About noon, every day of the week, three yellow trucks left the loading docks carrying fresh loads of Mexican spices and herbs. The guards at the international frontier could smell them coming, for the vented cargo holds exuded the powerful odors of sweet cinnamon and ancho chile pods, pungent epazote, overpowering vanilla, chile negro, and the citrusy blast of habaneros, considered the hottest chiles in the world. All were encased in plastic bags, glass bottles, or metal containers and shipped in cardboard boxes, but it was impossible to capture all of the smells. The arrival of the spice trucks reminded the inspectors and guards it was time for lunch, and the veteran drivers regularly left samples for the guards. Everyone loved good Mexican food, and the signature company logo of a little red devil prancing on a background of yellow was synonymous with quality, hot, authentic spices from south of the border.

Three yellow trucks at noon, day after day, year after year.

The trucks were familiar, the drivers known to the inspectors, and the company owned by Americans, so there were never serious delays when the vehicles came to the border, which had every conceivable security device. Big fences, new television cameras, dozens of computers, sniffer dogs, and experienced inspectors worked both sides of the line. The dogs, however, were useless when the small convoy of yellow trucks arrived, because their sensitive noses would twist in agony if they inhaled the scents of peppers and raw chiles. They whimpered, their eyes watered as if they were weeping, and they batted their paws against their muzzles, sneezing. As a courtesy, the lead driver would use his cell phone when the trucks were about a half mile from the border so the handlers could take the dogs for a nice walk away and protect them from the intolerable aromas. Day after day.

Today, one of the vehicles, number 14, had been especially engineered to contain several ranks of high-pressure storage cylinders that stood against the cab wall in the cargo area behind the boxes and containers of spices. Some of the tanks were plugged into small pipes that fed up to and out of the roof of the truck, and at the turn of a dashboard switch by the driver, the contents would flow out of two exhaust fans. Others were sealed for later use. All were filled with the toxic gas that had been perfected in the Iranian lab. From Paris, Juba had transmitted the final formula to a laboratory attached to the Diablo Gourmet factory, and a small production run was assembled.

At noon, all three yellow panel trucks with the dancing devil logos rolled through the checkpoint unmolested. Number 14 was the last truck in the line and was driven by Xavier Sandoval. Three miles from the border, when he passed the Mariposa exit on I-19, Sandoval placed a call to San Francisco and confirmed that he was on his way.

BALTIMORE

S YBELLE S UMMERS CALLED G ENERALMiddleton on a secure phone from the safe house and did a quick report to assure him the situation was under control and they would both be back at work tomorrow. Kyle needed rest tonight. Middleton accused him of just being lazy but authorized them to take the rest of the day off. It was already dark outside when one of the government types took them back to civilization, into the swarming normality of Baltimore and the comfort of a large hotel on the waterfront.

After taking showers, they met in the bar. A storm had moved in from the east, and a steady rain whipped by the wind provided entertainment beyond the big window, where pedestrians and traffic did erratic battle at intersections and, beyond that, small boats rode the incoming swells.

“What next?” Sybelle asked, tasting a tame scotch and water.

“Try to find Juba again,” Kyle responded. He had already drained a cold pale ale microbrew and was on his second. The water treatment had left him dehydrated.