Jack Coughlin: Dead Shot

They made the journey of a twisting 420 miles to London in a single day, entered the city, and maneuvered to the cordoned-off far end of Kensington Park that had been reserved for the regiment of production trucks that would support the television horde. There was a short line of trucks waiting to get in, and the two vans from Edinburgh All-Media slid into position at the rear. A policeman told them to stay with the vehicles until the security teams cleared them. For thirty minutes, they followed as the line grew shorter until Juba drove onto a special parking pad caked with detection sensors, where a four-man squad and their bomb-sniffing dog thoroughly combed the vehicle and found nothing. Once cleared to be inside the quarantine area, a van could not leave until after the wedding.

Juba was given a map with a specific parking slot highlighted with a yellow marking pen: the very back row, against the Cyclone fence. The other purple and white van had a slightly better spot, one row in front and about fifty yards away, to the left. The Italians had more clout than the station from Arkansas.

The driver of the second van caught a late train back to Scotland, where he would dismantle the little office of Edinburgh All-Media Ltd. Juba did not have far to go: he was spending a few days with his mother and father at their small place in the West Midlands, the home of his boyhood.

IN THEMED,Astreak of sunshine as bright as a spotlight came through the slightly parted curtains over the porthole and hammered the face of Kyle Swanson until he woke up. It was almost noon. Everyone passing in the corridor outside had been content not to awaken him and had tiptoed around his cabin door. After stretching, he took a shower and shaved. By the time he put on fresh jeans and a golf shirt and running shoes, he almost felt human. His head hurt.

Stepping outside, he found that the storm had passed on and had been replaced by a calm green sea and a sunlit sky, and the Vagabond was heading east at about twenty knots, churning into the deep water. No land was visible. A squadron of seagulls followed the white wake, and the temperature was warm.

Up one deck, he entered the main cabin of the yacht, a spacious lounge with a full bar in one corner and a comfortable arrangement of sofas, soft chairs, and heavy antique Chinese tables. A giant flat-screen television set and an electronic entertainment center were built into one bulkhead. Sir Geoffrey Cornwell was hunched forward and reading news reports flashing on the screen of a laptop computer. A retired colonel from the British Special Air Services, Jeff had built a fortune making and selling state-of-the-art weapons systems. He seldom got excited and was very aware that warriors handled stress in different ways. It was not exactly a secret that they got drunk on occasion to deal with the stress.

Jeff raised his shaggy eyebrows. “Rough night?”

A carafe of chilled orange juice was on the buffet, and Kyle poured a glass and drank it before answering. He filled a thick ceramic mug with coffee and picked up a small bowl of fruit at the buffet. “Was drunk. Now sober.” No apologies.

Lady Patricia was reading a magazine beside a large window that provided a panoramic view of the passing sea. She looked up, took an elegant pull on a small, thin cigar, and blew away the smoke. “You are our wayward boy, Kyle. You were quite naughty last night, but we’ve seen you worse. Do it again, however, and I shall spank you.”

“Is that an offer, m’lady?” He smiled. Conversation made his head hurt.

“Don’t act the little pervert now. Ask Dr. Russell to give you something for your hangover.”

“I’m fine,” said Kyle.

“Spoken like a true warrior. You are truly a hard man, Kyle Swanson,” Sir Jeff said without looking away from the screen.

They sat in silence for a while, comfortable, and Kyle let his eyes close. In two minutes he was asleep again, with his head back against the sofa. Pat looked over at Jeff, who gestured that she should keep quiet. “Let him be,” he said. Jeff had just checked one of his e-mail accounts and found an encoded message from Washington. Trouble was on the way, and Kyle was going to need all the sleep he could get.

CAPTAINRICKNEWMAN WASin a garage on a military base in North Carolina, up to his armpits in grease as he worked on his latest automotive restoration project, a 1955 Chevy Bel Air two-door hardtop with fender skirts. The outside skin of the old car was in decent shape, not much rust; the original baby blue and cream paint scheme was still visible, the chrome running trim undented. The interior needed major renovation, but it would just take some time and money to make it cherry again. The engine, though, a rare 350 V8, was for shit, and the deeper he dug into its guts, the shittier things got. It would cost a fortune to replace the whole thing, which was against the rules for a serious hobbyist and car trader like Newman. He had bought the car for nine thousand dollars at an Alabama estate sale and planned to restore it personally and sell it on the upside of $50K. It would take years. “Hey, Cap’n! You got a phone call over here,” shouted a motor pool Marine.

Rick wiped the grease from his hands and picked up the receiver. “Captain Newman,” he said.

“Hey, Rick. This is Sybelle Summers calling from Trident in Washington.” The voice was some hybrid of a normal tone, authoritative sandpaper, and a purr.

“Hi, Sybelle. Long time,” he said, suddenly alert. “What’s up?”

“We’ve got a job for you, my friend. Get back to your office right away and call me back on a secure line. Top Secret.”

“On my way,” he said. “Fifteen minutes.” He hung up, closed the Chevy’s hood, and hurried away to clean up and get to his desk. The Bel Air would have to wait. Newman was part of a Marine Special Operations Company that comprised four platoons. The rotation had one platoon in Iraq, one in Afghanistan, one in training at this secret base in North Carolina, and the fourth on ready alert, sitting on a short leash, ready to go anywhere in four hours.

When he spoke to Sybelle Summers on the secure link, her orders were quite simple and explicit. He was to choose five more designated operators for a black mission, get over to Camp Doha, in Kuwait, and link up there with Master Gunnery Sergeant O. O. Dawkins, who would give them a full briefing. Eight men would be going in, and Newman’s group would provide the guns in case something went wrong.

She gave him only a brief overview to help pick the specialists he would take and said he could plus up with scouts, snipers, or anyone else he needed. Trident would chop them from their current assignments and arrange the temporary duty. To Newman, it sounded like he was going to need shooters to provide firepower for a special op. He had plenty of good ones from which to choose. He would rather work with people from his own team, highly disciplined and well trained, who already knew each other. His group would click together like a well-oiled military machine. Hughes, Tipp, and Rawls for certain. Two more and himself. The addition was easy. His group was six. Double-Oh made seven. Who was the eighth?

Newman began making calls of his own.

Darren Rawls faked a move to the right, pulled back, and went up and up and up. Rawls, with a thirty-one-inch vertical leap, seemed to levitate in slow motion as he flicked his wrist and delivered a jump shot from the top of the key. His sneakers hit the concrete court as the ball finished its arc to the basket with nothing but net. “Game over, Rabbit. Pay me the money,” he told Joe Tipp, a lanky white boy who was better at football than hoops. Both were sweating hard in the North Carolina sun that baked the hidden, off-limits military installation. They were the lead instructors in an escape and evasion training mission and had started the young members of the platoon through the assigned exercise at dawn. The first and fastest would be approaching the finish well after dark. At sundown, when the trainees were exhausted but feeling confident about having made the distance, Rawls and Tipp would hunt them down, one by one, and capture them. Then the fun would begin in the interrogation hut. Until then, they might as well play ball or take a nap. Their beepers sang out at the same moment.