Jack Coughlin - Clean Kill

Sybelle was rummaging through the equipment on the two dead terrorists, tearing off the H &K MP5 submachine guns and pulling spare magazines from the chest pouches. She gave one of the weapons to Kyle as he ran past and followed him back into the stairwell.

The intruder was disoriented. The firefight had forced him to land on the roof of the third floor of the clinic and his target was on the top floor. Under the smoke cloud, he kicked his way through the door of the adjacent building and found himself on the floor of a wide landing that led to the ascending staircase. With the MP5 tight against his shoulder, he moved slowly up the steps.

S WANSON HALTED BEFORE GOINGbeyond the landing on the fifth floor and whispered to Sybelle, “Don’t use the MP5s yet. We have to draw him out, so stay with the pistols. Make him think that’s all we have.” He cracked two rounds from his Colt.45 down the stairwell, the sound amplified by the enclosed, area, and the bullets gouged out chunks of the wall and whined away in wild ricochets.

The attacker below paused on his step, but did not see anyone, which meant the defenders had no clear line of sight and the firing was meant only to slow him down. A pistol, not an automatic. Move. He ascended two more steps and stopped at the middle landing, where the stairs zig-zagged higher. A blue door with a white number 4 painted on it was to his right. He leaned out and fired a short burst through the door to clear it, then another burst upward in retaliation for the few shots that had come down. Keep their heads down.

Kyle shifted back into the main corridor on the fifth floor and tucked into the slight recess of the elevator entrance, which provided partial concealment and a minimum of cover along the length of his body. On his call, Sybelle dashed out, closing the door behind her and then rolled over the flat counter of the vacant nurses’ station.

At the east end of the building, the doorway to Jeff’s room looked like a porcupine, with the legs of chairs and small tables pointing outward in a jumble of furniture that had been stacked to block entry. Kyle saw a few heads of people watching, and waved for them to get their heads down and take cover.

Almost as he signaled, the door to the fifth floor hallway was blown inward by a small amount of C-4 that the terrorist had applied to the hinges. A terrific roar jarred the entire floor and debris needled straight out into the hallway opposite the destroyed door. The man was moving fast, knowing he had to complete his mission before assistance could arrive for the opposition.

Kyle had counted on that. He turned away from the blast, then spun back and triggered the Colt twice at the empty portal. The metal door was gone. Sybelle added two more rounds into the whirling smoke.

“I’m dry,” Kyle called in a panicky voice, dropping the.45 and bringing up the H &K submachine gun.

“I have a few rounds left,” Sybelle responded, making her voice also sound shaky. She also laid aside her pistol, charged the MP5 and rested it on the countertop.

The terrorist on the landing was listening and deciding his next move. He had counted two opponents on the roof, but they were armed only with pistols and almost out of ammunition. If he kept the pressure on with a spray-and-pray assault he could overwhelm them, and then deal with the Saudi prince he had been sent to kill. He pulled a grenade from his belt and removed the pin.

The cylindrical device came bouncing out of the doorway and Kyle yelled, “Flash-bang!” He stepped away from his hiding place and gave the explosive device a perfect kick that sent it spinning down the west end of the hall. Then he dove face-first back into the elevator alcove and Sybelle ducked her head and covered her eyes.

Designed to stun opponents long enough for a soldier or a policeman to breach into a room, the little grenade erupted with a blinding blaze that bathed the corridor with light that seemed brighter than the sun as a simultaneous cracking peal of thunder made the walls vibrate.

The intruder stormed through the door, trigger held back, firing on automatic. His eyes were protected by goggles, but his overall vision was obscured by the curling smoke. He let the MP5 chatter constantly as he ranged it from side to side and managed to take three running strides before Kyle and Sybelle both opened up and caught him in a crossfire at point-blank range. The bullets chewed at him mercilessly, jerking the body upright, and then pounding him backward and finally down.

When the shooting stopped, Kyle stepped over to the fallen terrorist. There was something strange about the face. He was not a man from the Middle East. White skin, no beard, and light brown hair. The terrorist appeared more Slavic, like someone from one of the Eastern European nations, and had performed as if he had been steeped in professional training. No matter. Swanson pressed the muzzle of the H &K to the man’s temple, and squeezed off a final shot. The head cracked like a melon.

“Clear!” Swanson called.

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA

“T HE B RITISH!” P RINCE G ENERALMamoud Ali al-Fahd, the commander of the Saudi Royal Guard Regiment, had been raging since the first reports of the terrorist attack on the castle in Scotland. “They refused to believe that something like this could happen! They pledged their honor!”

The general’s job was to protect the king, which he did with a beefed-up elite force of three light infantry battalions and an armored battalion. Putting a similar shield around Prince Abdullah should have been someone else’s problem, and was impossible to accomplish from Riyadh, because the prince was the Saudi ambassador to the United States and spent most of his time in Washington. But His Majesty had declared that Abdullah was too important to be left with just ordinary diplomatic protection and al-Fahd had been personally instructed that in addition to his regular duties, the general also would coordinate the prince’s security and see that no harm befell him. Geography alone forced al-Fahd to delegate others to carry out that royal edict, and that weakness had been its defeat. The general could not be everywhere at once and if the others failed, it would still be Prince General Mamoud al-Fahd who would be blamed.

Vice Sergeant Mas’ud Mohammed al-Kazaz, the soldier who had been his valet for seven years, quietly placed a polished silver tray with hot tea and small cakes on a table beside his general. “Please have something to eat, sir. You must keep up your strength, for the good of the kingdom,” the valet said.

“I am not hungry.” The general waved at the tray. “Take it away.”

“Not until you eat, sir.” The valet stubbornly left the tray. He was one of the few men who could talk back to the general, although he did so with a polite and reverent tone. “Please sit down so I can pull off your boots.”

Al-Fahd propped one boot on the sergeant’s broad behind and raised the other leg between the knees of his aide. The vice-sergeant grasped the heel and gave it a hearty pull. He flipped it to the side, the general changed feet, and the second boot was pulled off. The general gave into the moment and had a drink of tea and bit into a sweet cake. Delicious. Another bite and another sip before the anger returned.

Al-Fahd got back up and paced the private suite of rooms that comprised the living space at his private headquarters. He had just returned from another tour of his forces in the field, heightening their alert status due to the incident in Scotland and the rash of confidential reports about civil unrest that were coming in from around the country. The general felt that the narrow line of light that held back the darkness of chaos was cracking, and smacked a fist into a palm in frustration.