Jack Coughlin - Clean Kill

That jolted Ebara. The only sign to betray his sudden nervousness was a quickened bobbing of the Adam’s apple in his gaunt neck.

Juba said, “You ordered me to drop everything and come here to meet with you personally! So I had to put many attacks on hold, because the fighters will remain idle until they receive my personal authorization codes to carry out their assignments. Since I am not there to issue those orders, the attacks will not happen. So I am here in your presence, as you wished, but I hope that you understand that by choosing to emphasize the nuclear weapons, you may have stopped the revolution in its tracks. Not the royal family, not the army…you!”

Mohammed Abu Ebara would not tolerate being spoken to in such an insulting manner, but Juba leapt to his feet, flushed with fury. “I flew halfway around the globe to see about these nukes, weapons that could instigate a holocaust, only to be kept waiting in the sun while you whipped a helpless child! Your priorities are strange, preacher. The whipping was stupid, totally unneeded, a work of lust by a perverted old preacher who has probably never fucked a willing woman. We are trying to win over Muslim support in other countries and you decide to publicly humiliate and flog the most famous pop music star in the Arab world. Your actions today will cost us the support of an untold number of young people. Maybe millions.”

Ebara shot a glance back, but did nothing. His confidence was cracking under Juba’s onslaught. This man had once been the deadly tool of some of the greatest men of the age, including Osama bin Laden. There was no pity, generosity, or politeness about him. Nothing there at all but a pure killer. The banker was equally uninterested in Muslim protocol. Neither offered him a dram of respect. Ebara felt a jab of fear. “The girl is a disease and must be eradicated,” he said, feeling that he must say something in his own defense. “We must teach women to stay in their place.”

“You will release her immediately,” Dieter Nesch said quietly, grimly resting his pale blue eyes on Ebara. “That is not a suggestion, Haj Mohammed. You will appear gracious by suspending the rest of the sentence and kicking her out of the country. The damage this has done to our cause has been incredible and now your personal show of brutality will be spread all over the Internet. You will appear as a madman and a fool to the rest of the world. I cannot believe you were so stupid.”

Ebara stared back. “I could kill you both for talking to me like that.”

“No. You couldn’t,” Juba snarled. “Try. I will snap your neck right now and we will get some other stooge to finish this rebellion.”

Nesch sucked in some breath, making a tut-tut sound. “Now, I know I will sound like a banker, but can we please complete our real business? I must send a report.”

“Yeah. Let’s do that.” Juba said, putting his hands on his hips and leaning forward toward Ebara. He screamed, “WHERE ARE MY FUCKING NUCLEAR MISSILES?”

AL’S GARAGE, SAUDI ARABIA

E VEN WITH HIS DARKsunglasses and the tinted windows of the Land Rover, Kyle could barely look into the morning sun, which was still a dull orange balloon rising over the amazingly flat airfield. A dot coming out of the glare grew larger, a plane that was headed straight into the base.

“Here we go,” said Prince Colonel Mishaal bin Khalid, son of the minister of defense and a nephew of the king. He opened the door and hot air poured into the SUV to immediately overwhelm the air conditioner. His hustling, no nonsense aide, Captain Omar al-Muallami, followed his boss.

Swanson winced as he stepped into the early morning heat. It was going to be one of those searing days with a steady wind blowing sand that streaked like gritty, little bullets across the open miles of the Prince Sultan Air Base, about sixty miles south of Riyadh. Mirages were already shimmering off the tarmac. Everyone wanted to get this over with as soon as possible, before the place began to bake. The temperature was already knocking near a hundred degrees.

The huge military installation had risen from nothing during the Iraqi wars, with millions and millions of American and Saudi dollars creating something from nothing not far from the town of al-Kharj. The thousands of American troops who had been stationed there or transited through called it “Al’s Garage.” The U.S. troops were satisfied in 2003 to turn it back over to the Saudis, the camel spiders, and the carpet snakes.

Most American military personnel left, but a training cadre and several hundred private U.S. civilian contractors remained behind to help the Saudis keep things running. Kyle, wearing his old jeans, a loose blue shirt, and a tan web vest with lots of pockets, looked like one of those ubiquitous, faceless American civilians. The floppy shirt easily covered the Marine Special Ops.45 ACP pistol that rested in a holster on his belt.

The dot in the sky was bigger now, riding down on four huge engines in a smooth landing approach.

“Prepare the loading area,” Mishaal bin Khalid told his aide, and Captain al-Muallami snapped the order with authority. A company of forty armed troops fanned out in a wide cordon around a parking area at the end of a fifteen-thousand-foot-long runway. Humvees mounted with machine guns roamed beyond the soldiers. No one was around who was not supposed to be there.

Swanson stood beside the APC that contained the tactical nuclear warhead. He reached out and patted the steel armor, making sure that the heavy vehicle had not somehow disappeared. This was the first warhead to be officially transferred from Saudi to American custody.

He was the point man for the U.S. transfer team. Prince Mishaal, who might one day become a senior prince in the royal family, was his counterpart. The king had personally paired them up to maximize authority and expedite the process.

Mishaal roamed the protective cordon like a stalking panther. He was six feet tall, a weightlifter whose sculpted body was a strong 200 pounds. Whether in uniform or in white robes, he possessed the natural command presence of someone born to lead. At thirty-five years of age, the prince was a handsome man with sharply planed cheeks and a strong chin that was covered with a perfect goatee.

Right behind him was his stern aide, whose busy eyes and agile brain tried to anticipate everything. Mishaal personally examined each soldier in turn, not necessarily trusting any of them. The assassinations had thrown a net of suspicion over everyone in the military services and Captain al-Muallami had combed the dossiers to select the guards prior to the prince authorizing their presence at the site.

Nevertheless, Kyle would not be content until the security platoon of U.S. Marines aboard the incoming plane was on the ground to “assist” in the final stage of the handover. Trained and trusted guns would extract the worry from the process.

A C-130-J H ERCULES, THEmost reliable transport warhorse in the U.S. airlift stable, touched down and its big tires and the blast from the six-bladed props on the four Rolls Royce engines churned a hurricane of dust in its wake. It slowed and turned onto a taxiway, then followed a Humvee into the circle of waiting Saudi troops.

The big ramp lowered in back and the Marines poured out to form a tight inner position within the Saudi cordon. A tall, black officer strolled confidently down the ramp and walked to Prince Mishaal. He saluted and the Saudi colonel returned it.

“Colonel, I am Major David Lassiter from the Marine Expeditionary Unit, Special Operations Force, and I am ready to receive the item as stated on this manifest.” He presented a clipboard containing several sheets of authorization papers.