Jack Coughlin - Clean Kill

Juba only smiled, the insults rolling harmlessly off of him. There was a playful glint in his eye. “Ebara, you have to be smart, not crazy, to overthrow a government. Nuclear weapons were never part of my plan, which was going fine until you reached too far above your head and meddled in things about which you know nothing. Still, we might as well play out the game. The fact is that I am here, and once I take possession of that missile, perhaps I can still rescue you from yourself. You may win this thing despite all of your bungling.”

“I am done with you,” Ebara declared, his voice rising. “Go now, while you still have your impertinent tongue.” The cleric stalked from the room, satisfied with having placed Juba and Nesch in their proper, subservient roles. He had other, more important business waiting for him in the square.

It was noon. The crowd for the triple execution was huge. Four television cameras were present.

A S M OHAMMED A BU E BARAemerged into the sunlight and strode halfway down a small flight of stone steps to where three bound men were on their knees, a traffic problem was taking place on an overpass some distance away. A dirty van had chugged to the side of the road, steam rising from the engine, and the driver was out of the vehicle with his head beneath the hood.

Jamal muttered into a small radio transmitter, “Right on time. He’s coming out.”

The side door of the cargo van slid open about six inches. Kyle Swanson was squeezed into a tight sitting position, with Excalibur solid on a sandbag atop the crate beside the door. “Okay. I see him. Target acquired.”

Swanson’s instincts took over as he let the numbers scroll through the scope’s powerful computer. The target was painted at 1,420 meters, almost a mile away. A light breeze was projected to be blowing right to left across the flight path at four-point-one miles per hour, so the bullet would move slightly to the left. The downward trajectory required an adjustment to compensate for the drop, for a bullet would otherwise tend to hit high. He agreed with Excalibur’s computation and fine-tuned the scope four and a half minutes right, down two clicks in elevation. An azure stripe blinked down an edge of the scope to confirm all settings were accurate.

Ebara came to a standstill on the steps. He had memorized the words he would say to the large crowd and the condemned men, intending to send an ultimate warning that would instill fear into every corner of Saudi Arabia. He spread his arms wide to silence the bloodthirsty mob. The time had come for him to cast off any doubt and publicly emerge as leader of the glorious revolution.

K YLE SQUEEZED THE TRIGGER,slow and steady, and the big weapon barked one time, loudly, but the sound was mostly obscured by passing traffic. At the sound of the shot, Jamal let the small hood of the van slam back into place and climbed into the driver’s seat without any sign of haste that might draw attention. The engine had been running the entire time.

As soon as he was done with the rhythm of the shot, Swanson reached forward and closed the sliding door. There was no time to watch what happened next, for he no longer was in control. Either the bullet did its job or it didn’t. For the sniper, it was time to disengage and disappear. Jamal put the automatic transmission into gear, checked his mirrors, and the vehicle was disappearing into passing traffic as chaos erupted in the park.

T HE BIG. 50 CALIBERround split the air with a ripping hiss and punched a hole the size of a quarter just above the right nipple of Mohammed Abu Ebara. It spread catastrophic internal destruction around it before blowing out a hole as big as a fist from his back and ricocheting off a stone step. The cleric jerked like a puppet, and his knees buckled, toppling him face-first down the few remaining stairs. His body, with blood spurting from the wound, bounced to rest in front of the men he had picked for execution.

Dieter Nesch, standing off to one side, flinched when he heard the distinct gunshot. He watched Ebara collapse, then the crowd broke and was running wild in every direction, with people falling and being trampled. “The Americans are here,” he told his partner.

Juba had not moved a muscle. His combat sense clicked into play and he instantly reversed the path of the bullet, concluding that it had come from a vehicle along the elevated highway about a mile away. It was an amazing shot, something that could be done only by a very experienced sniper. He agreed with Nesch. “Yes,” he replied. As if he had been expecting this all along.

As they hurried to their car, heaving people out of the way, Nesch was puzzled. Juba suddenly seemed happy.

JEDDAH

D IETER N ESCH SPED HISblack Mercedes sedan away from the plaza and dropped back to a safe and legal speed only when they reached the highway. Back at the square, the stunned crowd degenerated into a mob and broke into spontaneous demonstration for the new martyr, Mohammed Abu Ebara. The cleric’s bloody corpse was picked up and passed above the frenzied crowd on a moving bed of open palms of men who wiped his blood on their faces and clothing.

“The Jews did this! Kill the Zionists!”

“Death to the king!”

“Death to the Shi’ites!”

“Death to the Americans!”

The spectators had come to the square to see death and had found much more than they had anticipated. More men were flooding into the plaza by the minute, drawn by the allure of blood and violence. After passing the body around for a while, the frenzied mob fell upon the three condemned men and hacked them to pieces.

“Death to the enemies of Allah!”

The central square of downtown Jeddah was gripped by unreasoning madness as thousands of people rioted. A traffic cop was snatched and thrown into the mob, looters broke into stores and shops, children were crushed underfoot, and in dark places, women were raped.

“Ebara! Ebara! Ebara!”

N ESCH AND J UBA MADEthe drive back to the villa in silence, each lost in his own thoughts. The German banker was mentally sifting a cascade of financial figures, adding up the potential damage and trying to forecast the next move in this deadly game in terms of risk-reward, profit, and loss.

Juba pushed the soft seat all the way back, crossed his legs and began to softly recite a nursery rhyme to himself. He had learned it while growing up as a child in Great Britain. Most people believed it was about an egg, but Juba had always been more drawn to the first verse, and the part about the master sniper with only one eye had become particularly appealing to him.

In Sixteen Hundred and Forty-Eight

When England suffered the pains of state

The Roundheads lay siege to Colchester town

Where the King’s men still fought for the crown

There One-Eyed Thompson stood on the wall

A gunner of deadliest aim of all

From St. Mary’s Tower his cannon he fired

Humpty Dumpty was its name

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall…

N ESCH DROVE THE M ERCEDESinto an enclosed garage and they walked into the main room of a villa. The whisky bottle, Johnnie Walker Black Label, came out and they each had a stiff jolt.