Jack Coughlin - Clean Kill

“Hmmm. Strange. I’ll talk to him. Now what about the Saudi nuclear weapons? We have four of the five, right?”

Geneen was jolted by the brushoff. He was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency and recognized that he was being kept out of the loop. Then his eyes widened behind his round glasses and a little smile creased his lips. Ebara! They nailed Ebara! Sometimes it is best to be kept in the dark, particularly if he was ever called before Congress to explain certain things.

“Yes, sir. We have retrieved four of them, sir. One more to go.”

“I let King Abdullah off the hook on the secret that we had put the one in Khobz in safekeeping. I did not give any details, which he did not really like, but rather than protesting, he kept his eye on the big picture and was relieved that it was not in terrorist hands. Abdullah was a terrific diplomat and I think I’m going to enjoy working with him as a head of state.”

The president looked at the digital clock on his desk. “Generals Turner and Middleton will be here in a little while so we can talk about China. Meanwhile, Bart, I’m going to make an important executive decision without informing Congress. Screw this tuna salad: I’m ordering us a couple of Philly cheese-steak sandwiches and a pile of greasy french fries. The prospect of nuclear war makes me hungry.”

THE PENTAGON

“Lieutenant Commander Freedman, you are a malcontent, a troublemaker, an irritating nerd, and an asshole. The entire intelligence community has its panties in a wad because of you.” General Bradley Middleton had to brief the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lizard was not making things simple.

“Yes, sir. Sorry. I’m right and they are wrong, sir.” The Lizard knew Middleton was only forcing him to prove his idea, one last time.

“You got some pieces of paper, some pictures, some satellite intel, some fortune cookies, ANYTHING I can take before the Chiefs?”

“No, sir, I cannot prove a negative, that something is not going to happen. Think in terms of the Sherlock Holmes story about the dog that didn’t bark.”

“Can’t do that, Lizard. The Chiefs may want a little more than Holmesian deduction. Look. All the hard intel points toward an imminent invasion of Taiwan. On that we have pictures, sat data, the works.”

Freedman was determined not to wilt under the pressure. “Yes, sir. All of it, sir. It is much too accurate and easy to come by. So it is false.”

Middleton glared at him. “They cannot move all that stuff into place in secret. It’s right there in front of you, Liz. Plain as day and NSA traffic is showing orders are being given to start moving in a few hours.”

Freedman’s eyes drifted for help to the large bulk of Master Gunnery Sergeant O.O. Dawkins, who was leaning back in his chair, hands behind his head, watching the exchange. “The game, Liz,” Double-Oh gently coaxed. “Show him your game.”

“Game?” asked the general.

“Yes, sir. I have been running some private war game scenarios. Not the usual Red Team versus Blue Team stuff, but trying to figure out how the Chinese can beat the distance problem in getting to Saudi Arabia.”

“Now tell him how you win, Liz.”

“Right. Yes. I win…I won …by eliminating the distance as the determining factor. Squeezed the map tighter.”

Middleton rolled his eyes. “Speak English, for Christ’s sake.”

“What the lieutenant commander is trying to say, sir, is that this invasion of Taiwan has everything out there for public viewing except long-range bombers and airborne troops. Those would be absolutely needed to carry out such an operation, and are nowhere to be found. Liz believes that about the time the loaded ships are ready to leave the China coast, a whole shitpot load of big airplanes is going to head up toward Saudi Arabia from bases in the Sudan, Yemen, Ethiopia, and Somalia.”

“Is that it, Lieutenant Commander Freeman? Is that how you squeezed the map?”

“Yes, sir. That’s it. I cheated.”

The general clapped him on the shoulder and went out the door, into the wide, polished halls of the Pentagon to find General Hank Turner, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

AL-TAIF, SAUDI ARABIA

K YLE S WANSON CROSSED HISlegs and puffed out his cheeks in a sigh of exasperation, and the invisible clock that had been quietly bugging him for the past few days was now clanging in his head. He tied the boot laces. Let’s go , he thought, throwing a questioning look at Prince Colonel Mishaal bin Khalid.

Mishaal was at the front of a spacious briefing room at the huge base, where officials of both the Saudi and U.S. military forces were conducting a real-time teleconference with counterparts in Riyadh and Washington. Swanson, as only a gunnery sergeant, was not even at the big table with the senior officers. Kyle would not have been there at all if he had a choice, but the king had ordered Mishaal to lead the meeting, and since the prince was not going to let Swanson out of his sight again, he almost dragged him into the room.

He was in a straight-back chair against the wall, watchful and anxious, taking everything in. Bored. All of this talk had nothing to do with his assignment. He wanted to get up to Riyadh with the prince and lay his hands on that final nuke. Every minute spent sitting in a conference room was another minute wasted, with the mission still unresolved. They were so close, just a few hours. Let’s do it!

Nevertheless, he had to admit that the sudden burst of intel about a possible invasion by Chinese troops merited this sort of attention by those in charge. The emergencies were not over, and in fact, were escalating. Although the rebellion was calming and the collection of the nuclear weapons was all but done, Beijing had decided to come and play in the sandbox.

The decisions to be made concerning that situation had nothing to do with him. It was high above his pay grade, which was why everyone else in the room was so tense: it was above their pay grades, too.

No one had considered the possibility that another country would try to seize the oil fields outright. The Saudis had warned the Americans not to try it, at the risk of an armed confrontation. If China came in, the Saudis would surely resist. Then the U.S. would be certain to offer help to Riyadh from the nearby U.S. fleet and aircraft. Would Beijing force the issue? Would Washington take that step? And what about this possible invasion of Taiwan? A sense of paralysis was taking hold because the series of emergencies had taken still another turn for the worse.

Kyle had read the brief, heard the experts, and knew the overall situation. The only thing he could contribute was lassoing that final nuke. Nothing he could do about China. Either the shooting would start or it wouldn’t. As the voices droned on, Kyle caught the prince’s eye and motioned that he would be outside. Five minutes. The big boys did not need him in the room. After all, he was only an enlisted man.

S WANSON FOUND J AMAL LEANINGagainst their Mercedes, smoking a cigarette and drinking a soda, killing time. Kyle didn’t smoke, but the cold drink looked good. “You got change for the Coke machine?” he asked.

“Nope. The machine takes a U.S. dollar.”

Kyle breathed some night air to flush out the smell of the stuffy conference room. He could see a sprinkling of stars above the bright lights of the air base. The glowing red box with the familiar logo was tucked into an alcove just inside the rear door of the building to help keep it cool from the desert heat. When he pulled a dollar bill from his tattered wallet, a small white business card came out with it and fluttered to the floor, landing face-up beside his feet. He glanced down: Chinese lettering.