Jack Coughlin - Kill Zone

A helo carted him from the Blue Ridge to the battle group carrier in time for the last COD run of the day to Aviano. He boarded the awkward plane carrying a large briefcase that contained the mystery letter amid the other papers, and wore the grim look of a dejected officer going to a balls-cutting session. Rumor spread that he was being called back to CENTCOM to explain the fuckup in the desert. At Aviano, the sleek C-20 had been waiting with its engines buzzing quietly and the beautiful staff sergeant at the bottom of the small, carpeted staircase.

“What time is it?” he asked. He had crossed several time zones since leaving the boat.

She turned and looked at three small clocks in gleaming brass holders on the rear bulkhead. One gave Greenwich Mean Time, one read Washington time, and one was set to the aircraft’s current zone. “Right now, in our itty-bitty piece of sky, it is exactly twenty-two hundred hours and, uh, forty-three minutes and, uh, fifty-eight seconds. We are right in the Greenwich zone.”

He had not realized the clocks were right behind him. Almost 2300 GMT, an hour before midnight. Subtracting five hours meant it was 1800 at both CENTCOM in Tampa and the Pentagon in Washington. No matter how fast the little bird flew, it was unlikely that there would be any meeting with General Turner today.

“Tell you what, Sergeant. I’m a bit wound up, but maybe if you bring me a Jack Daniel’s Black, ice, no water, it will help. After I work on these papers a little longer, I’ll try to get some shuteye.”

She smiled again. White, white teeth. “Yes, sir. One Black Jack coming up. How about I make that a double, and then tuck you in beddy-bye? You could get shitfaced, knee-walking drunk tonight and still be sober enough to finish your papers by the time we get to Tampa.”

The telephone beside him buzzed. “Your language needs work, Staff Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir! That’s what they tell me.” The girl laughed and padded away to the forward galley. She had long ago become a member of the Mile High Club, and this colonel was sort of cute, in a dumb brute kind of way, kind of like a big German shepherd that needed to be cuddled. Possibilities loomed.

The colonel answered his encrypted STU-III satellite telephone. “Sims.”

“Double-Oh here, sir. Your pilot is going to be getting the course-change message from Tampa to Andrews in about an hour, but there’s a problem.”

Sims gripped the telephone tightly. “What?”

“General Turner has left the Pentagon. He won’t be there when you get to Washington.”

“Damn, Double-Oh. Where is he?”

“The general is on his way to China, sir, some kind of emergency defense committee meeting about the new round of North Korean missile tests.”

“Oh, fuck me,” said Sims, closing his eyes.

“Not to worry, Colonel. I got the Network on it. His plane lands at Elmendorf in Alaska to refuel before jumping the Pacific by the polar route. A mechanical problem will keep him on the ground until you get there.”

“He will just take another plane.”

“Yessir, that’s probably exactly what he will try to do. Then that one will also have a malfunction. Airplanes are tricky things, particularly up there in all that extremely cold weather. You just keep going, Colonel. We will have another C-20 waiting at Andrews. Keep closing the gap, sir. He’s got to stop. You don’t.”

“But he’s got a half-a-world head start!” Sims replied. “Okay. Do your thing. Keep me posted.” He turned off the phone, tossed it onto the seat beside the briefcase, and shook his head. “China. Oh, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me,” he whispered.

“Ooooh, high-altitude sex. I think that can be arranged, Colonel Sims,” the soft voice with a West Virginia twang purred. The staff sergeant was kneeling at his side with a glass of whiskey and two buttons undone on her blouse. “Drink up while I lock the door, turn on some music, and dim the lights. By the way, my name isn’t Staff Sergeant, it’s Mandi.”

DARKNESS CAME SLOWLY, Agauzy haze of dust-laden, fading light streaks. Even when the final fiery edge of the sun disappeared, the temperatures stayed stuck in the nineties. Within a few hours, Swanson would be freezing his butt off. It would not really be cold by the thermometer, but a thirty-degree drop after sweltering in 110-plus heat would bring a good dose of the chills. When the sun took away its warmth, the sweat that had oozed from him all day and drenched his clothes would feel like ice when the nightly winds blew. The mission was to have been a quick in-and-out, so he had only the clothes on his back. Fuck it. Nothing he could do, and that missing sun was his clock.

It had to shift away and benignly bathe places like the south of France and Miami Beach and Waikiki and Bondi Beach before returning to Syria, but it would not really be gone very long. The sniper had to be out of the hide, do his job, and be long gone before that orange beast once again started to eat this chunk of sky.

He had finished the logbook, done the surveillance, eaten some more crackers and water, and pissed into a hole in the dirt beneath him. A Syrian army contingent had shown up at the helo crash site, done some cursory investigation, loaded up the bodies, and taken them away. Swanson felt pangs of guilt while he watched. What were they going to do with the bodies? Give them back? Deep in his gut, he had a sense of failure and was angry with himself. The saying that Marines don’t leave their own casualties behind was not just a catch-phrase. Dead or alive, everybody comes home.

Then reason took over. He did not have the resources to change this situation, and if he survived, he could report what had happened. And importantly, there was still one Marine who was alive and needed his attention, so all Swanson could do was bid a silent goodbye to the dead rescue team of Marines and hope the pinheads in Washington fought to bring them back.

The wrecked helicopters, stripped of all value, were left where they fell, just more bones in the desert, a macabre tourist attraction for snooping American satellites to photograph from space. Two new soldiers were dropped off to replace the guard post sentries Swanson had killed, and the army convoy left.

Swanson waited without anxiety as life began to slow down with the approach of action. His focus would narrow and he would see things differently, at a slower speed, more of a black-and-white film in a neighborhood theater than as a jerky, quick-cut television story. The metamorphosis would continue, like he was changing into someone new, and the sounds would amplify, the smells would become more intense, his eyesight would sharpen, and his reactions would quicken. Each breath would be slow. He had been an observer all day. Now he was becoming a sniper.

The village activity settled into an easier pace for the evening prayers and meal. Stores closed and the streets emptied. One by one the lights blinked out in the little windows because after a hard day of toil, working people wanted their rest. Some would make love, some would smoke a cigarette, some would dream of better times, and some were going to die by Kyle Swanson’s hand. That was a fact.

He used the final hour to finish settling into his zone, almost physically filing things away in mental drawers and cabinets and closing them tight. Shari was in a special compartment, with a tight lock on it. Whoever started all this mess back in Washington was in another. His family, friends, even the Marine Corps were banished from his thoughts, and as time slowed down, Swanson felt that familiar presence of another Kyle Swanson, someone outside himself who would help him through the night, guiding and watching and planning and whispering in his head. Kyle knew a psychiatrist would love to get hold of him someday, at first for a long talk, and then maybe to saw open his skull, shake out his brain, and try to find what made it work. Swanson was curious about that, too, but did not question that other voice in his head. It was part of his natural progression into his lone gunman battle mode, and he trusted it. The voice had been a big help in other tight places, when he was kicking in doors and crawling through swamps. A bit of paranoia was a good thing when you were really in danger. It was not fright, just instinct, a sixth sense sharpened over the years, a total awareness of his environment that almost let him know what was around a corner.