Jack Coughlin - Kill Zone

“What do you want in return?”

“You let me live,” the Frenchman said. “Then I am sure the American government would be generous with a reward. We will not mention what you have done here.”

Kyle nodded. “Not bad. I guess you might have some value after all, Pierre. I promise not to filet you anymore.” He took a rolled-up towel and pressed it against the bleeding ear, then suddenly reached over with his knife and cut off the small finger of the other hand. “Do you think I’m a fool?” he hissed. “I told you I’m not playing around and I am damned sure not going to let you walk me into an ambush. Tell me what else you know. Tell me everything. Right now, or I cut you some more!”

The French spy broke and started to cry. “That’s all I know! What else do you want? I won’t ambush you. I’ll tell you whatever you want! Just tell me what you need!”

Swanson stepped back, wiped off the knife, and put it away as he looked hard at the bleeding man strapped on the bed. The guy was not holding back now, and further mutilation would be counterproductive. The prisoner had reached the point where he would say whatever he could guess the interrogator wanted him to say. True or false didn’t matter, because he only wanted to stop the pain.

“Okay. I believe you.” He opened a little box from his medical kit. “I’m going to give you a shot of morphine now to take away the pain. While you sleep for another hour, I’ll patch you up, and when you come around, we’ll have something to eat and think this over.” He injected the fluid into the Frenchman’s left arm, and within a couple of heartbeats Falais’s eyes fluttered and rolled back.

When the Frenchman was unconscious, Kyle undressed, put on the Arab clothes he had stolen, and doused the light. He put on his night-vision goggles again, checked outside, and quietly loaded his pack, web gear, and rifles into the bed of the pickup truck.

Back in the house, he reduced the single burner of the little propane gas stove to low, blew out the flame, then placed a block of C-4 beside the stove, armed with a ticking detonator that would go off thirty minutes after the other house exploded, causing still another diversion.

The Frenchman would not feel a thing. Swanson had not wanted to torture him, but having done so, he would allow the man a quiet, easy death. Falais was still asleep when Kyle injected him with two more full Syrettes of morphine, and with each heartbeat, the narcotic overwhelmed his system. The man would never awaken. When the detonator ignited the C-4, the explosion would instantly set off the growing bubble of gas in the enclosed house and the place would blow up, taking the body of Pierre Falais with it. “I don’t make deals with terrorists, particularly terrorists who have killed Marines,” he whispered to the dying man.

Kyle Swanson turned off the bedside lamp, locked the door, went back over the wall, and was approaching the truck when he heard the grumble of heavy engines. He hit the ground and rolled under the Toyota just as a pair of BTR-80 armored personnel carriers of the Syrian Army roared past, their headlights flashing along the walls, seeming to search for him.

How did they get on my trail? Oh, fuck, Murphy’s Law has screwed me again.

The huge vehicles continued down the street for a few more blocks and stopped at the house of the Americans. Soldiers jumped from the vehicles and spread into a perimeter around it, facing outward like guards, not inward like attackers.

SWANSON WIGGLED FROMbeneath the truck and rolled into the flatbed, unzipped the dragbag, rested Excalibur on the rear gate, and brought the scope to his eye. Good as fuckin ‘ daylight.

He recognized the telltale four big wheels on each side of the vehicles, and the BPU-1 turret machine gun mounts. The Russians had been selling these relics all over the world for years, but the old dogs still had a lot of bite. His mind turned up the information on the weapons systems faster than a Google search: each carried a 14.5 mm KPTV heavy machine gun with five hundred rounds and a range of two kilometers, and a smaller 7.62 mm PKT machine gun with 2,000 rounds that could reach one and a half kilometers. Smoke grenade launchers were mounted on either side of the turret, and their beefy engines could shove them along at speeds of up to about 50 miles per hour. The lead vehicle bristled with the antennas that indicated a battalion commander might be leading the mission. Is a whole damned battalion on the way?

An officer climbed from the command vehicle, walked directly to the front door, and pounded hard. Lights came on, the door was thrown open, and the hulking Victor Logan stood there, wearing only a T-shirt and boxer shorts but carrying a pistol in his right hand. The Syrian was about half Logan’s size, but had an air of authority that made him immune from threat. They spoke for a few minutes, and Kyle saw Logan nod in agreement, go back into the house, and return moments later, fully dressed. He climbed aboard the lead BTR-80.

The officer waved his hand and sergeants barked orders. Logan climbed awkwardly into the front vehicle with the officer and the other soldiers hustled back aboard. A single man was left behind as a sentry and the BTRs pulled out, heading toward the crash site.

The soldier stood at attention beside the front door of the house, his AK-47 at the ready, as the carriers growled off into the darkness. Swanson held his breath as they went past the Zeus and the apparently dozing guard taped to it, but they did not slow down.

The lights in the house were turned off and the soldier by the door relaxed. He unslung the automatic rifle and rested it against the wall, then sat on a wooden crate, leaned back, and made himself comfortable, arms on knees. Through the scope, Kyle watched the man reach into a chest pocket and get a cigarette. A match flared.

As the soldier inhaled the first puff deeply, Swanson lasered the range, and when the man exhaled, Kyle shot him beneath the left arm. The bullet tore out the heart. There was only a slight twitch of the body on impact; then it toppled from the crate onto the dirt. Kyle put a second bullet through the head to be sure he could not cry out a warning.

Swanson had to move fast because those BTRs would be coming back. He returned Excalibur to its bag, climbed from the truck bed, and transferred his primary weapons to the passenger compartment. Then he slid behind the steering wheel and cranked the Toyota, which started with a reliable, deep rumble.

He did not have to disguise it, because that was the essence of this “announced attack.” By imitating the previous incident, and with the familiar sound of the Toyota in the neighborhood, people would think that he was either the Frenchman or somehow related to the arrival of the army unit. With any luck, Jimbo Collins would be trying to get back to sleep, not alert.

Kyle stopped in front of the house and, mirroring the actions of the Syrian officer, marched directly to the front door and pounded on it with his left fist as he pulled out his pistol with his right hand. Inside, the lamp snapped on again. He heard Collins curse aloud, “Oh, what the fuck do they want now?”

When the door opened, Kyle extended the big pistol and put one round right in Jimbo Collins’s chest, knocking him backward, and fired another into his surprised face. He gave the collapsing body a hard shove so that it fell away from the door and did not block the exit. He stepped fast into the room with his pistol held straight out with both hands to scan for targets. There were none, and he closed the door.

There were two more doors in the rear and he chose the one on the left, stood with his back to the wall, and pushed it open with his left hand, the pistol pointing inward. No reaction, but there was a horrible stench, and enough light for him to see the defiled body of a young girl tied to a bed. Sick bastards! He did not have to feel for a pulse.