Стивен Хантер - Game of Snipers

“No, but it’s the climate,” said Gold. “Syria is desert, as is Israel. Much less humidity, much more wind, odd temperature patterns. Maybe shooting at that range elsewhere in Syria wouldn’t teach him what he needs to know because he’s not operating in Syria. He has to travel to wherever that is, or to its duplicate.”

“It’s a damned shame we don’t know where he’s gone,” said Swagger.

“But of course we know,” said Cohen. “We’re Mossad. That’s what we do.”

On the run

He would be all right. The preparations were in place, the contacts set, the logistics arranged, the codes known, the schedule activated. It would all happen as planned, nothing could stop it.

False leads, clues within clues, switchbacks, deviations, deceptions, booby traps, the full genius for Ottoman deception and betrayal woven into one grand plan certain to do horrendous damage. Cities would topple, fire would engulf infidels, the mighty would fall, death would be general. It couldn’t fail.

But it depended on a cold bore shot only one of the best in the world could make from a distance until a few years ago thought unreachable. Maybe Harrison of Afghanistan could make it, maybe not.

But even that was not enough, for Harrison was safely within his own lines and had no difficulty slithering through enemy territory. He could have had a nice cup of tea before he shot and then gone back to bed behind the barbed wire and sandbags. Juba, on the other hand, would be the most hunted man in the world afterward, and it was mandatory that he escape, leaving only hints that pointed to another man.

But … what did the Jews know?

How had they found him?

Had they intercepted a message?

Was there a leak?

Was he in jeopardy?

All of that was premised on the idea of Israeli intelligence having tentacles as yet unseen. It would represent a penetration so subtle and devious, it would be among the world’s best. Yet if that were the case, would they have hit him with three helicopters full of commandos, in and out in seven or so minutes? The best thing to do would have been an American smart munition takeout of the whole site. Even if subtlety was desired, a larger engagement force — at least a company of 13’s best, maybe more; a gunship recon by fire; boots on the ground in the dozens; night vision everywhere; drones scouring the area — a real show. But, no, this was limited, fast, lethal.

The other possibility: it was a raid motivated by simple vengeance. After the school bus, he was the first name on their kill list. Anywhere in the world they located him, they would strike quickly. It had nothing to do with intelligence; it was raw vengeance. And they would never stop hunting him, would never let him escape. At any moment, an Israeli commando could knock in the door and finish him.

He favored that second possibility. It was the simplest, as the operation itself was so secret, only a few in the world knew of its far-reaching possibilities, much less its target, much less its location.

That meant he had great advantages still. He could be headed anywhere. Without a destination, they were helpless. A worldwide alert for a shadowy figure called Juba the Sniper would do them no good at all and would be ignored in the West, where security services were too busy wiretapping mosques to find the odd angry imam trying to cajole losers into shooting up homosexual bars.

Meanwhile, having made his first contact, he had picked up a package of superb credentials and identification that would get him across any border in the world. He knew his cover story forwards and backwards. He would become three totally different people on his journey, each unconnected to the other two. The whole thing, with so much money behind it, was first-class.

He was in a cheap hotel in Istanbul, smoking cigarettes, awaiting a flight to his next destination. Tonight’s whore had been good, a lively Turkish girl with dark eyes and pretty hands who gave generously of her skills. Later, there would be no time, and security would be too intense, for such a risk. So for now, it was the flesh, the tobacco, the prayers, and the slow but steady passage to the destination.

He tried now to understand what the Israelis could have learned from the farmhouse. The blaze of light — searing and brilliant — told him that Adid had lit the powder and that everything in the shop was obliterated. But assume nothing. What if a Jew got in there and at least got a look?

So, did they see? And if they saw, did they understand? It might have meant nothing to a Zionist commando — the boxes of American bullets, the jars of powders, the reloading manuals, the targets. Still, assume nothing. He saw it. He reported it. The rabbis studied his reports and interpreted them correctly. But there was nothing in the house that carried an indicator of the mission. None of the guards knew the scope of the mission. They would know only that there was a mission. But, then, there was always a mission, so what did that tell them?

He had but one worry: had Adid destroyed the laptop along with himself? He remembered it was on the desk in his quarters. He had told Adid over and over of its importance. Certainly, even in the gravity of the situation, the arrival of raiders, Adid would have remembered the core of his mission and taken the laptop with him as he fell back into the shop and its powder cache. No piece of electronic equipment could stand up to that sort of conflagration. It would have been liquidized under the affront of the flames.

I am safe, he decided.

If they didn’t have the laptop, they knew nothing.

The black cube

What laptop?” said Swagger.

“He’s being coy,” said Cohen. “It’ll play so well when Spielberg films it.”

“What laptop?” said Swagger.

“Sergeant Swagger,” said the Director, speaking to him directly for the first time, “you graciously visited Hell on our behalf and did not come out empty-handed. If we had the time, I’d give you a medal. But as you’re about to learn, we don’t have the time.”

The Director lifted his briefcase from the floor, opened it, and took out a plastic bag holding a curled and blackened laptop computer. Someone had put a burst through its screen, turning it into a spiral nebulae of fractures surrounding large holes that showed clean through. The keyboard had modulated into a wave, and most of its keys were shapeless nubs.

“Do you remember?” asked Cohen. “Gas and flame, your arm on fire, your Uzi too hot to hold. Somehow you reached out and snagged it, and, in another second, another jug of powder went, and then all of them. Somehow — God favors the insane perhaps?—you grabbed ahold, staggered out, and collapsed.”

“Wish I’d done that,” said Bob. “It seems pretty cool. Also, by the way, I tripped over a gun case with the initials A.W. on it, the third letter gone to fire.”

“It’s all coming back?”

“The only thing that comes back is that fire is hot, and you don’t want to die that way.”

“An excellent lesson,” said Cohen.

“Cohen might know a bit about this one subject,” said Gold. “He was shot down four times.”

Cohen held up his left hand. It was plastic.

“Okay,” said Bob. “I’m impressed.”

“He shot down fifteen of theirs. Net gain for our side: eleven aircraft.”

“Triple ace,” said Swagger. “Again, I’m impressed.”

“Odd that he turned out so annoying,” said Gold.

Bob nodded. “Anyway, that thing looks pretty well shot to hell to me.”

“Forensic computer science is quite advanced,” said Gold, “and we have people who are practiced at it.”