Charles Henderson - Terminal Impact

Liberty smiled. “Thanks. And thanks for not asking to know more about our operation.”

“Some kind of administrative assessment?” Gray smiled.

“That’s the story, an admin audit.” Liberty shrugged.

“Works for me,” Gray said. “These jamokes will buy it without a blink. Guys like your friend Alosi might be a different story. He’s a little too crafty for his own good, and he’s hooked up with all sorts of people I don’t like. His boss, Victor Malone, and a couple of French dudes that get around just a little too easy in a country that’s supposed to be in the midst of a bloody war.”

“What do you mean, my friend?” Liberty asked, suspicious of how Chris Gray had phrased it.

“Your picture sits on Cesare’s desk, all framed and looking like you’re more than mere acquaintances,” the CIA operator answered.

“I thought you said you had never met Alosi,” Liberty fired back, a little hot. She had started liking Chris, and this misstep in what he knew and didn’t know put her off.

“I’ve never met the guy,” Gray answered. “I never said I haven’t been in his office. Like I said, he’s a snake. And I apologize if he’s your friend, but that doesn’t change his status as a reptile.”

“Oh, I’m no friend!” Liberty huffed. “I met him at a party at the Washingtonian Hotel in DC a while back. He seemed nice at first glance. Then I got to know him. He is definitely a snake.”

“So, I guess Alosi has a few toys in the attic when it comes to women and relationships?” Gray commented.

“I’d say he has a lot of toys in the attic, and in a lot of other departments, too,” Liberty said.

“I guess we’ll keep this conversation just among us girls then,” Gray said, looking around at the crew.

“Good idea.” Bob Hartley nodded.

“Do a lot of contractors frequent this club?” Liberty said, sizing up the crowd.

“Naw,” Gray said. “This bunch here is mostly State Department housekeeping guys. A couple in here work in the security office. Once in a while, a security contractor or two, like Hacksaw and his team, they’ll come here for the cooking and good beer. For the most part, the hard-core mercenary types head up the International Zone to a little hideout called the Baghdad Country Club. Sex, imported hard liquor, Iraqi moonshine, if that’s your bag, and every kind of nose candy and steroid you want. British guy that runs it, former SAS officer, seems a good sort, but a lot of stuff that gets exchanged in the surrounding gardens, I won’t hang on him. It’s the sorry clientele.”

“We’d like to go to this Baghdad Country Club,” Liberty told Gray.

Chris eyeballed Casey Runyan, then Clifford Towler, and finished with Bob Hartley. They all gave him a nod.

“It’s not a place for a pretty girl like you to come through the door playing Mae West,” Gray cautioned Liberty. “Gunplay is not unusual, and those animals lying in that den have teeth. They kill people for breakfast. You go in there; you’d better be well-heeled. And I don’t mean the spiky ones on your feet that go with your evening gown.”

“Can you set it up?” Liberty asked, impatient.

“Sure,” Gray answered, still not liking it.

“Chris,” Liberty said, firmness in her voice. “I’m a third-degree black belt, and an expert with a rifle and a pistol. I finished first in sniper school and SERE school both. I can handle myself.”

“Oh, I know all about you,” Chris said. “These guys are all experts at that shit, too. That’s why they got hired to come over here and kill people. After a while, the killing becomes second nature. Like blinking your eyes. Way too many of these guys get jazzed on heavy steroids and stay high on meth and cocaine. Hell, they go drink vodka just to calm down. I don’t care if you’re Batman and Robin, you go in that cage with these animals, you could easily end up dead for just farting too loud. Or not loud enough.”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Bob Hartley said.

Jack Valentine checked his watch. Two thirty in the morning.

After the big blowup, the eight Marines had pushed hard and fast to the east, disappearing in the desert. Then they double-timed it north several miles. Far enough to feel confident that sleepers in the farms along the Euphrates River had not heard the explosions nor seen the fire.

The eight Marines spread out into their planned intervals of two-man teams and began moving westward, back toward the river and the rural population that lived along its banks.

Bronco and Jaws had taken position on the south end of the line with Cochise and Jack just up two hundred yards from them. Alex loved the Barrett SASR, so he had it out instead of his Vigilance .338 Lapua Magnum to support Jesse with the .338 magnum caliber M40A3 bolt-action sniper rifle.

“Before you go to shooting that big motherfucker, you make sure I got behind you, bro,” Bronco Starr griped at his buddy. “That last shot you took, when you blew those motherfuckers up, dusted my ass. I got so much shit up my snot locker, I’ll be digging out adobe bricks for a week.”

“You talk too much, Hombre,” Jaws said, and lay behind his rifle’s scope. As he looked through it, he thought he picked up movement by a farmhouse in the bottomland by the river. “I think I saw something.”

“Let me set up the night scope and take a look,” Cortez said, hurrying to assemble the spotting scope with night-vision optics. “And before you shoot any motherfuckers, I want the video camera rolling. So keep your finger out of that trigger guard until I get set.”

“Hurry the fuck up,” Jaws said. “We got somebody in the kitchen. I saw a light go on and off.”

Jack saw the light go on and off, and put his rifle on the farmhouse, too.

“No shooting until I give you a cleared to fire,” Jack said, watching the man slip out the back door of his house. “He could be just some farmer with a case of the midnight shits. We need to see weapons. And if we could capture the bastard, that would be best.”

“Whatever,” Jaws grumbled.

Bronco had the digital video recorder set on the spotting-scope lens, and watched through a monitor while he lay back into his A3 sniper rifle.

As he watched the green shadows on the monitor, Jesse wrinkled his nose. “What’s that guy doing? Is that a donkey?”

“Burro,” Jaws said.

“They got burros in Mexico, dude,” Cortez came back. “Fucking Iraq has donkeys and asses, asshole.”

“Same motherfucking thing, you shitwad,” Jaws snapped.

“Okay,” Bronco said. “But what’s he doing with it? You think he might be fixing to load it up with explosives and go plant a bomb?”

“Very possible,” Jack answered on the intercom.

“Maybe I need to go ahead and shoot him,” Jaws added.

“He’s sure as shit tying that donkey to the fence rail, like he’s going to put a pack saddle on it,” Cochise Quinlan chimed in, watching through his night-vision spotting scope.

The farmer hung a feed box on the fence under the donkey and poured some grain in it. Then he walked back into the barn and carried out a wooden box about a foot tall and a foot and a half long and a foot wide.

“What’s he got in that box? Explosives maybe?” Jaws said. “How about I take the shot, Gunny.”

“If he’s al-Qaeda, I want to try and get him alive,” Jack said. Then asked Martin, “Cotton, you hearing this?”

“Roger that,” the staff sergeant answered. “We’re already in movement. Me, Sage, Petey, and Chico can slip in and surprise him. You guys keep him in your gunsights.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jack said. “Just don’t get yourselves blown up.”

“Fuck,” Jaws retorted, looking over at Bronco Starr.