He heard a familiar scratch and smelled a whiff of tobacco smoke. A metal canteen opened behind him and he could hear the sound of rapid, greedy gulps.
Swell. These guys were going to take a break right here.
Well, if he were lucky.
If not, they were going to form a perimeter around the village until after Bugunda and Moustaph left.
No plan is without unanticipated contingencies. This one, at best, could blow the mission. At worst, it could get Jason killed. Without knowing the number and location of the militiamen, there was no chance Jason could neutralize all of them. His best bet was to remain still and hope no one stepped on him.
There was a splash of liquid that splattered Jason’s face. Christ, someone was taking a leak inches from his nose! Worse, the thought increased his own urge.
There was a cry and then another from the village, a swelling of voices that blended into a single wavering ululation and handclapping that Jason guessed was a traditional tribal greeting. Above it, he heard the sound of engines.
Footsteps crashed around him and retreated toward the sound.
Jason counted slowly to sixty before he dared look up. Six armed men were between him and the village, running to where a cavalcade of vehicles was charging down the narrow space between huts. A World War II vintage jeep with a mounted fifty-caliber machine gun led two Mercedes limousines followed by another armed jeep. All halted in swirling dust in front of the platform.
Forgetting his bladder’s protests, Jason trained the scope on first one and then the other Mercedes as their passengers emerged. Although he had never seen the man in person, he recognized Moustaph immediately. He wore the traditional white headdress and flowing robes of his Bedouin ancestors. Carefully placing the scope’s crosshairs between the Arab’s eyes, Jason breathed deeply and felt his finger tighten on the trigger.
It took an act of monumental willpower to relax it.
Instead of the dark, bearded face, Jason was seeing the tiny office, more a cubicle, really, at the Pentagon on a bright late-summer day. Captain Peters, J. had already handed in his resignation from Delta Force, the Army’s super-elite commandos. His last month would be spent shuffling paper in Washington instead of crawling through or jumping into some of the world’s least hospitable places. He was looking forward to the day he would exchange his uniform for faded jeans and paint-splattered T-shirts. His pictures were selling well and he would soon have enough for half of the down payment on that house on the beach in the British West Indies he and Laurin were going to buy. Her real-estate investments, the ones she had inherited from her mother, would easily have covered the sum, but Jason insisted he put his money into the home too.
They had seen their last cold, drab DC winter.
Laurin, his wife of three years and a junior partner in one of Washington’s premier law firms, had surprised him that morning by walking into the cubicle. Like most DC law firms, public relations — or more plainly, lobbying — was a major source of business.
Lobbyists, the people we hire to protect us from the people we elect.
One of her firm’s major clients was the United States Army, which, like any large business, had its special needs that required congressional attention (or, at times, a specific lack thereof).
On this particular morning, she had finished her appointment early and dropped by to offer to fetch Jason a cup of coffee from the officers’ mess two floors below. His mouth sour from the brand that came out of the Mr. Coffee in his office, he had readily assented.
In the confusion that ensued almost immediately, the one thing he remembered clearly was glancing at his desk calendar: September 11, 2001.
They never found her amid the charred wreckage. Oddly, the one thing that survived was the simple gold wedding band, identified by the engraving inside: their initials, the date of the wedding, and per aevum—for eternity. He still wore the ring on a chain around his neck. He needed nothing to remind him of her. She was in his thoughts always, a fact Maria not only accepted, but also found endearing. But in places like this, the pressure of the ring against his chest reminded him he was not just doing a job; he was on a crusade. Money was not the point. He had more than he would ever spend, but he would never fully enjoy it until those responsible for Laurin’s death had paid in full.
It had quickly become apparent that 9/11 was not going to be avenged anytime soon and the so-called War on Terror would be the typical political football. Instead of simply nuking the country that had hosted the perpetrators of the outrage back into the stone age along with any who protested the action, forces were sent to overthrow the Taliban and rid the world of al-Qaida, an enterprise Jason found as useless as trying to find a specific ant in a series of anthills.
The only difference was that this particular ant had been identified before 9/11 and ignored by a president more concerned with the political fallout from a loose zipper.
Jason’s rage and frustration found a use when he was contacted by Momma. He had been her chief terrorist hunter ever since. The money was more than good and the job satisfaction better.
He would get them all if it took a lifetime. It was his purpose in life per aevum.
Now he was looking at one of the men who was as directly responsible for Laurin’s death as the pilots of the aircraft who had crashed into the building; he literally had Moustaph in his sights, a dream come true. It had been Moustaph who had recruited the hijackers and who had seen that their expenses were paid while some learned to fly.
Only the thoughts of the interrogation techniques awaiting the terrorist made Jason shift the scope to Bugunda.
Wearing a lime-green suit and bright-red tie against an electric-blue shirt, he was as obvious a target as if he had painted a bull’s-eye on his chest. And what looked like white patent-leather shoes, too.
If Jason didn’t kill him, the fashion police might.
Jason indulged himself by taking a single sip from his canteen.
He shifted his posture, spreading his legs and wiggling his elbows into firm position to support the rifle.
Bugunda, waving more to the TV cameras than to the small gathering of villagers, was approaching a microphone. Over his left shoulder, Moustaph was applauding, as were the two men next to him. Jason studied the latter two carefully. Africans in suits with telltale bulges under the left arms. Their upper faces were shielded by the reflective sunglasses so popular among dictators and tyrants of the Third World. Even so, Jason could see they were more interested in their proximity to the Arab than scanning the audience for any potential threat.
In the country’s wretched economy, small bribes accomplished a lot.
Bugunda began to speak, his voice tinny as it rattled through speakers placed around the square. Jason had no idea what he was saying but he noted periodic pauses when men in uniform, outside the view of the cameras, encouraged applause. Other men, not in uniform, circulated through the audience, brandishing sticks in case the more slow-witted spectators failed to get the message.
Jason checked his watch. The minute hand still had a little space between it and the top of the hour. Time for a final check. As slowly as possible, he turned to make sure he was once again alone. He pushed the palm of his hand against the rifle’s bolt, making certain it was as far forward as it would go, closed and locked.
He had killed men before in Delta Force operations, anonymous beings he had taken with a gun, a knife, or his bare hands. He had done so as commanded without remorse or qualms. He had only killed enemies of his country who, had the opportunity presented itself, would have returned the favor. A soldier’s duty. Today he was going to snuff out the life of a single unarmed individual who had done him, personally, no harm. The fact that the man was responsible for the deaths of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, was of no particular interest. But anyone who gave succor to al-Qaida was a candidate for execution. Killing them involved no more moral issues than squashing a cockroach. All concept of kindness to one’s enemies, of fair play, had been burned out of Jason along with the ruins of the Pentagon that September morning.