Dead Shot, page 12
He thought about his sister, Delara, the only other surviving member of their family, and prayed that Allah would bestow many blessings upon her. Mahmoud never believed that religious nonsense that women were lesser than men, nor that he was going to live in some fairy-tale paradise once he died. What counted was what one did while one lived.
The teenager reached out and took the hand of the woman in the cage with him. She had made a difference in the struggle, and he felt honored that they would be together at the end. Although her clothes were now shabby and she was very weak, she had wielded the power of written words. Her poems and stories had bounded across international borders, and the government had been unable to stop them, so they arrested and tortured her. “Do not be afraid, Mother,” Mahmoud said. “No matter what these dogs have done to you, or will do to us, you will always be one of our true warriors.”
The woman looked at the boy with her watery eyes and tightened her grip on his hand. “Freedom, my young friend Mahmoud. Let us cry out for freedom, even with our final breaths.”
A TECHNICIAN IN A white hazmat suit drove a four-wheeled ATV to the first cage, pulling a cart with a pair of large containers strapped inside. He parked just beyond the reach of the prisoners and unhitched the trailing cart. He secured the canisters so they pointed in the correct direction, then adjusted a nozzle that would diffuse the gas inside when the valve was opened. When one was empty, the other would begin to unleash its deadly contents. The three men trapped inside the cage had lost their fear and were resigned to their fates and glared at the suited figure and cursed him.
The man had a radio headset inside the helmet and told Director Kahzahee that all was ready. The men at consoles inside the building gave other confirmations. A pause, then Kahzahee’s steady voice ordered, “Begin the experiment.”
An extremely loud signal horn groaned into a wailing siren that blasted through the valley and over the hills, warning the Iranian soldiers to stay away from the area until the siren was heard a second time. At the roadblocks and on the patrols, soldiers looked nervously at each other and ran for shelter.
The technician twisted the knob atop the nozzle counterclockwise three full turns, jumped back onto the ATV, and raced away from the area. Over the barking whine of the little engine, he heard people yelling, calling out, and chanting.
The prisoners who were about to die in agony were standing at the wire, chanting at the top of their voices-FREEDOM!
The hissing gas moved unseen into the air, then spread as it was pushed by the flow of more compressed gas coming behind it. The slight breeze helped it stay airborne, spread apart, and rise higher for a while, but the heavy individual molecules began to chemically weld together and, yielding to gravity, slowly arced back toward earth as spots of liquid. The prisoners in the first cage felt cold droplets, as if a rain shower were passing. They covered their mouths and noses with the rags of their clothing and closed their eyes, but the droplets clung to their skin and coagulated into a sheen of clear gel that seeped into their pores. Two removed the cloths from their faces and tried to brush away the liquid on their skin, but it would not rub off, only spread out in a viscous covering over a wider surface area. The third man kept the rag over his face, watching as the others began to cough loudly; then he could take it no longer, feeling as if his skin were being penetrated by a million tiny drills of heat. He immediately had trouble breathing, as if he had swallowed a large piece of meat that was stuck in his throat.
The first scream was heartrending, but after that there were just too many to tell one from another. All three men in the cage were flailing in torment, grabbing their throats and chests as the poison sped through their bloodstreams and into their hearts, lungs, and brains. Mucus membranes expanded and ruptured, and a clear liquid leaked from their mouths and noses. They were gasping for air, sucking loudly, but their lungs and air passages had filled to overflowing with the mucus discharge, and the fading hearts kept pumping the contaminated blood throughout their bodies. No air. No air! It was impossible to breathe.
The expanding bubble of gas moved on. By the time all three of the men in the first cage were thrashing on the ground, Mahmoud and the writer felt the first wet drops and their cries for freedom stopped. “Inhale it deeply, Mother! Gulp it all in and we can beat them by shortening the pain,” he said, opening his mouth wide and turning his face upward. When the gel formed on his tongue, he lapped at the liquid eagerly, like a kitten at a bowl of milk, then toppled, coughing and gagging, but still holding the hand of the woman.
All three men in the first pen had ceased thrashing, and the bodies entered the final stages of destruction. The final conscious thought of each was sheer pain and the feeling that he had been eaten alive.
The gas moved on, the bubble expanding, and swept up the next three victims in the third cage and then the fourth. The people in the hazmat suits watched with clinical detachment as the ground in the pens was littered with moaning and thrashing human wreckage.
“Now this is where it gets interesting,” said Director Kahzahee. As if it had hit a wall, the sticky gas stopped spreading after causing total destruction for two hundred meters. The three men in the final enclosure had stared at the certain death that had been marching steadily toward them and were wailing in anticipation of the grinding end awaiting them. Then minutes passed and nothing happened. They could still breathe. They were still alive.
“Wonderful,” exclaimed Kahzahee. “Absolutely perfect. Total lethality in an exact space, with the contaminant lingering there in heavy doses. It could remain potent for up to twenty-four hours.”
The director motioned to several of the workers in the hazmat suits, who moved forward and pulled one of the bodies from the fourth cage and hauled it to the final enclosure, which had not been infected. They dropped it inside, then used clubs to knock each of the final three prisoners to the ground and rub their hands and arms into the gel and mucus on the dead man.
“After an attack, the so-called first responders will show up, the police and medical people. With the poison being clear, there will be no pools of blood to warn them of danger, and they probably would not even be wearing gloves. Anyone without protective shielding who touches one of those people or that clothing will transfer the gel to themselves and can spread it to others. The entire zone becomes a death trap.”
Juba was impressed. The weapon would not weaken quickly in a wind because it had been designed to create a specific cone of death and hold its position for a long period of time. He imagined driving a truck through a major American city, spewing the toxin into the air, and knowing that everybody for two hundred yards on each side of the street would be killed, all along his route. Or rigging a spray from a plane over a metropolitan area. The first responders entering the scene to help would be slain by the lingering, sticky gas, and they would spread it to the hospitals and emergency shelters. On the battlefield, the gas would be a targeted weapon with a specific kill zone that would devastate an enemy but not harm your own troops. Scientists and military tinkerers would dream up even more uses.
“That’s it, then. Congratulations on your achievement,” he told the director. “How will you clear it out down there?”
“We will just have to burn it all where it stands. It’s the only way.”
“Then let’s go back into your office while your men take care of it. I need to report your success.”
13
T HE FOUR PEOPLE IN the snipers’ hide had felt helpless and were horrified as they watched the experiment unfold, for there was nothing they could do to stop the murders of the innocents in the cages. Delara covered her ears and buried her face in the carpet of leaves beneath her when she saw her brother fall. Mahmoud was dying in great pain, and she was powerless to help.
Kyle Swanson’s brain had kept churning, figuring out a plan. The mission had never been to rescue hostages but to get inside the building and its web of tunnels to document what was in there. When he saw how the experiment developed, he got the idea to turn the deadly weapon against its creators.
He gathered the others and explained what they were to do. Aggressive action was the best antidote for the useless feeling that had engulfed them all. Swanson, Tipp, and Hughes would execute a long-range ambush to kill as many of those cold-blooded bastards as possible and then steal their work.
T HERE WAS NO URGENCY at the site as the workers went about their jobs as if this were a normal day. Perhaps it was, for them. The man with the ATV, still in a white hazmat suit, zipped out to the first pen and turned off the valve to stop the escaping gas. Without looking at the bodies, he reattached the cart and brought the narrow tanks back to the site and returned them to a small fenced area near the building, the loading zone in which the canisters were filled. Another worker waited there with a water hose, buckets, and a scrubbing brush to wash down the driver, the ATV and cart, and the canisters.
The three Chechnyan mercenaries lounged around the jeeps, smoking cigarettes and watching, waiting for Juba to give the signal for them to grab their weapons and kill the scientists, their assistants, and then any leftover prisoners. After that, the boxes of explosives and incendiaries they had packed along would be placed at vital points and the structure would be destroyed. Juba had not yet given the signal. They waited, three hardcore fighters loyal only to the big paychecks, half already paid up front, half on completion. It was more than a fair deal as far as they were concerned. There were no threats among the busy men in the white coats, other than that extraordinary and lethal gas. The mercs were happy the wind was at their backs, blowing away the remains of the spray, and the sprinkle of rain had begun.
Director Ali Kahzahee was in his private office. He had spent many months coming in and out of the site and was glad to be leaving for the final time, the complicated work done. A number of laboratories scattered around the world had worked on various parts of the project, but it was Kahzahee and his team who had brought it all together and made it work.
His personal knowledge was invaluable, and Kahzahee knew that once the project was completed, his usefulness to the Iranian regime would be at an end. The soldiers who had been guarding the site would probably sweep up the entire team and demand the formula, particularly since Tehran thought they were part owners of the project. Juba and his guards would protect them on the swift journey into Europe, where Saladin had promised to help them all build new lives.
The director folded up his laptop computer, which contained his research, and stuffed it into a black briefcase along with his detailed notes. He then took a final turn around the office, checking every drawer and file cabinet. There were no mementos or reminders. A pile of discarded notes and reams of results was scattered in the middle of the floor, where it would be soaked with gasoline. Everything was to be burned.
The soldiers at the roadblocks might be curious about the smoke, but Kahzahee had not sounded the all-clear siren, and the military would not enter the area until they heard it. He picked up a pair of pliers from his desk and snipped the curling red, black, and green wires to the alarm. The all clear would not sound today.
There was no concern about the people he had killed in the experiment, just a sense of scientific satisfaction. The director grabbed his briefcase and headed for the door.
Juba was in the communications room, where he had placed a call to a number in Paris. Saladin had answered.
“It is ready,” said Juba. “The test was impressive.”
“Excellent. Do we have the material in hand?
“The director gave me an envelope with a complete disk and matching set of printouts. I will bring them out.”
“What about backup copies? Does Kahzahee have a set?”
“I would imagine so. The material is too valuable to entrust to anyone working for him.”
Saladin paused. “Are you somewhere that you might be overheard?”
“Yes,” said Juba.
“Very well. Make sure to destroy any backup material after you dispose of the staff.”
Juba saw Director Kahzahee come into the communications area and smiled at him. “We will all be leaving soon,” Juba said. “Yes, sir. I will tell him you said so.” He terminated the conversation. “Saladin sends his personal congratulations, Director, and says there will be a bonus waiting for you in Paris.”
T HERE WOULD BE NOTHING sexy about the ambush, just total surprise by an unexpected enemy with overwhelming firepower shooting from a secure position on high ground only seven hundred meters away. “Kill everybody on site so we can get inside. You saw what they did to the prisoners,” Swanson told the others, his voice low and determined. “They deserve to die. Take down all those fuckers.” Then he laid out the targets and the firing sequence. “I’ll take the bodyguards, and Tipp, rake the area for any targets you see. Hughes, you put some RPG rounds into the container storage area and we will see how they like a little of their own shit on them. Everyone engage on my first shot.”
Kyle considered the Russian-made SVD Dragunov sniper rifle to be a serviceable weapon, but not in the same class as its American counterparts, and certainly far behind his personal Excalibur. The synthetic buttstock fit comfortably against his shoulder, and his right hand eased around the pistol grip. The canvas sling seemed archaic, but the magazine could hold ten rounds of SVD 7.62 × 54 mm ammunition. It was semiautomatic, not a bolt action, and was almost fifty inches in length, upgraded to a POSP 8 × 42 sniping scope that worked well in harsh environments. It was an old hog, dating back to before the Vietnam era, but it would do what needed to be done on this day in Iran. He slowly pushed the barrel through the foliage and scanned for his first target.
He chose one of the bodyguards who had come in this morning and was now sitting on the hood of a jeep, facing away from Kyle. He looked like he was trained as a fighter and therefore presented a primary threat. For a sniper, a back shot is a golden opportunity, since it gives the target no chance to notice that he is taking his last breaths. Kyle had already checked the range card and had done the other calculations in his head for windage and the bullet drop going downhill. He put the reticle just below the man’s neck, exhaled, let his heartbeat slow, and squeezed the trigger straight back until the Dragunov barked and the bullet hurtled toward the unsuspecting man at 2,700 feet per second.
The Chechnyan fighter jerked forward as if he had been slugged in the back by a big hammer, his eyes opening wide with surprise as he fell facedown in the dirt. The bullet severed his spine and exploded within him, tearing his organs to pieces before pushing a mass of tissue and blood out through a big exit wound in his chest.
Kyle shifted his aim to another Chechnyan who was spinning around at the familiar sound of a shot being fired. Swanson was cold and smooth, not hurrying. This guy was just reacting, he wasn’t going anywhere. Kyle aimed for center mass, and the Dragunov spat out another powerful bullet, which took the second man in the chest. The victim remained still for a moment, then slumped to his knees, grabbing at the fatal wound as blood poured between his fingers. He fell over dead.
Off to Kyle’s right, Joe Tipp opened up with his RPK light machine gun, with the long barrel braced on its folding bipod, slapping out three-round bursts throughout the general area…Clack-clack-clack…Clack-clack-clack. Several men were sent sprawling. Tipp had two spare big banana clips for the gun nearby so he could reload quickly. He was not going for any random fire to keep their heads down. As a trained sniper, Joe Tipp was taking enough time to aim and kill people. The gunpowder smell of burned cordite rose in the hide.
To Kyle’s left, Travis Hughes came into a kneeling position with an RPG-7 launcher on his shoulder and fired a grenade that burst from the tube with a loud whoosh! Four sharp fins popped out to stabilize the flight, and ten meters away, the grenade armed itself. Sizzling at the tip of a hot red exhaust tail, the high-explosive round zoomed into the storage area and exploded hard when it hit metal, setting loose a spray of the poison gas.
The crashing symphony of the ambush was fully under way, and none of the people at the site had yet fired a shot in return. In fact, none had yet even reached a weapon.
Watching through binoculars from beside Kyle, Delara Tabrizi viewed the destruction with a burning fury on her face. “Kill them,” she said through gritted teeth. “Kill them all!”
I NSIDE THE BUILDING , J UBA heard the shots, and three seconds later the RPG explosion shook the concrete structure, blowing around a layer of dirt and debris. An attack was the last thing he had expected, and he instantly recognized that his situation had totally changed.
“What’s happening?” Director Kahzahee, who had been heading for the door, stopped in midstride and turned back.
Juba stepped closer, looking through the door and then glancing out a side window. Men were running around trying to find shelter, and smoke was spreading along the ground while a misty haze rose into the air. “Either the Iranians are coming to take over this place, or some dissident bandits are making a raid. Either way, it is not good for us.”
“The fools are shooting at the container loading area! Some of those canisters are still filled with the gas!” The director dropped his briefcase and grabbed for a fresh biohazard suit hanging on a wall hook as another RPG grenade whumped into the containers and rattled the building.
