Karim’s thoughts lurched backward to the previous evening. It had been Ahmed – no, that was not right, it was Fazul who had mentioned it. They were talking about how lazy these men were and that it was a rarity to see anyone emerge from the bunkhouse before noon. Fazul said that on one occasion he had seen a man grading the runway with the tractor well before noon. The conversation quickly moved in a different direction. Karim was now struck with the horrible visual of the plane turning away because the tractor was blocking the runway.
The gears ground together and a howling clutch shattered the calm morning air. All of this racket would undoubtedly wake the others. Karim thought of them stumbling out of the bunkhouse one at a time, spreading themselves around the compound. He couldn’t allow it. He needed to keep them together. If they spread out, things would get very complicated.
The tractor lurched into view. Karim moved his rifle to the right and put the red dot of his sight on the man’s head. He was approximately eighty meters away. Karim had the shot. He knew no one else would take it unless he ordered them to do so. He had been specific about that, “No one shoots until I give the word.”
The soft pad of Karim’s right index finger moved onto the curve of the trigger. He began to increase the pressure and then thought of a better solution. Each man was wearing a headset that was plugged into a digital radio. Before heading out this morning they had all placed them in transmit mode and checked to make sure they were working. “Ahmed,” Karim whispered into his thin mouthpiece.
“I see him.”
“Do you have a shot?”
“Yes.”
“When he gets to the runway, before he makes his turn, shoot him in the head.”
“Yes, sir.”
Karim had no illusion that the man would keep his foot on the gas after he was hit. He wouldn’t. The silenced Heckler amp; Koch PSG-1 would fire the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge and would likely separate the man from the tractor in a very violent way. Karim was hoping the momentum of the tractor would carry the vehicle clear to the other side of the runway. If not, they would have to move it themselves.
As Karim was watching the tractor through his sight, he was startled by the loud noise of a screen door slamming shut. Not wanting to move the rifle, he slowly lifted his head from behind the sight and scanned to the left. There, standing at the base of the steps, was a second man wearing nothing more than a pair of dirty white underwear. He was facing Karim, underpants pulled down, eyes closed, holding his pecker in his hand, relieving himself. His eyes suddenly opened, and for a moment he seemed to stare right at Karim’s position. Then his head snapped around and craned skyward.
It took Karim a second to realize that the man must be looking at an incoming plane. Surrounded by the thick undergrowth, Karim had yet to hear the plane, but he knew it had to be what the man was looking at. The man began barking orders in Spanish and darted back into the bunkhouse before Karim could make a decision. A moment later the man reappeared, this time in a pair of jeans, a rifle in one hand and a T-shirt in the other.
The man took a dozen long strides toward the warehouse and then stopped. Karim could hear the plane now. Based on how loud it sounded he guessed it was nearing the far end of the runway. Karim didn’t like the fact that the man was moving away from the bunkhouse, but the situation was still manageable. Then unexpectedly the man raised his rifle and aimed it down the length of the runway. At that same moment the screen door slammed again. Karim didn’t bother to see who or how many men just left the bunkhouse. The thought of the man firing on the plane forced his hand.
Karim maneuvered the red dot onto the man’s head and kept both eyes open. He didn’t wait for the man to fire his weapon. He knew it would cause the others to grab their own rifles and come running out, possibly more alert and ready to fire. This thing had played itself out as far as he was willing to let it go. It was time to abandon the perfect plan and get to the killing.
Karim was a good shot, one of those guys who didn’t have to put a lot of thought into it. The technology helped, of course. More and more it was like a video game. Put the red dot on the person and squeeze the trigger. Never pull it, always squeeze. Don’t make it more difficult than you need to. He placed the dot directly in the center of the back of the target’s head and put a smooth, even squeeze on the trigger. The.233 round spat from the end of the silencer. The weapon jumped an inch and then the big square viewfinder came back to level, just in time to see a cloud of pink mist erupt from the man’s head.
“Fire,” Karim said, as he moved his rifle back toward the bunkhouse. Just as he was putting his next target in the crosshairs the man went down. At the same time the plane screamed in low overhead. With both eyes open, Karim saw there were two more men, but by the time he could get to either of them they were both taken care of. By his own count five men were outside and that left two more inside. As per the plan, the men switched to fully automatic and began pumping rounds into the bunkhouse. Karim expended his first thirty-round magazine and moved to reload. That was when he noticed someone screaming from inside the bunkhouse.
Without hesitation Karim chambered a fresh round and stood so he could shoot level with the floor of the bunkhouse. The other seven men did the same. They marched out of the jungle, closing in from two sides until they were no more than ten meters from the structure. Karim burned through another magazine and paused to look at his men. They were firing away, sweeping their rifles back and forth, taking care of their assigned areas. He was proud of their discipline. Two perfect skirmish lines doing exactly as he had told them. The opponent may have been weak, but his men had performed exactly as instructed. He felt great pride in how far they had come, and allowed himself for one brief moment to think of the legendary status he would obtain after he had struck at the heart of America.
CHAPTER 27
BETHESDA NAVAL HOSPITAL
NASH caught the tail end of rush hour as he crossed the Chain Bridge. The Little Falls to the north wasn’t so little. Heavy spring rains had the Potomac as swollen as he’d seen it in years. For all of the things that were wrong with Washington the vistas were not one of them. Nash rolled down his window and listened to the roar of the rapids. His headache eased a bit. When he reached the far bank his thoughts turned to Stan Hurley. The man was everything that epitomized the old CIA. An outsider might think it odd that Hurley, at seventy-eight, and officially retired from Langley for nearly thirty years, was on the mind of the CIA’s director on this media-crazed morning.
For those who knew Hurley, however, it was far less a surprise that Kennedy had ordered Nash to go see the old man. In the business world, there is a top cadre of lawyers that high-powered people turn to when they get in trouble. These lawyers are experts at manipulating the system, and working behind the scenes to make their clients’ problems simply go away. In the insular world of espionage, Stan Hurley was such a man. Brave, brash, and although one would never know by his appearance, fabulously wealthy. Unlike those high-powered lawyers, though, Hurley was as rough as a street fighter from the South Side of Philly.
He was a man who could, with a simple expression, send a chill down your spine, or bring a tear to your eye. There was no one else quite like him. Nash supposed Rapp was the closest thing he’d ever encountered, but Rapp was more of a single-minded force of talent and sheer determination. Hurley was whatever the situation dictated. He was a magician, an entertainer, a philosopher, an assassin, and a man with passions that at times could seem insatiable. He was without question the most colorful person Nash had ever met. He somehow always found a way to bring out in you the things you least wanted to discuss. This was both his gift and his curse. He forced you to confront your problems.