Target America: A Sniper Elite Novel (9 page)

17

CHICAGO

Back in Chicago, Crosswhite stood with his hands high over his head while two paratroopers from the 82
nd
Airborne Division stripped him and Tuckerman of their combat harnesses and body armor. A second lieutenant, along with several other troopers, stood watching as a hulking staff sergeant stepped into the light, speaking into the lieutenant’s ear, glancing scornfully at Crosswhite, and then doing a double-take.

“Captain?” the sergeant said. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Crosswhite grinned. “Getting felt up by the corporal. How’ve you been, Sergeant Nipples?” The sergeant’s real name was Naples, but Nipples had been his nickname since before he and Crosswhite had taken jump training together at Fort Benning.

The lieutenant allowed the barrel of his carbine to drop slightly. “You know this man, Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir,” Naples said. “He’s a Medal of Honor winner; one of the men who rescued Sandra Brux.”

The corporal and the other trooper both stood back, everyone now
regarding Crosswhite and Tuckerman not only with increased curiosity but also a sudden hint of respect as well.

“Got any ID?” the lieutenant asked Crosswhite, now less sure of what he had on his hands.

“I don’t generally carry my wallet on classified missions, Lieutenant. Do you?”

The lieutenant had never been on a classified mission, and everyone present knew it. “Dog tags, sir?”

Crosswhite put down his hands and indicated for Tuckerman to do the same, realizing they’d gained the initiative, thanks to Naples’s having vouched for him. “I’m not permitted to disclose the details of my mission, Lieutenant, but you do realize there’s a nuclear weapon in play, correct?”

“Yes, sir, but I wasn’t made aware of any Special Forces activity in this sector, so I’m going to need—”

“You weren’t made aware of it, Lieutenant, because you’re a goddamn butter bar.” This was a pejorative referring to the gold color of a second lieutenant’s rank insignia. “Now, I suggest you cut us loose and let us be on our way before your interference costs us the fucking ball game. You know Chicago is a primary target, and I don’t exactly have time to lose here.”

Tuckerman saw the lieutenant shift his weight and realized that Crosswhite’s bullshit was working. He made a show of checking the time, pulling his sleeve up his arm to look at his watch and muttering audibly to Crosswhite that they were falling behind schedule.

“I know we’re behind schedule,” Crosswhite said irritably. “What do you want me to do about it? These men have a job to do too.”

The lieutenant looked at Naples and jerked his head, leading him out of the beam of the spotlight and into the dark. “What do you think, Sergeant?”

Naples cradled his M4. “Sir, I’ve operated with Crosswhite. He’s Delta Force,
exactly
the kind of guy the Pentagon would send into the field to find a loose nuke.”

“But why here, Sergeant, in the middle of this run-down neighborhood? I’m not buying it.”

“Sir, where better to hide a fucking atom bomb in the US than a neighborhood like this?”

“Gentlemen!” Crosswhite called. “We’re wasting time!”

Naples sized up the vacillating lieutenant, who, at just age twenty-three, was a full ten years younger than him. “Sir, I really don’t want us to be the reason that goddamn bomb goes off. I advise we send them on their way ASAP.”

The lieutenant considered it a moment longer then nodded. “Okay, Sergeant. We’ll—”

A Chicago PD patrol car whipped around the corner with lights flashing and sped up the block, slamming on the brakes just a few feet from the line of parked Humvees. The passenger door opened and a very pissed-off police captain got out.

“What in the Jesus Christ hell is going on!” he demanded. He stabbed a finger toward Crosswhite and Tuckerman. “Why are those two men not under arrest? We just found a man beaten half to death in the back of their van. These two sons a bitches have been robbing every fucking drug den on the South Side!”

The lieutenant looked at Crosswhite. “What’s he talking about?”

“The asshole in our van is an informant,” Crosswhite said. “And you people are fucking around in a top-secret Special Forces operation.”

The police captain’s eyebrows soared in disbelief. “What the fuck are you talking about?” His voice was shrill and almost womanlike. “Who the fuck says so?”

Sergeant Naples took Crosswhite aside, ordering the corporal and the other trooper out of earshot. “Captain, I’m asking you soldier to soldier . . . are you really on a goddamn mission, or are you running around robbing fucking drug dealers?”

Crosswhite looked him dead in the eyes. “Sergeant, if I’m knocking the shit out of drug dealers, you’d better believe there’s a good goddamn reason for it! Now remind that fucking cop that the police are subordinate to the army under martial law and get him the fuck out of here so we can be on our goddamn way. I’ve got family in this fucking city, and I don’t intend to see them wiped out because some local flatfoot got his ass up in the air. Now get fucking rid of him!”

“Sir!” Naples turned on his heel as two more patrol cars pulled up and unloaded four more cops.

The lieutenant faced him as he approached. “Sergeant, turn the pris
oners over to the police. I’ll get Major Byard on the radio and have him start checking Crosswhite’s story.”

The police captain directed the arriving officers to take the prisoners into custody. “Put ’em in separate cars!”

“Stop!” Sergeant Naples ordered, and everyone froze in place. “Lieutenant, the prisoners are in our custody, and our authority overrules the police.”

“I understand that,” the lieutenant said, “but their story does sound—”

“Halt!” Naples shouted, shouldering his M4 to aim it at two cops as they started moving toward the prisoners.

Three other cops drew their pistols and aimed them at Naples, and a dozen more troopers brought their weapons to bear, creating a lethal standoff.

“Get ready to run!” Crosswhite said to Tuckerman.

“Stand down!” the lieutenant ordered. “Stand down right now!”

Naples stood firm, his finger on the trigger and ready to fire. “Sir! I know Captain Crosswhite. I’ve served with him in combat. And no disrespect intended, sir, but you just don’t have enough time in grade to make this call on your own. So I’m asking you to reconsider. If you won’t cut them loose to carry out their mission, at least hold them at the FOB until we can confirm their story. If you turn them over to these men, they’re liable to end up dead before we can get word from the Pentagon.”

“We’re not going to kill anybody!” the police captain rejoined. “Who the hell do you think you are making that kind of accusation?”

Naples ignored him, his eyes fixed on his targets. “Lieutenant, the heat for them ending up dead will fall on your head because these cops are subordinate to your authority. Now, what are your orders, sir?”

His inexperienced mind racing, the lieutenant stood thinking it over, seeing the sergeant’s point about him taking the blame if Crosswhite’s story was true and anything happened to him while in police custody.

“Very well, Sergeant. I’ll take your advice. We’ll transport them to the FOB until we can get confirmation one way or the other. Now, lower that weapon before somebody gets killed.”

“Yes, sir, but I strongly recommend we let them on their way.”

“I’ve made my decision, Sergeant. Now, carry out my orders!”

“Yes, sir.” Naples lowered his carbine, and everyone slowly stood down.

A minute later, Crosswhite and Tuckerman were put into the back of an armored Humvee, and the doors were slammed shut.

“Well, I gotta hand it to you,” Tuckerman said. “You almost pulled off the most brilliant piece of bullshitting I’ve ever seen—almost.”

Crosswhite sighed, pulling off his gloves and jacking his boot up against the back of the passenger seat. “Well, we’re not in handcuffs yet, so be ready to move when the opportunity presents itself. We may have to knock a few heads together to get away.”

Tuckerman let out a snicker. “ ‘Captain Crosswhite’ . . . ‘Special Forces!’ Dumb-ass.”

Crosswhite chuckled. “What’d you want me to say, dickhead? I don’t think ‘washed-up, has-been Green Beret’ would’ve had quite the same effect.”

18

LAS VEGAS

At thirty-eight, Muhammad Faisal was something of a Vegas playboy, preferring skinny blonde American women who were fake breasted and dim witted. Being from Saudi Arabia, where women were treated as far less than equal, he had little use for a woman of intellect. He wanted her pretty, subservient, and on her back as much as possible. He treated them well enough, in that he spent plenty of money on them and wasn’t physically abusive, but he was bossy and showed them little respect, feeling free to slap their behinds in public and ordering them to fetch him food or drink no matter who was present.

He owned a three-million-dollar home just outside of Las Vegas, but he kept a suite at the Luxor hotel, spending many nights a week at the poker tables. Though gambling and drinking were against the fundamentals of Islam, Faisal was no less hypocritical within his faith than many other religious persons around the world, cherry-picking which parts of the Koran to abide by and which to ignore. He held a low status within the House of Saud, even though his maternal grandfather had been first cousin to King Faisal, who had ruled Saudi Arabia from 1964
to 1975. It was because all of his ties were on his mother’s side that he had never enjoyed the same status as many of his cousins.

Having lost all interest in “family” business by his early twenties, he had elected to drop out of Oxford University and pursue the British nightlife on a full-time basis. During a trip to the United States a year after the September 11 attacks, he got his first taste of Las Vegas and was permanently hooked, immediately setting course for American citizenship.

In the ensuing months and years, Faisal enjoyed his first real advantages of being a member of the House of Saud, appealing to the family to intervene on his behalf with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services agency to request that they negate the necessity for him to leave the country every six months to renew his tourist visa. Two years later, the family intervened a second time to help procure his green card granting him permanent residency within the United States—all of this without ever having set foot inside an INS building. By the end of his fifth year, he was granted US citizenship without ever having sat for a single USCIS interview.

During Faisal’s unhindered journey to citizenship, he became a consummate poker player, thriving on high-stakes tournaments and private games alike, drinking and womanizing with the best of them as the Islamic rules of his youth were quickly forgotten. It was in December 2010, however, that he received a grim reminder of his Islamic ties.

He was approached by a pair of AQAP operatives, a former Saudi marine named Akram al-Rashid and his brother Haroun, both of whom had immigrated to Canada as a way of bringing the jihad to the Western world. Word of Faisal’s gambling exploits had been reported by Al Qaeda spies lurking around Vegas, and it so happened that money won in the American casinos was the hardest to trace.

“Are you Wahhabi or not, Muhammad?” Akram al-Rashid had asked him point-blank early in their first meeting. “It’s a simple yes or no question.”

“I am Salafi,” Faisal replied. “Do not call me Wahhabi.”

“Call yourself what you will, brother, but do not think there will not be a price to pay for the decadent life you lead here. Do you believe that Allah has turned a blind eye to it? He hasn’t, I promise you. Now is the
time for you to make your decadent life of use to him, or you risk the forfeit of your soul.”

By the end of the meeting, Faisal had agreed to give money to the jihad, not because he was worried about the afterlife, but because it had been easier than arguing. He held no affection for the United States, even though he’d sought to make his home there. What he loved was the freedom to gamble, party, and enjoy sex with many different women. If handing over a few million dollars a year to the AQAP movement kept the fanatic jihadists off his back, then it was worth it, because money was not a problem, and if these donations happened to keep him in good stead with Allah, as al-Rashid had promised, then so much the better. All he wanted was to be left alone.

Then a few years later the Chechens got into the game, and the al-Rashid brothers asked for another meeting, dramatically altering Faisal’s involvement with AQAP.

“We need you now more than ever, brother,” al-Rashid whispered to him, his eyes glazed over with holy zeal. “Allah has miraculously granted our Chechen friends in the RSMB an opportunity to purchase an atomic weapon. With your help, we can at last strike the United States a decisive blow.”

Faisal had been shocked and horrified. This was a long, long way from blowing up buses in the streets of Tel Aviv or tossing a satchel bomb into a crowded Alexandrian night club. Those types of attacks would have continued to take place with or without his money. “I’m not helping you buy an atomic weapon! Are you insane? I live here.”

“The weapon will not be used against Las Vegas, brother. Do not worry.”

“Las Vegas is not my concern!” Faisal retorted, already realizing there would be no dissuading AQAP from its course to help the RSMB, but he’d had no intention of being the man to fund the purchase of such a hellish weapon. “Nuclear weapons leave the world unlivable.”

“It is not this world you should be concerned with, brother.”

“Regardless,” Faisal said, shaking his head. “Find someone else.”

“We
will
find someone else,” al-Rashid replied, his eyes narrowing. “Never fear. But tell me this, brother . . . in which direction do you think the Americans will be guided when they begin their search for suspects
after the attack is eventually successful?
As it will be successful!
In the direction of those who helped us . . . or in the direction of those who refused us?”

“I
have
helped you!” Faisal insisted. “I’ve given you millions. I refuse one time, and you threaten to feed me to the wolves?”

“You must help us achieve
this
victory,” al-Rashid persisted. “There is no other victory that matters now, no other path for you to follow. Otherwise the FBI will find their way to your door within days of the attack. The House of Saud will be forced to turn its back on you forever, and you will rot inside of an infidel prison . . . but not until after you are tortured by the CIA for information that you will be unable to provide.”

Al-Rashid sat back, watching Faisal twisting on the hook. Then, after he felt the man had twisted long enough, he pulled him into the boat. “Enough arguing now, Muhammad. You know it can serve no purpose. In the coming weeks you will go to Germany to meet with our Chechen brothers in the Riyad us-Saliheyn Martyrs’ Brigade. It has all been arranged.”

That conversation had taken place five months ago, and Faisal had been in their pocket ever since, having no choice but to provide whatever funding they required . . . drinking more than ever, gambling more than ever . . . and losing more than ever. And since the New Mexico Event, he had slipped into an even deeper depression.

He stood at the window of his hotel suite overlooking the Great Sphinx, whirling an ice cube around the bottom of an empty whisky glass.

“What’s the matter, Muhammad?” asked his chief bodyguard, Ma’mun, also a minor member of the Saudi royal family. “I’ve never seen you this way.”

“Kashkin and al-Rashid have been lying to me,” Faisal said. “There have been
two
bombs since the beginning. That’s why they wanted so much money so urgently.”

“Should we leave the city? Are we in danger here?”

Faisal gave him an ironic smile. “To destroy Las Vegas would be more like a bad joke than an act of terror.”

Ma’mun thought about that a moment. “Yes, I agree.”

“We’re as safe here as anywhere,” Faisal assured him. “All we can do
is hope the city doesn’t wither on the vine after the American economy begins to collapse . . . which will surely happen after the second weapon is used. These are a panicky people. They have been spoiled by too many years of safety and isolation. Look how they act already. Martial law in their major cities? Please. Do you believe the Jews would react this way?” He wagged a bony finger. “They would not. No, the lives of the Jews would go on as normal. And when the bomb finally went off, they would mourn their dead and begin to rebuild . . . their faith in their Jew god even stronger than before.”

Ma’mun nodded grimly. “For all that is bad about them, yes, the Jews are very brave. I do not deny it. But I think no braver than the Americans.”

Faisal took a seat on his Italian black leather sofa and kicked off his slippers. “You forget, my friend. The PlayStation generation controls here now.” He sighed then. “But we shall soon see which of us is right.”

Ma’mun took out his iPhone, running his thumb over the apps. “The lease on the hotel suite is up for renewal this week.”

“Renew it.” Faisal lit a cigarette and sat pondering his own words about the Jews. It was true they would not be so easily panicked. They were very accustomed to living with the knowledge that every day could be their last. Perhaps it was time he took a lesson from them and began to live his own life the same way.

“Arrange a game for tomorrow evening, Ma’mun. Also, call the agency and be sure there are enough women available. I think it’s time for me to resume my winning ways.”

At last Ma’mun had reason to smile. “
Na’am sayyideti.
” Yes, sir. He turned and left the room.