Jason forced himself to be calm. “OK. What’s the catch? Even the most bleeding-heart American can see the need to get rid of Moustaph. Why can’t the government do the job itself?”
Momma handed Jason another photograph, this one of a black man in a coat and tie and obviously posed. “Because this is the man you take out.”
Jason recognized the face. “Bugunda? I admit few people would mourn his passing, but, far as I know, the US has no interest in his country other than wringing its diplomatic hands like everyone else over what he’s done to the poor bastards living under his regime.”
Momma leaned forward, a shift of so much weight so suddenly that Jason imagined he could feel the floor quiver. “Five days from now Moustaph will be visiting Bugunda, who’s supposed to give a speech welcoming his fellow opponent of Western tyranny, oppression, et cetera. The United States can’t afford to be caught meddling in African politics; enough people hate us there already. So, we get the job. We got men in place, Bugunda’s guard, ready to snatch Moustaph. What we need is a diversion. You the best marksman I got.”
“Used to got,” Jason corrected.
Momma shrugged and Jason thought of Vesuvius shifting its axis. “We don’ get the confusion, we don’t get Moustaph.”
“Why not just shoot him instead of Bugunda?”
“Bugunda’s got no information we want.”
Jason was silent for a moment. Despite the current political sympathy for terrorists, if Moustaph were taken prisoner, it was unlikely he would be brought to the United States and questioned politely in an air-conditioned room and served coffee and doughnuts with his court-appointed lawyer present to frustrate the investigation.
In the hands of Narcom, the Muslim terrorist would be taken someplace where human rights were of little concern. They might not kill him, but after a couple of days in the company of Narcom interrogators, Moustaph would wish he were dead. And not just because of the number of virgins allotted in paradise to such brave martyrs with the blood of children, women, and innocents on their hands.
Amnesty International, the ACLU, the World Court, and others that were not charged with fighting terrorism or that were simply closed-minded might decry torture as a means of retrieving information from an uncooperative subject. Their mantra assures the civilized world that inducing pain rarely produces the desired result. Jason’s experience pointed to the contrary. Every person has a breaking point, a state in which the information withheld is no longer worth the agony of physical abuse, lack of sleep, or sensory deprivation. The mind and body can take only so much before the strongest will break. Some take longer than others but, in the end, all talk. Or die in the process.
The thought of Moustaph’s less-than-bright future made Jason smile. There was no torture, no agony, that would adequately repay the debt the Arab owed him.
And a million dollars wasn’t exactly chump change either.
“OK, Momma, you got yourself a shooter.”
3
A trickle of hot sweat burned Jason’s right eye. Blinking was the only movement he allowed himself. He tried to concentrate on the activity in the center of the village.
Peering through the rifle’s scope, he estimated the distance to the platform under construction. It would have been helpful if he’d had the opportunity to visit the earthen square, mark the precise location with the GPS, and compare it with his present position. There were as many armed soldiers milling around the project as there were workers. A rough calculation would have to do.
Besides, the distance was, what, only two and a half football fields? Almost a gimme in his trade.
Slowly, he moved his head to make sure someone had not wandered into his area. Certain he was alone, he adjusted the scope to 250 yards. Now he was thankful for the suffocating stillness around him. The slightest breeze could cause a millimeter or so of deviation, which, at this distance, could turn a kill into a miss.
He tried not to fret about the ammunition. Ordinarily, he loaded his own, weighing both projectile and powder carefully to ensure uniformity with practice rounds and to be careful the brass casing was perfectly crimped. The tiniest of cracks in the seal around the lead could diminish muzzle velocity and arbitrarily increase the parabola that is the path of all bullets. There had been no time for self-loading or practice.
He almost succeeded in comforting himself that for once a kill was not imperative.
But why shoot Bugunda at all?
Though certainly villainous, he posed no threat to Jason or the United States. Jason had been trained on the basic level of all military — a step-by-step suspension of morality inculcated since birth: Kill the other guy before he kills you, the basic credo of the combat soldier. From there it was a short transition to kill before your opponent has the chance to kill you. Not exactly a major step. Next came the leap of killing the enemy simply because he is the enemy, not because he poses an immediate threat, the moral justification of the long-range killers, artillery, bombs, missiles, the snipers. Anyone who kills at a range beyond his sight. Then the final abrogation of civilized society’s normal mores: letting others’ decisions determine who is, in fact, the enemy and therefore subject to extermination. Once that process is complete, the soul’s aversion to the slaughter of one’s fellow human beings is suspended and those who make a profession of it feel a high, a sense of Olympus-dwelling superiority that dwarfs mere drugs.
That is why killing can become addictive.
Jason had realized all of this but his retirement from the military had been motivated not by a sense of what might or might not be moral but by the opportunity to spend his time in other pursuits, time with Laurin, painting. But 9/11 had changed all that. The rage he had felt at the loss of his wife, followed within days of contact by Momma and her shadowy organization, had been a perfect channel for his feeling of impotence to protect the woman he had loved. The chance for some measure of revenge too sweet to bypass. The money — lots of money — was a distant second in motivation. Once he had participated in the assassination or capture of half a dozen Islamic terrorists, the line between them and their allies blurred. You were either against the extreme Muslim world or part of it. Had Maria and her aversion to any form of violence not come into his life, he supposed he would have been a Narcom “contractor” until his palsied hands could no longer hold a rifle steady.
Before he could linger on the thought, a van pulled into the square scattering children and raising a cloud of dust. The dish on top signaled its purpose as a TV truck. He watched a crew of four unload equipment and set up cameras and klieg lights as finishing touches were applied to the platform.
He was so intent on observing the television crew, he almost missed it: a light impact with the ground nearby, felt more than heard.
Jason froze, reducing his breathing to short, shallow gulps of the humid air. He was thankful he had taken the time to complete filling in the sniper’s blanket, his only defense. With it over him, he was indistinguishable from the ground around him.
Then he heard a voice — a grunting, guttural language he did not understand. And he didn’t need to. Someone was scouting the area to make sure it was secure. The fact he had spoken indicated more than one, probably a patrol.
As though to confirm the guess, a boot planted itself less than a foot from Jason’s face. He did not dare look up. The light reflecting from his eyes could give him away. Instead, Jason slowed his breathing even more and suppressed the sudden urge to urinate. There was another voice, this one to his right. For whatever reason, the patrol had stopped literally right next to him.