Upon entering the room, he had assembled the rifle, a round ready in the chamber. He pulled the dresser over to a position about three feet inside the open window, so the muzzle of the weapon didn't extend outside, a sure giveaway and sign of an amateur. He was seated in a chair, the stock of the rifle against his shoulder.
He put his eye back on the scope and scanned the well-lit street below. There had been no sign yet of the target.
The target. Vaughn considered that term. Royce's logic notwithstanding, he knew he was now far out on the thin ice of covert operations. He had no idea who the target was, why he was killing him, or whether that limo would actually be there to take him back to the airfield. And he wasn't even sure which of those problems should be his priority.
One of the first lessons Vaughn had learned in his Special Forces training was to expect the worst, and in this case the worst was that he had been abandoned here. However, he saw no reason why Royce would do that – after all, it did make sense that this was a test to gauge his abilities and commitment to Section 8 in order to join the team.
Vaughn mentally shrugged, still watching the street. He'd been in worse places. At least this was Japan, and if push came to shove, he could try to make it out on his own – although, as he thought about it, he realized he was here illegally, with no passport, no identification, no money, on a mission to kill a Japanese national.
Not good, but doable.
As long as he was on the good-bad track, he considered something else: he had never even heard a whisper of a unit called Section 8. And he'd conducted several top secret, real-world missions for the United States in various places around the world. In a way, that was good, because it meant the unit's cover was solid. But as with all the other aspects of his current situation, it was also bad, because he was operating off very scanty intelligence.
The sniper rifle felt heavy in his hands, even though most of the weight was supported by the bipod on the dresser and the stock pressed against his shoulder.
He lightly ran his finger over that edge, experiencing the yawning darkness he'd felt seeing his brother-in-law's body. He folded the picture, slid it back in his pocket, and checked his watch. Twenty-five minutes left in the target window. He picked the rifle back up and scanned the street, trying to shut out all thoughts other than the mission at hand.
Still, there was a part of him that hoped the target window would pass without having to shoot and -
The subject walked out of a building, exactly as in the surveillance photographs. He was flanked by two men, both with the hard look of professional security personnel, and seemed to be in a rush. A car with tinted windows pulled to the curb and he was headed for it.
No time to consider.
Vaughn centered the reticules on the target's head, his finger on the trigger. He exhaled, felt the rhythm of his own heartbeat, and in the pause between beats he smoothly pulled back on the trigger.
The round hit the target in the head, snapping the man back with a spray of blood and brain. Vaughn automatically shifted the scope to the guard closest to the target and almost pulled the trigger, but stopped.
His orders had been to kill the one man, not anyone else. He broke the rifle down, shoving it in the case. Then he left the room, walking quickly, taking the rear fire stairs. When he reached the door leading to the alley, he paused for a second, taking a deep breath, then shoved it open.
The limousine was exactly where it was supposed to be, engine running, rear door open and waiting for him.
Done with Foster and confident the "simulation" was on track, Royce slipped out the back. He slowly walked down the long tunnel to the outside world. From the rack just inside the tunnel entrance, he took a set of keys for one of the Humvees parked outside. He climbed in and started the large four-wheel-drive vehicle. He drove off Fort Shafter and turned to the north, toward the ridge of mountains along Oahu's west side.
The road went from four lanes to a well-maintained two lanes to two lanes of dilapidated hardtop to dirt as he got farther north and west. He took a turn onto an overgrown dirt trail, trees and bushes on either side scraping the sides of the wide Humvee. The path wound upward, traversing back and forth along the steep side of a mountain. Several times Royce had to back up and cut the wheel hard to make the sharp turns. It had been an easier drive in a smaller Jeep. The wider wheelbase of the Humvee compelled him to edge his way in between trees lining the track. Sometimes, he reflected, improvement wasn't better.
He finally broke out of the foliage into a clearing near the crest of the hill. A Land Rover Defender was parked there. Royce smiled as he saw the other four-wheel-drive vehicle. It was painted gray and tricked out with all sorts of useful additions, such as snorkel air intake, roof rack, winch, extra gas cans, shovel, and axe. Everything the consummate four-wheel-drive enthusiast would want. He had been in that vehicle on trips all over the island. It had also worked well in picking up older female tourists for drives to remote beaches on the island, off the beaten track. The driver of the Defender was sitting on the roof rack, a pair of binoculars trained to the north. Royce got out of the Humvee and walked over.
"Have a seat," David said, tapping the metal grate next to him. He was seated on a piece of foam rubber, and he slid another onto the rack.
Royce climbed up the narrow ladder to the roof and took the indicated spot. The view was magnificent. They could see the ocean to the north and west and even the faint outline of the next island in the chain.
They sat in silence for several minutes. David finally put the binoculars down.
"How's the op going?"
"Slocum is perfect for his role to run the simulation," Royce said. David nodded.
"We shoehorned him in there a year ago."
Royce wasn't surprised. Headquartered here in Hawaii, David had run operations here for the
Organization for over fifty years. The two had worked together for the past two decades, ever since
Royce had been recruited by David into the Organization after several tours in the military.
"Foster is flaky," Royce added.
"I had to motivate him."
David laughed.
"I figured he'd need a little stimulation. Short attention span."
He stopped laughing.
"He's expendable."
"I figured as much."
That gave Royce an idea how important this Section 8 mission was: if they were willing to get rid of Foster, that was a significant cutout being removed.
"The Jolo Island thing by Delta was a major screw-up," David said.
"Was it?" Royce asked, earning a hard look from his boss, then a laugh.
"Always the suspicious one," David said.
"That's a good trait in this line of work."
Royce didn't expect David to give him any information on the botched raid. As a consummate professional, he would never speak "out of school."
"How's the team?" David asked.
"They have the skills needed if they all make it."
"Carefully worded answer," David noted.
"I question their motivations," Royce said.
David's eyebrows rose.
"Their motivations are what we use to get them to do the mission."
"A good fighting unit is cohesive and shares the same motivations," Royce said.
"This is a collection of fuck-ups and failures – and that's what we're using to get them to do this."
"It's not like they have to win World War Three," David said.
"They've got one mission."
"So they're expendable?" Royce thought of Orson's comment while looking at Layla Tai's file.
"We're all expendable."
"You know what I mean."
"Yes, I do."
Royce's satphone buzzed and he pulled it out, checking the text message.