Target America: A Sniper Elite Novel (10 page)

19

CHICAGO

Crosswhite and Tuckerman sat in a holding cell in one of the local police precincts now being utilized by the 82
nd
Airborne as a forward operating base. On the front of the building was a sign that read Fort Apache. They had been cooling their heels there for the last eight hours, and Crosswhite was beginning to wonder what the hell was going on. It shouldn’t have taken more than a few hours for the Pentagon to renounce them for the liars they were and order them turned over to the Chicago police. The division was preparing to withdraw from the city by order of the president, so it was remotely possible that he and Tuckerman would just be left behind for the police to take charge of when they reoccupied the building. Still, it was odd that the major in command of the FOB hadn’t come to tell them what was going on or even just to chew their asses for having lied. He’d been a pretty big prick upon their arrival.

The guards who checked in on them from time to time claimed to know nothing.

Crosswhite let go of the bars and turned to look at Tuckerman,
who sat on his bunk against the wall, clearly unhappy in the knowledge that he was destined to spend the rest of his life sleeping on such a bed. “Does this make any sense to you? We should have heard by now.”

Tuckerman looked up at him. “We’re not exactly a priority, Dan. We’re just a couple of two-bit criminals. Be careful you don’t go believing your own bullshit.”

Crosswhite frowned. “That’s not the point.”

Tuckerman smirked. “As if there is a point. Sit down, will ya? You’re making me nervous. What’s your hurry, anyhow? You’re gonna spend the rest of your life in a fucking cell. At least here we don’t have to put up with anybody’s bullshit.”

“I ain’t giving up that easy,” Crosswhite said. “The next time they open this door, we’re making our move. We may not get away, but we can at least go down fighting.”

“Not me,” Tuckerman said. “I didn’t get into this to kill GIs. I did the crime. I’ll do the time.” He tilted his head back against the wall. “Wonder if anybody will ever find that money. Maybe it’ll still be there if we ever get out. If I get out first, I’ll leave your half.”

“You’re fucking dreaming,” Crosswhite said. “They’ll never let us out. People are dead, remember? And it doesn’t matter they were shit bags. The law’s the law.”

“Yeah, but we also saved that little girl. We might get parole in twenty or thirty years.”

Crosswhite rolled his eyes and turned to grip the bars again. “Hey!” he shouted. “We need some food back here, guys!”

A steel door opened, and the sound of boots on concrete came echoing from around the corner. Sergeant Naples appeared and stood staring at him. “Guess what,” he said.

Crosswhite stared back. “Don’t tell me . . . the bomb went off in some other city.”

Naples shook his head. “I made some calls of my own. Turns out you’re not even active duty anymore. Word is you got run out of Delta.”

Crosswhite let out a heavy sigh and turned to lie down on his bunk, putting his boots up on the bars. “So what’s that tell ya?”

Naples scratched his head. “Tells me the brass musta been pretty
pissed about you getting the Medal of Honor for making them look bad.”

“None of it was as it appeared, believe me.” Crosswhite laced his fingers behind his head and lay staring up at the ceiling. “Why don’t you do us a solid, Nipples, and unlock that door before you guys pull out, huh? You got my word we won’t make a move until after you’re gone.” He lifted his head. “Don’t just leave us to the local yahoos.”

Naples shook his head. “You’ll be gone long before we pull out. We just got word your CO is on the way to pick you up.”

Crosswhite stole a startled glance at Tuckerman and sat up on the bed, turning to put his boots on the floor. “Come again?”

“About an hour ago, Major Byard got a call from some guy named Pope back in Langley. I’m guessing you know him? Anyhow, Byard still can’t believe you guys are actually attached to SOG.” This was the Special Operations Group of the CIA. “I told him last night you were the real deal, but he didn’t believe me, and now he’s out there feeling stupid.” He chuckled, clearly enjoying the major’s embarrassment. “This Pope said to tell you your orders have changed and that you’ll remain here under protective custody until a Colonel Shannon arrives.”

At that, Tuckerman turned and put his boots on the floor. “
Colonel
Shannon.”

“Right,” Naples said, shaking a cigarette loose from a box of Marlboros and lighting up. “I don’t know what the hell your original orders were, but it doesn’t sound like SOG is too happy with you two. Byard was ordered to keep you under lock and key until the colonel gets here.”

Crosswhite stared across at Tuckerman. “What do you wanna bet the asshole shows up looking like Sam Trautman from
Rambo
? Just to rub my nose it.”

Tuckerman went slack in the jaw. “He wouldn’t.”

“Fuck he wouldn’t.” Crosswhite bummed a smoke from Naples and lay back on the bunk again, resting an arm across his forehead. “One thing is for sure . . . if Pope pulled him off that ranch of his and away from Marie, you can bet your jockstrap he won’t show up here happy.”

“What the fuck is going on anyway?” Naples wanted to know. “I put my ass on the line for you guys last night. The least you can do is cut me in.”

Crosswhite sat back up, drawing deeply from the cigarette. “Nipples, I’d love to cut you in—but I have absolutely no idea what the fuck is goin’ on.”

Naples grinned at him, clearly believing that he was lying. “You SOG guys are all alike. Sorry I can’t let you out, Captain.” He turned to walk away.

“Hey, how about a couple of MREs?” Crosswhite asked. “I don’t know where you’ve been the past eight hours, but these jamokes haven’t given us anything to eat all day.”

Naples chuckled. “I’ll see what I can do. Sit tight.”

When the door slammed, Tuckerman opened his mouth to speak, but Crosswhite sat up and put a finger to his lips. “Be careful, Conman. The gods are obviously smiling on us. Let’s not risk saying anything to piss them off.”

Tuckerman nodded, getting up to take a leak in the stainless steel toilet mounted to the wall between the bunks. “Roger that,” he said over his shoulder. “I do feel safe saying this much . . . if you hadn’t found that little girl—well, I ain’t religious, but I figure some things were just meant to be. Know what I mean?”

Crosswhite nodded, exhaling smoke through his nostrils as he considered how jacked up his life had been ever since receiving the Medal. “All I know for sure is that I’ve felt like a runaway train ever since I got rotated back from the Sandbox—with no way to put on the brakes.” He drew hard from the cigarette, wanting to alleviate his surging anxiety. “Now there’s a loose nuke to worry about, we’re locked up in this fucking cage, and
Colonel
Shannon is apparently coming to save our asses.” He flicked an ash into the walkway. “Fuck, you must be right. How is this
not
meant to be?”

20

MONTANA

Trooper Trent Logan was a badge-heavy cop, no two ways about it, and Montana wasn’t exactly a crime-saturated state, so he treated every traffic infraction, no matter how minor, like the Lufthansa heist of 1978. Post command received at least five complaints a month from motorists traveling the stretch of I-90 between Billings and Bozeman, and Logan had taken a lot of ribbing during his first year on the job for being such a gung-ho rookie. But after hitting the mother lode one Sunday afternoon, he received what he considered to be the ultimate vindication.

He stopped a seventy-year-old woman driving a yellow, near-mint-condition 1985 Cadillac Eldorado for a simple “lines and lanes” violation just outside of Big Timber. No other state trooper in the nation would have stopped her that day for swerving to miss a chunk of splintered two-by-four on the highway, but Trooper Logan was no other state trooper. He lived by a code, and that code meant there was no room on his interstate for road raging old ladies, no matter what their excuses. So he pulled her over and cited her for the lines and lanes violation, brusquely admonishing her to abide by the traffic laws of the
sovereign state of Montana. Then, as he was giving back her license, he noticed for the first time that she was supposed to be wearing corrective lenses while driving, and he asked where her glasses were.

“Oh, I broke them a few days ago,” the lady said. “The new ones will be ready next week. Here, see?” She dug the LensCrafters receipt from her purse and offered it to him.

But Trooper Logan had no interest in receipts. A crime had been committed.

“Ma’am, you’re driving while impaired. Please step out of the vehicle.” He placed her under arrest and cuffed her hands behind her back. Then he put her into the backseat of his cruiser and called for a “hook.” It was during the vehicle inventory, which he conducted during his wait for the tow truck, that he discovered a gym bag containing ten pounds of methamphetamine in the trunk.

The elderly lady was successfully indicted two weeks later on the felony-one charge of transporting with intent to distribute a “super bulk” amount of a controlled substance—a crime that would likely ensure that she spend the rest of her life in prison—and then Logan went on a tear. Convinced that every motorist in Montana was running drugs, no matter how innocent his or her appearance, he began routinely making traffic stops for infractions as petty as one mile an hour over the speed limit, never hesitating to call for the canine unit on the slightest suspicion. His fellow troopers quickly grew tired of this beyond-gung-ho approach, and the friendly ribbing turned into open and often unpleasant criticism. Trooper Logan didn’t pay them much attention, though. As far as he was concerned, he was operating on a whole different level of law enforcement, and if his fellow officers couldn’t appreciate that, screw ’em.

So when he clocked a green SUV traveling in the opposite direction doing seventy-two in a seventy-mile-an-hour zone, Logan didn’t hesitate to hit the strobes and “shoot the median.” The SUV was already pulling over when he cleared the grassy median and got the cruiser back onto the highway, but this didn’t stop him from giving the siren a short burst as he pulled up. He stepped out of the cruiser and adjusted the brim of his Smokey the Bear hat to eyebrow level as he strutted up on the passenger side of the vehicle, the heel of his hand resting on the butt of his Sig Sauer P229 in .357 caliber.

“Good evening, sir,” he said in an impersonal tone of voice. “Driver’s license, registration, and proof of insurance, please.”

The fifty-three-year-old man behind the wheel handed him a German passport, an international driver’s permit, and the rental agreement for the car.

Trooper Logan had never seen a German passport, nor had he seen an IDP. “Do you know why I stopped you, Mr. Jaeger?”

Nikolai Kashkin looked at him with his pale blue eyes and smiled. “I assume I must have been speeding,” he said with a German accent.

“Do you know how fast you were going, sir?”

Kashkin shook his head. “I’m sure you know better than I, officer. I’m not about to argue with you.”

Logan especially distrusted the really cooperative ones, believing that most people hated cops. “You’re a long way from home, Mr. Jaeger. What brings you to the United States?”

“I’m making a tour of your national parks,” Kashkin said enthusiastically. “I’m on my way up to Glacier now.”

“Uh-huh,” Logan said, paging through the passport, attempting to make heads or tails of the many stamps and dates. “How long do you plan to be in the US, sir?”

“A couple of months,” Kashkin said. “Possibly longer. Mount Rushmore was closed when I tried to see it a few days ago, and I would like very much to see that before I return home.” He had actually only just heard of the monument’s closing over the radio the hour before.

“Well, it might be a while,” Logan said. “I’m sure you’ve heard that terrorists have smuggled a nuclear weapon into the country. Rushmore’s been closed as a precaution.”

“Yes, that’s very terrible,” Kashkin said sadly. He thought it insane that anyone could believe he would waste the weapon on a useless rock in the middle of nowhere, but he did enjoy hearing over the radio that thousands of American tourists were being disappointed all across the country due to the closing of so many national monuments.

“Wait here, sir.” Logan returned to his cruiser and sat behind the wheel, digging out a reference manual to foreign passports and identification from the bottom of his gear bag sitting on the passenger seat.
So far he had only ever used the manual to look for reasons to hassle Canadian tourists, whom he often referred to as—quite cleverly, in his opinion—“Mexicans who spoke good English.”

The German passport was three years old and appeared valid when compared with the example in the manual. The IDP, however, was another matter. There were a number of different examples of these in the manual, and the example of the German-issued IDP didn’t match the one that Mr. Hans Hartmann Jaeger was carrying. Most US law enforcement officers would have taken into account that the manual was three years old and therefore outdated by current anticounterfeiting technology, but, here again, very few US law enforcement officers operated at Trooper Logan’s level of professionalism.

Since hitting the mother lode back in April, he’d succeeded in convincing himself that he had a sixth sense about people, and this evening he believed that sixth sense was telling him there was something wrong about this kraut tourist. He wanted to search the German’s vehicle and find out what he was hiding, but he didn’t have probable cause, so he decided to ask for permission, knowing from his extended experience with harassing Canadians that many tourists didn’t realize—as many Americans didn’t realize—they had the right to refuse a search request in the absence of probable cause or reasonable suspicion.

He left Kashkin’s ersatz identification on the seat and walked up on the driver’s side of the SUV. “Mr. Jaeger, do you mind if I search your vehicle? It’s just routine, sir; a service we like to perform on all traffic stops after sundown.”

Kashkin went on alert, seeing the veiled suspicion on the trooper’s face. He knew there was nothing wrong with his passport or his IDP, both of them issued legitimately by the German government under the name of a dead German citizen whose identity he had managed to assume with the help of a fellow RSMB member working inside the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The SUV was rented with a legitimate credit card and the vehicle properly insured. So what was making this young cowboy so distrustful? Had there been a leak somewhere? Was the US government onto him specifically? Or was this something else? He would have to find out one way or another before continuing with his mission.

“I don’t understand,” he said with a confused smile.

“It’s just a service we like to perform, sir. The same service we like to perform for everyone after sundown.”

A service? That made no sense at all to Kashkin. “May I get out of the car while you perform this
service
, officer?”

“Yes. That makes it a lot safer for everyone, sir.” Logan opened the door for the older man. “I’ll give you a seat in the back of my cruiser, so you don’t get hit by a car. It won’t take long at all, sir.”

They walked back toward the cruiser with its strobes flashing in the failing light, and Kashkin began to feel the tightening in his chest again over his heart. He couldn’t allow himself to be locked in the back of the police car. When the trooper found the guns in the back, he would be trapped with no hope of escape.

When they reached the front of the cruiser, the trooper took him by the arm. “First, I’m going to need to pat you down, sir, for your safety as well as mine. Do you have anything sharp or otherwise dangerous anywhere on your person, sir?”

Kashkin patted the breast pocket of his shirt. “Only this mechanical pencil.”

“That’s fine, sir. Go ahead and place that on the hood for me.”

“Certainly.” Kashkin took the pencil from his pocket, and with blinding speed jabbed Logan in the eye with it.

Logan reeled away, grabbing his eye with both hands. Kashkin lunged forward, delivering him a right-hand blow to the side of the neck. Logan landed heavily on his knees, severely stunned by the abrupt interruption of blood and oxygen to his brain, and crashed over onto his side, crushing his Smokey the Bear hat.

Kashkin kicked him in the side of the head to send the hat flying and dragged him by the gun belt around the blind side of the cruiser, where he slugged him in the temple. Then he used the trooper’s own handcuffs to secure his hands behind his back and took the pistol from its holster, concealing it beneath his shirt as he returned to the SUV. He snatched the keys from the ignition and opened the back, taking out a folding fighting knife and returning to where Trooper Logan was struggling to sit up, bleeding from his left eye.

“Stop right there!” Logan ordered, seeing the open black blade in
Kashkin’s hand, and scrabbling to get his feet beneath him. “You just stop right there! Keep the fuck away from me!”

Kashkin had seen men in the trooper’s situation many times before, completely helpless, completely doomed, and completely refusing to accept it. He pounced on Logan and jammed the blade deep into his inner right thigh, hitting bone and twisting the blade.

Logan shrieked and writhed around beneath Kashkin’s weight, unable to throw him off.

“Tell me what you know about me!” Kashkin demanded. “Tell me everything!”

“I don’t know
anything
about you!” Logan screamed. “Nothing! Get the fuck off of me!”

Kashkin ripped the blade up through the muscle toward Logan’s groin, and Logan let out another horrible shriek. “Tell me what you know,” Kashkin said lustily, “or I will skin you alive.”

The interrogation went on for three loud and bloody minutes before Kashkin was finally satisfied that Logan was nothing more than a nosy American lawman with nothing better to do than pester people out minding their own business. He cut one of the whimpering cop’s carotid arteries and left him to bleed out in the dark. Then he retrieved his passport from the cruiser, ripping the dash cam from its mount and switching off the strobes. Within a minute, Kashkin was gone up the interstate.

In his final seconds of life, it never occurred to Logan that he’d brought this incident upon himself. It did occur to him, however, that the vicious man who had just carved up both of his legs and his groin would probably never be caught. He would never be caught because Logan had long stopped calling in most of his petty traffic stops, wanting to cut down on being ridiculed by his fellow officers. This meant the dispatch center had received no information about Kashkin or his vehicle, and without the dashboard camera, there would be no evidence as to who had committed the murder.

Logan’s last thoughts were of self-pity and under appreciation.