Free Kill Zone: A Sniper Novel by Jack Coughlin, Donald A. Davis Page A

knew the capabilities of a good operator and waved away the question. “The firing will not be very heavy, and if he is any good at his job, he won’t have much trouble being among those getting to the right house.”
    “Would he actually do it? Shoot the general?” asked Senator Reed.
    “Only if it was a direct order from his commander-in-chief in the White House,” said Buchanan. “When the last members of the rescue team are being wiped out, the sniper becomes both our insurance policy and a fall guy for any blame. Then he is also taken out. End of a tragic fiasco.”
    “You boys can take care of that, Gordon. All I care about is that Middleton not show up before my committee.” The senator brought the conversation back to center point. “He could wreck everything.”
    “Excellent. Excellent,” said Gates. “So that brings us to decision time on Operation Premier. Senator?”
    “It has to be done,” said Reed.
    “Don’t go vague on us, Ruth Hazel. Say exactly what you mean, not some political bullshit. You agree that we will prepare the Shark Teams for the theater attacks. We must be absolutely plain with each other. After all, the three of us essentially are staging a coup.”
    “Yes,” she replied.
    “Gerald?”
    “Yes. Do it.”
    “Me, too. Yes. It’s unanimous.” He flashed that enigmatic smile again. “Now let’s have a nice dinner and a good bottle of wine to salute this historic creation of New America.”

CHAPTER 11
    KYLE SWANSON WATCHED the television report silently, his arms crossed. Bradley Fucking Middleton! The general’s picture came on the screen, a stock photo of him in full dress uniform and an American flag in the background. It was not a face that Kyle ever enjoyed seeing. Every time they met, something bad seemed to happen, until finally Middleton had tried to cashier Swanson out of the Marines. As the news reader droned on, Kyle’s mind rolled back to his first clash with Middleton years ago during Desert Shield, in the abandoned town of Khafji, on the border between Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
    It had been two days into the new year of 1991, and there was something happening in the black desert night. The growl of engines and the clank of tank treads, out where there was supposed to be nothing but sand. “Multiple heat signatures, Sergeant. More than ten vehicles. Hard to say with this piece-of-shit night vision gear,” the spotter said quietly after looking hard and long through his thermal imaging glasses. “Lots of movement, though.”
    Kyle Swanson pulled the ten-power Unertl scope of his M40A1 sniper rifle to his eye. Nothing but darkness across the border between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. “Call it in. Tell ‘em it sounds like more than just a recon.”
    Iraq had overrun Kuwait, and the Iraqis were not sitting still while an American and international coalition of forces was building up to take it back. Kyle had been a scout-sniper sergeant at the time, heading a two-man observation team hidden between the floorboards of a building at the edge of town. Several other OPs were scattered throughout other buildings, but until now, Saddam Hussein had kept his people out of the area. Boredom had been the biggest enemy.
    A chill crawled up the back of his neck that had nothing to do with the cold temperature. All that noise meant armor. Saddam was about to expand the playing field, and the OPs were right in the path, with the closest friendlies about thirty minutes away, a very long time in a firefight.
    They remained motionless as the mumble of impending battle moved closer, and the first light of dawn brought the startling truth. The sun outlined Iraqi T-62 tanks and a herd of other alphabet armor—MBLTs, tracked personnel carriers on the main chassis of a battle tank; BDRM recon scout vehicles; and the BMPs with anti-armor cannon. A bit of everything. This was no probe, but the advance guard for an entire armored division, and they were already on the outskirts of town,