LITMIR.BIZ

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of a button through a tube in its 5.5-inch blade of razor-edged surgical steel. Upon release, forty cubic inches of gas were injected into the target’s flesh at minus sixty degrees Fahrenheit, expanding to basketball size and instantly freezing soft tissue on contact.

      The WASP was created as a self-defense weapon for divers confronted by sharks. Injection of the freezing gas not only killed the shark, but also caused it to rise at dangerous speed, bursting open as it reached the surface and distracting other predators while the diver escaped, forgotten.

      The knife retailed for six hundred dollars, but Casale’s hadn’t cost him anything. One of Don Romano’s thieves had stolen a case of them back in July, and Casale had appropriated two for himself, with enough gas cartridges to see him through a busy year. He had tried his new toy on a homeless man in San Francisco, two weeks earlier. Police were still puzzling over the case, while tabloid journalists beat the bushes for satanic cultists or black-market-organ harvesters.

      After this night, the FBI would have a better handle on the mystery, but what of it? They might know how, and even why, but it would be a stone bitch learning who.

      Casale slipped on the running shoes that he had carried in another plastic bag. He wasn’t taking any chances with a seashell or a piece of glass that might leave blood drops for the Bureau lab rats. No one had his DNA on file so far, but why risk injury and help his enemies at the same time?

      A gliding shadow in the wind-swept night, Casale slowly approached the target, taking one step at a time.

      Hyder, Arizona

      June 14

      HAROUN AL-RACHID SUPPOSED the small town’s name was meant to be a joke. Why else would agents of the U.S. government attempt to hide one of their most important turncoat witnesses in a community called Hyder?

      It was the very sort of arrogance that most disgusted him about Americans, the smug conviction that they were superior in every way. Even their sense of humor was crude and tasteless, heavily dependent on insults directed toward nonwhite minorities or females.

      Since bin Laden had surprised the Americans in 2001, Muslims had become targets of American humor. Al-Rachid understood the impulse—in truth, one of his own favorite jokes involved an American missionary and a priapic camel—but he still believed that the Great Satan needed to learn more humility.

      This night, in his own small way, he was happy to help.

      The desert outside Hyder, Arizona, bore no visible resemblance to that of his Saudi homeland. It lacked the massive, ever-changing dunes of perfect, almost silken, sun-baked sand. Instead, it was a place of grit and gravel, hard soil creased and creviced like an ancient reptile’s skin. It sprouted cacti, Joshua trees, mesquite and tumbleweeds, those prickly, erratic travelers that still made al-Rachid’s driver flinch each time once bounced across the two-lane road in front of them.

      “Be careful,” al-Rachid ordered. “The police are everywhere.”

      The driver acknowledged his order in Arabic, keeping his eyes on the highway revealed by their headlights.

      In fact, except for those he’d come to kill, al-Rachid doubted that he would find another lawman in the area this evening. There was a one-man sheriff’s substation in Hyder, and the district had its own highway patrolman, but al-Rachid had been assured that the sheriff’s deputy went home at 6:00 p.m., except in cases of emergency, while the patrolman—called a state trooper—supervised four hundred miles of rural highway during his eight-hour shift. The odds against encountering him accidentally at any given place or time were higher than al-Rachid himself could calculate.

      Upon arrival at their destination, it would be a different story. Al-Rachid and his two companions had been sent to kill one man, but he was guarded by at least four others, armed and trained.

      No problem.

      FBI agents—and all American police, in fact—were taught to save lives first and kill only in the utmost extremity. Nothing in their experience prepared them to match wits with dedicated warriors fielded by the Sword of Allah.

      They would learn that lesson this night, to their ultimate sorrow.

      Al-Rachid used a penlight to review the road map folded in his lap. He had the turnoff clearly marked, a thick black arrow pointing from the narrow highway to the right, or east.

      “One mile,” he told the driver. Turning toward the soldier in the backseat, he commanded, “Goggles.”

      Without answering, the man reached into a duffel bag on the seat beside him, drawing out two pairs of night-vision goggles. Al-Rachid took them both, placed one atop his map and held the other ready as his driver neared the access road that led to their intended target.

      “Now,” al-Rachid announced. The driver switched his headlights off, turned slowly off the highway to his right and stopped a few yards down the unpaved road. Brake lights glowed ruby-red behind them, but al-Rachid could not prevent it, simply offering a prayer that his enemies were less than vigilant.

      He passed a pair of bulky goggles to the driver, then put on his own, adjusting the head straps until the weight was fairly balanced. Every time he wore night-vision gear for any length of time, al-Rachid wound up with aching muscles in his neck and shoulders, but it was a minor price to pay under the circumstances.

      Victory was now within his grasp.

      He swiveled in his seat, confirming that the backseat gunner had his goggles on, the AR-18 folding-stock assault rifle held ready in his hands. Two more identical weapons lay on the floor at al-Rachid’s feet.

      Given a choice, he would have picked Kalashnikovs, but in the present circumstances Armalites had been the best rifles available. They chambered 5.56 mm NATO rounds, slightly larger than the AK-74’s standard 5.45 mm Soviet cartridge, but the difference in practiced hands was minimal, and the Armalite’s larger 40-round magazine gave the weapons superior firepower.

      Loaded with armor-piercing rounds, as these were, the rifles should defeat any Kevlar or similar protective apparel worn by the target or his bodyguards. In fact, the slugs should slice through body armor like a heated knife through cheese.

      “Three-quarters of a mile,” al-Rachid reminded his wheelman. The driver knew that, but reminders did no harm, and there was no objection. As they drove along the unpaved access road, raising a plume of dust concealed by midnight darkness, al-Rachid dropped his map and lifted the twin rifles from the car’s floorboard.

      They dared not drive directly to the house itself. Even with the headlights off, that would alert the guards and destroy their advantage of surprise. Al-Rachid would stop his driver halfway to the desert bungalow, then proceed on foot across the arid landscape to their goal.

      With luck, he hoped to catch the target and at least one of his bodyguards asleep. The agents had to sleep and eat in shifts, with two or three of them remaining on alert around the clock.

      But how alert?

      Al-Rachid smiled as the car slowed, coasting to a halt.

      A few more moments, and he would find out.

      Crooked Island, Florida

      ARMAND CASALE MET the first guard when he was still fifty yards from the house. He was surprised to find the middle-aged FBI agent at large after midnight, prowling the grounds while a chill breeze blew in from the gulf, but Casale supposed that even G-men got bored sometimes.

      The agent had a riot-model shotgun, but he carried it in one hand, dangling beside his leg, its muzzle pointed toward the earth. Even if it was cocked, to fire the weapon Casale’s enemy would have to shift his hold, relocate his right hand to clutch the pistol grip and let his index finger slip inside the trigger guard.

      Casale didn’t plan to give him time for that.

      He crouched in shadow, perfectly immobile, scarcely breathing, as the roving sentry passed his hiding place. Casale saw the Kevlar vest his adversary wore, without a jacket to conceal it, and it didn’t worry him.

      Ironically,

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