LITMIR.BIZ

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most small-arms fire, they offered no significant protection against blades.

      Casale gave his target three last strides, then rose from hiding, rushed upon him from behind and clamped his left hand tight against the agent’s mouth. His right hand drove the WASP’s blade through the Kevlar vest, which offered no more physical resistance than a heavy overcoat.

      At once, Casale triggered the release of freezing CO2 into the G-man’s body cavity. The icy gas expanded instantly, traumatically displacing heart and lungs and arresting their performance in the time it took Casale to withdraw his blade. The dead man bucked and quivered in Casale’s grasp, then suddenly went limp and slumped facedown in the sand.

      Casale reloaded the WASP, replacing its spent cartridge with a fresh one, then moved on. So far, his mission was on schedule, going off without a hitch.

      He met no other lookouts between the killzone and the house. Approaching through the darkness, he saw lighted windows with their curtains drawn against the night, a television flickering from one room where the other lights had been extinguished.

      No one saw Casale draw his silenced pistol from its plastic bag. No cameras scanned the house or yard, an oversight that would rebound against someone in Washington the next day, when the night’s news broke. Armand Casale circled the safehouse clockwise, searching curtained windows for a gap that would permit a glimpse inside.

      He returned to his starting point without a break.

      If nothing else, the FBI was good with drapes.

      Casale didn’t know the walking sentry’s schedule, but he guessed that thirty minutes would be stretching it. How long had the G-man been prowling when they met? It was impossible to say.

      Impossible, as well, for him to guess the knocks or other recognition signals that had been arranged between the agents guarding his primary target. Locating the safehouse had been difficult enough, and costly, but his sponsor didn’t have the juice to penetrate the local FBI itself and pick its brains.

      No matter. Casale would make his way inside the house by any means required.

      First he would try the doors.

      They should be locked, of course. Locking the doors and windows was the most basic of all security precautions. Still, even the best-trained sentries sometimes made mistakes, and if the agents in the house expected their companion to return shortly…

      Casale tried the back door first, considering it the more likely choice of sentries going out to search the woods and dunes. Like many seaside homes, the safehouse’s front door faced inland, while its back door and rear windows faced the sea.

      Casale curled gloved fingers around the knob and tested it.

      It turned.

      Casale held his breath, expecting shrill alarms, a shouted warning, even gunfire.

      Nothing happened.

      Following the Walther’s lead, he stepped into a well-lit but empty kitchen.

      He crossed the room, stepped into a darker corridor that branched left and right. The television sounds came from his left, presumably one of the bedrooms. Turning to his right, he followed the drone of voices speaking quietly but with no apparent effort at concealment.

      Midnight was a quiet time, and Death was near.

      Casale stepped into what would’ve been the living room and found two agents sprawled in easy chairs, debating some fine point of the derivative team sport Americans called football. One G-man faced the doorway where Casale stood; the other had his back turned toward his assassin.

      The first man lurched forward, reaching for his gun. The sudden forward motion brought his face to meet Casale’s silent slug. Casale barely registered the splat of blood and brain against the chair’s upholstery.

      He fired again before the second man could rise and turn, his neck and torso twisted as he tried to draw his pistol, strained to glimpse his enemy.

      Too late.

      The second bullet drilled his temple and kept going, spilling any final thoughts across the cheap rust-colored carpet. When he fell, the impact of his body was a solid, final sound.

      Two left.

      Casale doubled back along the hallway, slightly worried that some noise might have alerted the safehouse survivors. He tried the first bedroom and caught the last G-man asleep, blinking defensively against the spill of light before a bullet sent him to dreamland forever.

      That left one.

      Casale knew his primary target wouldn’t have a weapon. That was strictly, fatally forbidden by the WITSEC code. Only the guardians were armed, trusted to sacrifice themselves on the behalf of those they were assigned to watch.

      Now, with the sacrifice complete, the target was defenseless.

      He half expected that the last door would be locked, some vestige of a challenge for his effort, but the knob turned easily. Casale stepped across the threshold, recognized his target instantly from photos he had memorized.

      The man lay on his back in bed. At the intrusion, he sat up.

      “Vincent Onofre,” Casale said. Not a question, simply making sure.

      The target’s mouth sagged open. “Who the hell are you?”

      “Friend of a friend,” Casale said, and shot the traitor twice. One bullet through the forehead, and another through the temple as he slumped back dead, against his stack of pillows.

      Done.

      It was a good night’s work, with one last swim ahead of him before Casale made for home.

      Hyder, Arizona

      THREE MEN COULD NOT surround a house, per se, but they could cover it sufficiently by staking out three corners of the building. Each shooter thus had unobstructed views of two sides, cutting off any attempt by occupants to flee unseen.

      Haroun al-Rachid claimed the northeast corner for himself, watching the north—or front—and east sides of the safehouse. Umarah, his driver, had the southeast corner, covering the east and south sides, while Tabari—on the southwest corner—watched the west and south.

      Perfect.

      Two lights were burning in the safehouse. One gleamed dully through a smallish frosted pane that had to have been the bathroom window, while another shone through crooked drapes and offered sliver glimpses of the kitchen. There were no signs of movement, but al-Rachid assumed that one or two guards had to still be awake.

      His plan lacked subtlety, but had the virtue of surprise and overwhelming force. He would not give his enemies a chance to fight or run. Alert or dreaming, they were bound to die.

      Besides the Armalite AR-18s, al-Rachid’s small arsenal included three LAW rockets, disposable bazookas featuring a lightweight plastic launching tube that held a 66 mm armor-piercing rocket with a high-explosive payload in its nose. Deemed obsolete against most modern tanks, the rockets still served well enough against civilian vehicles and homes.

      As in the present case.

      Al-Rachid’s companions had been trained to use the LAWs, advised that they would each have one shot only and had to make it count. Thermite grenades would follow the initial blasts, and they would stay to watch the house burn to its foundation, greeting any stunned survivors with their Armalites.

      Al-Rachid released his launcher’s safety pin and drew it out to full length, balanced it across his shoulder as he aimed. The AR-18 rifle lay beside his right foot, in the sand, with the white-phosphorus grenade.

      He armed the LAW, sighted on the window he had chosen for his target, six feet to the left of the front door, and pressed the trigger. Simultaneously, his two men released their rockets, warheads speeding toward the house with tails of fire.

      Glass offered no significant resistance to the rockets. They were set to detonate on impact only with a solid wall, inside

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