Violence of Action Read online

  “I agree,” Hamza replied. “We have secure sites in East London, and I will contact you in the next twenty-four hours with more information. And, I have someone watching over you—for your protection as well as the safety of your lovely wife.”

  “Watching over us?” Qasim said, fighting to keep the distaste from his voice. To think that Hamza had been spying on him without his knowledge angered him.

  “Do not worry, Qasim. They are trusted and well-vetted brothers who respect your privacy. But it is imperative that we identify and monitor any British surveillance assets assigned to you.”

  Qasim nodded, but this knowledge made him even more uncomfortable. “Very well. I thank you, brother.”

  “With that, I think our business is finished for tonight,” Hamza said. “I’m keeping you from your lovely wife.”

  “Aren’t you going to stay for dinner?”

  “No. I dropped by unannounced because she needed a reminder of her place in the world, but I make her very nervous. There is nothing more to be gained by tormenting poor Diba with my presence. I have other business to attend to, so I will leave you to each other tonight. Please give Diba my apologies,” the terrorist said and stuck out his hand. “Ma’ al-salāmah.”

  Qasim shook it. “Fī amān Allāh.”

  They parted ways and Qasim walked the several blocks back to his flat lost in thought. For months, he’d been dreading this moment—the moment when Hamza returned to pop the bubble of his fairy-tale life—but now that the needle had done its work, Qasim was surprised to realize that he felt better. All of the pent-up anxiety and uncertainty he’d been carrying inside was gone. He was a soldier of Allah, and it was time he reembraced his calling. On that cue, a snippet of his conversation with Hamza replayed in his mind.

  “What do you do when you feel like you are beginning to lose your way?”

  “I remind myself of what they have taken from me. I remind myself of what I have lost and what I have still yet to gain. Have you forgotten what they have taken from you?”

  In answer, flashbulb images of his father, Saida, and Eshan—each of them smiling lovingly at him—paraded past his mind’s eye.

  “They took everything from me,” he muttered, harnessing all his hate and rage. “I must never forget that.”

  When he reached the tiny courtyard in front of his place, he paused and looked in the front window of the living room which, at just the right angle, offered a straight view into the kitchen where Diba was cooking. She was not a particularly good cook when he married her, but over the past three months, she had immersed herself in YouTube culinary vlogs and become quite skilled at making a handful of dishes. He wondered what she had decided to make for tonight and whether she would be upset when he told her that their impromptu guest had put her to work for nothing. She was a good wife . . .

  With a pitying exhale, he went inside.

  Upon hearing the door shut, Diba turned and greeted him with a brave-faced smile. Her gaze flitted about, however, and when she saw that he was alone she said in their native tongue, “Did Mr. Bijan change his mind? Will he not be dining with us?”

  Qasim shook his head. “He apologizes, but something came up and he was called away.”

  On hearing the news her shoulders sagged with what he could only imagine was relief. “In that case, we’ll have plenty of food for leftovers.”

  He kissed her on the cheek, careful not to lean against her apron which was dusted with flour and dotted with orange spots. “What did you make?”

  “Chicken korma, chana balti, and rice,” she said. “But it is not quite ready. Ten minutes.”

  “Okay, I’m going to go change my clothes and then we can eat.” The look on her face told him she had a question poised on the tip of her tongue but was deciding whether to ask him or not. He decided to answer it for her. “Don’t worry,” he said, turning to leave for the bedroom. “Nothing has changed.”

  “Does that mean you are working with him or not?” she asked, surprising him.

  He paused in the doorway but kept his back to her. “It means nothing has changed.”

  “You promised me you would try to get out,” she said, finding her courage. “Did you try?”

  He hesitated for a long moment and then, to both their surprise, he told her the truth. “No . . . nor do I intend to. This is my life now. Our life. It’s time you accepted that.”

  CHAPTER 7

  fifteen kilometers northeast of mosul dam lake

  kurdistan autonomous region

  duhok, iraq

  0215 local time

  Zain al-Masri, the Lion of Ramadi some still called him, pressed his cheek against the riser on the buttstock of the Russian-made Chukavin sniper rifle. Using the Rayan Roshd Afzar RU120G thermal-night vision rifle scope, he scanned the street below, dragging his targeting reticle to the entrance of the small house with the large walled-in front yard. All was quiet, but that would change soon. The microearbud in his left ear was silent, his spotters with nothing to report. But the SEALs were coming any minute now . . .

  Because they always come.

  He wondered if the American Special Warfare Operators had any idea how predictable they had become. For Zain, who had been in the business of hunting and killing Americans for twenty years, their arrival was as predictable as the rising and setting of the sun. Even the time of the hit, sometime between two and three a.m., was so predictable that he had not settled into his sniper roost on the fifteenth floor of this building until just forty minutes ago. He’d chosen this position quite intentionally, as it offered sufficient height but also a defensive advantage because there were no good countersniper lines to his perch from the other buildings in the area. But he scanned the homes, parks, and buildings out of an abundance of caution anyway—looking for anyone or anything out of place.

  The target house that the SEALs would be striking sat just over a thousand yards away, well within range of his sniper rifle. He switched to higher magnification and then from IR to thermal on the scope, immediately dialing in on the warm-colored signature of the lone sentry pacing in the yard. The poor fool didn’t know he was merely bait for a bigger-picture operation and that he would die tonight in service to the cause.

  Inshallah, such is the way of things.

  He switched the scope back to ambient light and scanned across this road, where the eastern suburb of Duhok looked eerily similar to where he’d grown up. Poor, dirty, low-rise buildings clustered around dirt-covered parks where during the day, kids would kick soccer balls and at night hide behind locked doors. Neighborhoods like this were where he’d spent his time the past twenty years. Neighborhoods like this were the recruitment grounds for tomorrow’s Lion of Ramadi.

  That’s how it had happened to him . . .

  The young Zain al-Masri had once dreamed of being a soccer star—of representing his country in the Olympics. There’d been no high-rises in Zain al-Masri’s childhood Iraq. No city buses, coffee shops, and fancy hotels. These were the types of Western conveniences that led to corruption and the inevitable fall of Iraq to the infidels. After the fall, he’d given up his dream of soccer and joined the tiger cub military training cadre, established by Iranian proxies. His natural marksmanship skills had earned him a spot in a sniper program led by an old Russian who made Zain lethal. Killing the infidels had become his sport. Were there an Olympics for such things, he would be a legendary gold medalist.

  “Juba,” said Ahmed’s soft whisper in his ear.

  “Yes,” he whispered back, amazed at the crystal-clear quality of Ahmed’s voice. Were the thirty-five-year-old man Zain still thought of as a boy beside him, Ahmed’s voice would not have sounded any clearer. The new tools provided to him by his current benefactor—a younger new generation jihadi—were taking the fight to a level never achievable before.

  “The Americans are coming. Two vehicles driving east on Highway 2 from Simele. They will make the turn in five minutes onto Tenahi from the circle.”

  “Very good, Ahmed,” he said. He had considered having his protégé and former spotter in the apartment with him, but in the end, he needed his trusted brother positioned in a second kill zone. “You are in position?”

  “Of course, Juba,” came the reply.

  In addition to Ahmed, he had a third sniper working with him tonight. A female shooter who—if he was honest with himself—might one day eclipse his own abilities. Ahmed was good, but Nurbika was gifted.

  Five minutes until the Americans are on target.

  He rolled his neck and let his thoughts drift a moment to the passionate, charismatic young man who had recruited him into al Qadar ranks. Initially, Zain had resisted, not wanting to make the same mistake he always did of falling in with an impassioned zealot who later turned out to be nothing but a power-hungry sadist. But Hamza al-Saud, in addition to being tech-savvy and financially solvent, understood that the old ways were no longer effective. Killing innocents, women, children, and civilians had done nothing but turn the world against Islam. It had steeled the resolve of the infidels, and it resulted in the deaths of hundreds more Muslims than infidels in the end.

  Insanity.

  He thought of the Butcher, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda cell leader in Ramadi when Zain had first risen to fame as one of the trio of snipers behind the Juba legend. Even then, as a young man, he knew that sadistic and barbaric psychopath, killing children with a power drill in the public square as their parents watched, had done more to hurt the cause of jihad than the American invaders had. The average person, no matter what their religion or beliefs, first and foremost wanted peace and security for themselves and the
ir families. When the Butcher became more of a threat than the infidels, the people had turned to the Americans as saviors—liberators of the Iraqi people from the jihadist murdering their neighbors.

  And so, Ramadi had been lost.

  These lessons had followed him the next fifteen years, and now he’d finally met a leader with the cool intellect to bring the war to the enemy instead of his Muslim brothers. And when the only blood that ran through Iraqi streets was American blood, the tired and complacent Americans would finally lose their stomach for war. Only when that happened would their SEALs and soldiers be called home for good.

  What Hamza al-Saud did after that was history unwritten. If it was up to al-Masri, the leader of al Qadar would carry the jihad across the sea to the American shores. So long as the infidels were out of his homeland, he didn’t much care what happened to them. After twenty years, he too was growing weary of war. But violence and death were the price of peace, as it had been since the time of the Prophet, and Allah still had work for him to do.

  “They are turning now onto Tenahi,” Ahmed reported.

  Zain scanned to the left and watched through his scope as the two strange-looking vehicles turned north, lights out, moving swiftly. Like overgrown, bulky Humvees the Americans had once used, these new generation Joint Light Tactical Vehicles or JLTVs pushed north, gunners up and manning the fifty-caliber machine guns on top. Killing the gunners would be so easy as they approached the westbound turn into the neighborhood, but doing so would reveal his position and not have the desired psychological effect. So, he tracked them, his targeting reticle bouncing on the head of the lead gunner as they entered the neighborhood.

  The trucks, rolling with lights out, approached the corner of the walled compound. They would dismount here, split into two teams, and then cross the wall from two points, kill the sentry quietly, and then attack from the front and back using explosives to breach the doors. They would execute the hit in less than five minutes, leaving the bodies of the dead behind and hauling hooded HVTs back to their vehicles.

  So predictable.

  Through the scope, he checked the streamer he’d tied on a fence rail in the park a block north, validating the wind direction and speed. He calculated in his head, and then clicked the top knob on the scope twice to compensate. He had already doped in his elevation. For a moment, he wished he were on the fifty-caliber AMR, but the slower bolt action would limit what he could accomplish, despite the dramatic effect the large-caliber round had when striking targets.

  No, he reassured himself, the magazine-fed Chukavin is the right choice tonight.

  The vehicles stopped, one canted left and the other right. He placed his reticle, with the glowing up arrow, onto the center of the rear door of the vehicle. The door opened and a fully kitted-up SEAL exited, moving left. He let the man drift out of his gunsight. The second SEAL turned right as he exited, sighting over his short barrel, suppressor-mounted assault rifle. Zain led the second SEAL, the tip of the aiming arrow and the surrounding reticle at the level of the man’s temple but a few degrees in front of his face. He squeezed tension into the trigger, exhaled, and held his breath, moving his rifle just millimeters to the left to hold the sight in front of the man’s face. When the third SEAL emerged, he finished the trigger pull.

  Zain held the sight steady while the .338 Lapua Magnum round traveled the nearly one thousand meters. His vision had cleared from the suppressed muzzle flash just in time to see the SEAL’s head snap right and the gore spray from the other side of his head. The two other SEALs already out of the JLTV moved rapidly and instinctively around the vehicle, finding cover, so he placed his sight on the operator who’d just emerged from the door and squeezed again. A second and a half later, his second target collapsed backward into the cabin of the vehicle. Someone pulled the door shut from the inside, as another SEAL grabbed his first victim and dragged him toward the lead vehicle and into cover. Zain searched for another target and let out a frustrated tsk at not finding one. A moment later both armored vehicles bugged out, accelerating west and then turning left onto the first side street.

  “They turned exactly where you said they would, Juba,” Ahmed said with admiration.

  Zain watched through the sight, the tops of the vehicles visible behind the low buildings from his perch, and he smiled. He switched out of night vision to protect his eyes.

  NOW Ahmed!

  Twin explosions lit up the darkness as the lead vehicle rolled across the perfectly placed and perfectly detonated IEDs.

  Charges detonated, his newest team member and secondary sniper on tonight’s op could go to work. With their vehicles disabled, the SEALs would set up security around them and await pickup by their QRF or seek cover in a nearby house. He might even have an angle for another shot of his own—three kills instead of two . . .

  But the vehicles didn’t stop.

  They didn’t even slow.

  After rocking up on the two right wheels, the lead vehicle landed back on the ground, swerved, and accelerated west with the second vehicle in tow.

  Damn . . .

  “They were not stopped, Juba,” a tense, female voice growled in his ear.

  “I see,” he said, seething himself. “Exfil the area carefully. The Americans will have drones and satellites looking for anything unusual. We will meet at the rendezvous.”

  He was already disassembling the Chukavin into its carry bag as he talked. Two dead American SEALs were better than none, but he’d hoped to wipe out at least half of the assault team. Jaw clenched, he picked up the two spent shell casings with a gloved hand and slung the bag strap over his shoulder.

  No matter, he told himself in consolation. My new benefactor promised continuous intelligence and whatever resources necessary to win the war.

  For him and his team—a new trio of snipers resurrecting the Juba legend—tonight’s operation was only the beginning.

  CHAPTER 8

  top secret joint special operations task force compound

  thirty-five miles north of the afghanistan border

  qurghonteppa, tajikistan

  0315 local time

  Chunk reread the same paragraph in Nemesis Games for the umpteenth time. After not registering a word of it yet again, he tossed the book aside with a disgruntled sigh and climbed out of his rack.

  This is why I don’t read, he told himself. Too many damn distractions.

  As he was alone in the room, the only person distracting him was himself. He had his OCD SEAL brain to thank for ruining pretty much every attempt to relax and take his mind off work. Especially when downrange, he was always thinking about the next op.

  Or the last op.

  Or the one before that.

  Or the one way before that.

  Tonight, however, he was thinking about Fake Hamza.

  No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t get that fucker out of his head.

  Dressed in a faded Bonefrog Coffee T-shirt and a pair of workout shorts, he slipped his sockless feet into his maritime boots and, without bothering to tie them, walked out of his bunk room to find Watts. Deployed SEALs were vampires—working nights and sleeping during the day—so even though they hadn’t had an op tonight, everyone was up. Laces flapping, he shuffled down the hall toward the intel shop’s “suite”—a windowless room only big enough for a couple of workstations and a four-top table. En route, he peeked in the break room where the boys were hanging out and found them dipping, bullshitting, and watching Anchorman for what had to be the fifth time in two weeks.

  “Chunk, dude, you gonna join us?” Riker called, somehow sensing him without even turning to look at the doorway.

  Damn if that frogman doesn’t have eyes in the back of his head, Chunk thought with a laugh. How does he do that?

  “No dude, I’ve gotta run something by Watts. You guys seen her?”

  “Haven’t seen her, bro,” Trip said with a bad-boy grin, while lifting his left leg to blast a truly impressive fart. “She’s totally afraid to come in here.”

  “Afraid . . . or repulsed?” Chunk said, noting that practically every flat surface in the room was occupied by a spit cup. “I’m thinking the latter. Seriously, y’all need to clean up those frigging spitters sometime, cuz that’s just nasty.”