Kill Zone: A Sniper Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

jerking motions blended in Middleton’s drug-muddled mind. His brain could not separate the individual things happening around him, nor grasp any meaning. The only thing he felt was a pounding headache. Pain got through. Strong hands held his arms and propelled him forward. His feet would not respond; his legs were rubbery. The dragging stopped, and he was forced to sit in a chair. More words he did not understand, and a sensation of something wet cooling his face. Scrubbing hard. Words. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs of scrambled thought, with no result. Laughter. Hands worked with his clothing, tucking in his khaki shirt, smoothing his collar, straightening his tie, and adjusting the shining single star on each collar point, half-inch and centered.
    Pinpoint flashes of shifting light danced at the edge of his consciousness, blinking like a field of fireflies. Then they were gone. The fireflies had flown. A smell of something rotten rose in his nostrils. Camels or goats close by.
    A soothing female voice spoke English words with a lilting accent, and a gentle hand tilted his chin back. “ Here, General. Drink this. All is well. Just drink this.” A cool stream of water went across his tongue and down his throat. He gulped it in relief. Thirst. “ That’s enough for right now, because we don’t want to make you sick. You can drink more in a few minutes.”
    His arms were tied around the back of a small chair to keep him from falling. He sensed other people.
    A moment of total silence was followed by the blazing lights of a dozen suns, strong enough to make him wince. He began to breathe fast, and unreasoning panic set in, bringing a childhood nightmare of a monster, frothing at the mouth, that chased him. He struggled momentarily, and then settled.
    When he was calm, a soft command was given and a video camera began to record the image of the Marine general bound to the chair, the shining single star of his rank leaving no doubt as to his identity. A man’s voice read a statement in Arabic. The camera caught it all the first time, but the statement was repeated just in case. The lights went out.
    Middleton felt a tiny prick in his arm as another needle went in to return him to the dark world, then strong hands lifted him. A fist slammed into his stomach, doubling him over. He gasped for air, then vomited. Another blow, and he was on his knees, being kicked to the floor. Laughter, fading. Blackness. Pain still got through.
    The cameraman reviewed the scene to be sure his Panasonic PV-GS250 had done its job, and nodded in approval. The low-light problem had been solved by stealing a rack of huge bulbs that a road crew had been using for night work. He plugged a USB cord between the camera and a Dell computer and downloaded the images and soundtrack onto a small disc, which he slid into a protective hard plastic case and handed to the woman. She folded a written copy of the statement and dropped it and the videodisc into a common brown envelope that she taped closed. Licking it would have left traces of her DNA. In an hour, she was in Amman, Jordan, where she handed the package to the front desk clerk of the hotel that was the residence of the local correspondent for the al Jazeera television network. She walked two blocks, paused beneath a tree, and called the correspondent on a cell phone. “This is the Foreign Ministry’s press office, sir. We have delivered a news release to your hotel,” she said in French, cut the connection, and tossed the phone into a trash bin.
    The correspondent recognized her voice, and knew this had nothing to do with the Jordanian Foreign Ministry. A confidential contact had resurfaced, one who had never given him a bad story. He hurried downstairs, retrieved the envelope, returned to his room, and dumped the contents onto his desk. After reading the statement, he watched the video. Unbelievable! He pulled a bottle of Jack Daniel’s bourbon from a suitcase, and only after two stiff