Cushing in the Crosshairs

© 2012 by Chick Lung. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/11/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-4384-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-4385-5 (e)

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Epilogue

Chapter 1

Kirk Thorp tried to spit the dust and grime from his parched lips and throat as he lay beneath the camouflaged tarp in the middle of the rotting garbage dump. For two days and nights he had lain in that position, except in the darkness of the night, when he would make one quick trip a few yards away to relieve himself. Now nothing came out of his mouth but the quiet hiss of air as it escaped over his lips when he tried to spit.

Slowly reaching down he found the top of his water bottle, gripping it with two fingers he pulled the bottle to his face and popped the small top to one side before taking one small sip of water. Putting the cap back on he lowered the bottle back to his hip, never taking his eyes away from the binoculars that were pressed to his eyes.

God, how he hated this part of the job. For two days and nights he laid in the filth surrounding him as the temperature soared to one hundred and twenty in the day before plunging to thirty at night. He sweated like a pig all day and was half frozen by the time the sun peeked over the hill each morning. Lifting his left arm slightly to relieve the pressure from his elbows, he felt the sharp jab in his side. She was letting him know he had moved too fast, and not to do it again.

Taking the binoculars from his face he slowly turned and looked at the woman lying beside him in the same position he was. Looking back at him were eyes as black as the night, and that was about the only thing he could see of her. She wore black from head to toe with only her eyes and nose open to the elements. And yet, after two days and nights lying in this garbage dump she looked as if she had just put on the outfit and was ready for her morning stroll.

Her name was Maryam Washid, a 31 year old from Afghanistan. Kirk was about to say something ugly to her when the receiver in both of their ears hissed before a metallic voice spoke the words for which they had been waiting the last forty eight hours. Target has entered the building from the east side, two escorts in tow. One of the guards is stationed at the east door lower level, the other on the second floor at the west door.

The woman hissed a command back into the microphone attached to the neck of her black garment as she slowly pulled the Kalashnikov from its resting place beside her left hip.

Kirk readjusted his binoculars to the lower east door and found the outline of a figure standing against the door, his automatic weapon at his side. No one was going in or out of that door unless they went through him first. Shifting his sights, he found the other figure taking the same position on the second level’s west door. Sweeping his binoculars across the third level, he found the small light that had just come on in the middle of the building’s double row of windowless openings. Moving the dials on each side of his binoculars, Kirk gave the distance and the wind speed and direction to the first target on the east side of the building.

This was not a shot Kirk would ever attempt to take. The building was three quarters of a mile away and dusk was now upon them. Only the elite of the experts would even try such a shot, but the woman lying beside him was one of the masters. Kirk used a small metal rod to prop up the end of the canvas three inches above the ground. It gave her just enough sight to see the building in full as she swung her Kalashnikov toward the east side. Kirk wasn’t worried that someone would hear the sound of the gun or see the flash of the muzzle; the rifle was equipped with both a sound suppressor and a flash suppressor. You could be standing fifty feet away and never know the gun had been fired, and that was good because less than two hundred feet to the south of their position was the police station.

The wind is a little stronger here than at the building Maryam, you need to move at least two more inches to the left of the mark.

I know my rifle Kirk, I don’t need any comments from you other then the distance, wind direction and speed.

Kirk started to say something but quickly closed his mouth as he kept his eyes glued to the first target. Kirk had always been a good shot with any weapons the FBI had given him to train with, but the ability he knew Maryam and others like her had was way beyond his skill. He knew the first target she was aiming for was three quarters of a mile away, and that not only would the bullet drop on its journey but also would be deflected by the wind’s direction and speed. Using his head to calculate the trajectory of the bullet, Kirk shifted his eyes to five feet three inches to the left of the target, and eighteen inches above. That would be where he would aim the gun if he were firing, and it always amazed him that you had to aim away from the target to hit the target. In his small arms firings, he aimed directly for the middle of the chest, the biggest target on the body.

The special bullets in Maryam’s Kalashnikov was intended to explode once it hit its target, almost like a small hand grenade going off inside a human body. Anyone that had ever watched a bullet hit a watermelon in slow motion knew the kind of effect the bullet would have on the human body, even if the strike was off center a few inches.

The butt of the Kalashnikov rifle pressed into Maryam’s right shoulder as she squeezed the trigger between heartbeats and was moving the rifle to the west target almost before she felt the release of the trigger. Kirk kept his eyes glued to the binoculars as a full half second went by before he saw the body of the target being slammed up against the wooden door and the front of his vest exploded. Target down was all he said before turning his head to the west.

Moving his eyes to the west target he focused in and saw the range was now 3963 feet away. That meant the west target was seven feet farther away than the first one. Getting the wind speed and direction, he was about to call them out when he heard her hiss through her teeth. I’m waiting Kirk!

He was about to reply with a smart remark when he thought better of it; after all she was the one with the gun. Instead he called out the numbers she was waiting for. Three seconds later, with his eyes focused on the target, he watched as the target cupped his hands and a small light glowed between his fingers as he bent down and lit a cigarette.

He was half way back to a standing position and taking his first full draw of the cigarette when the smoke found nowhere to go as his lungs and most of his chest exploded. Kirk softly spoke into his receiver, West target down.

It’s all yours section Chief, Maryam said sharply into her mike.

Roger that Team Two, hold position until notified. Kirk and Maryam were one of three teams surrounding the building in the southern part of Beirut, Lebanon. They were the farthest away. Team One was already somewhere in the building, and Team Three was on the opposite side of the building to cut off any retreat that the terrorist inside the building might try and make.

The men inside were the top echelon of the Zaman Farid organization. Zaman Farid and his groups had killed more than two thousand men, women and children throughout the western world, including two bombings on American soil that killed eleven men. In addition, one female CIA Agent was personally killed by Zaman Farid on American soil. And the only person who knew what he looked like was lying some 3963 feet away in a garbage dump. Kirk Thorp had met Zaman Farid only once, but it was an encounter that he would not soon forget.

Kirk Thorp had been an FBI agent for twenty years and teamed with a partner, Chris Bottom, for the last eleven of those years. They both were fluent in a number of languages from the Middle East, and when the twin towers came down the FBI set up special teams that spoke these languages. Four years ago Kirk had been given orders to form a very special team that would work with the CIA outside the United States when necessary. Because of the laws within the United States, no CIA agent was allowed to operate within the borders of America. Now when something was being investigated, both within and outside the borders of the United States, the special team of FBI agents would work with the CIA and exchange information. On occasion, as was happening at this very moment, Kirk was technically working for the CIA while beyond the United States borders.

But the case was his because he had been the one to nose out the information on Zaman Farid and his terrorist group. Four years ago, at the time Kirk was having his first meeting with an agent from the CIA on information he had on Zaman Farid, his female CIA companion was killed right before his eyes at a restaurant in San Francisco. The CIA had been tracking Zaman Farid and his group, but did not have any clue what he looked like or his nationality. Neither did Kirk at the time of the CIA agent’s death. They had been having a quiet dinner in a local restaurant, going over and exchanging information, when the agent gasped and grabbed for her throat as she crashed to the floor.

That evening, the results came back that she had been poisoned when she took a drink of water placed on the table by the waiter. It didn’t take long for Kirk to realize how it had happened as he went over the details of the evening’s meal. He had remembered a commotion close to the kitchen, directly in line with his sight, about half way through the meal. A waiter had stepped through the swinging doors coming from the kitchen on the wrong side. Most kitchens in restaurants have two swinging doors side by side, and going into the kitchen you always took the door to the right, and you did the same coming from the kitchen. That way no one would be pushing open the door just as you were coming out with a tray of food.

Kirk had remembered clearly that the waiter had come out the wrong side of the door and caused the waiter going in to step sharply to his left. When he did, one dirty cup of coffee went flying to the cement floor and broke into pieces. Kirk had remembered the waiter chewing the other one out and watching the eyes of the waiter being chewed out. His eyes were full of rage, and Kirk knew if this man were anywhere else he would have had very little thought about ripping the man’s heart from his chest. Being where he was, Kirk saw his body posture go rigid before willing it back to a normal stance. This man had been through training to do that to his body, Kirk had thought. The waiter held a container of water with ice and came directly to their table. By then Kirk was deep in discussion with the other agent and paid no more attention to him. Four minutes later the agent was dead, and an hour after Kirk realized how she had died the restaurant had twenty FBI agents searching every nook and cranny. Their break came when the agents inspected the job application of everyone that had worked there or had been hired in the last six months. The one waiter no one could place at the restaurant that night went by the name of Zaman Farid.

Zaman Farid was a name the Agency had been chasing for the last six years, and Kirk Thorp had been the lead agent. No one knew what he looked like or where he came from other then that he was from the Middle East. Now Thorp was the only one who knew what he looked like, and he had a special reason to catch him. His glass had also been poisoned; it was sheer luck that he had not taken a drink before or after the CIA agent had.

Now they were close to destroying Zaman Farid’s operations in Lebanon, and soon they would catch him. Because Kirk was the lead investigator for the FBI, he was allowed to participate in the operation outside of the United States but he was not the man in charge. That belonged to Kenneth Tug, Middle East Operations Section Chief who was somewhere inside the target building.

Kirk swung his field glasses back to the third floor of the building as did Maryam, and both scanned the third and then the second floor. Maryam was the first to spot the movement and the tiny light on the third floor, third window from the west side. Their information was that the group would be gathering on the second floor, not the third.

Movement on third floor, third window from the west side, Maryam spoke into her chest.

Third floor! Verify please. Both Kirk and Maryam scanned the length of the third floor and both saw the second beam of