CHAPTER 48

Tirana, Albania

September

THE TINY APARTMENT HAD been abandoned by its occupants, who took little more than the clothes on their backs and what they could fit into a few plastic shopping bags. After years of waiting, their application for asylum in the United Kingdom had been mysteriously granted on the condition that they make the trip within twenty-four hours. As one of six hundred families packed into the squalid conditions of this communist-era housing project with no running water, they didn’t have to be asked twice.

Institut was arguably the worst neighborhood in Tirana, which was saying something. It smelled of trash, human waste, and terrible food cooked in cramped and poorly ventilated one-room apartments. The unpaved streets were strewn with refuse and the drab concrete buildings’ lone decorations came from the clothing that hung from nearly every window and balcony. The sights and smells reminded Reece of Sadr City and a hundred other places he’d fought in since 2001. The only things green were the weeds.

Nestled between the Republic of Macedonia to the east and the Adriatic Sea to the west, Albania was struggling with its national identity. Now a market-based economy, member of NATO, and candidate for membership in the European Union, Albania continued to distance itself from its communist past. Montenegro and Kosovo to the north and Greece to the south allowed for ample trading of goods and services as the small Balkan nation worked to shed itself of its former status as North Korea’s lone satellite state.

Albania’s majority Muslim population was not traditionally radical or even particularly devout and, though the country was well known for exporting criminals, it wasn’t a breeding ground for terrorism. That changed somewhat as a result of the killing and mass expulsion of Bosnian and Kosovar Muslims during the Balkans War in the 1990s. There is no better way to unite a people than to victimize them by identity; attempted genocide drew many Muslims in the region closer to their religion. As one of the Agency analysts put it during the pre-mission brief, “The Albanians became more radically Islamist during the 1990s the same way that the Irish became more radically Catholic during their conflict with the English in Northern Ireland. ”

Because some Albanians were sympathetic to his cause and because the government was improving but still dysfunctional, Amin Nawaz found the nation to be a perfect sanctuary on the European Union’s periphery. In addition, the terrorist leader had a fondness for prepubescent boys, and one of the destitute families in Institut had offered their son in exchange for what, to them, was a vast sum of money. American troops had been shocked by the pedophilia that they witnessed first in Afghanistan and later in Iraq. Known as bacha bazi, or “boy play, ” in Pashto, this modern-day sex slavery was abhorrent to Westerners but accepted or at least tolerated by many in Central Asia and the Middle East. When drone strikes targeted the meetings of terrorist leaders, young “entertainment” boys were often found among the dead.

As a cell leader Mo wouldn’t ordinarily have knowledge of Amin Nawaz’s whereabouts. Sometimes even the inner circle wouldn’t know travel plans until the last minute; this was a basic security protocol for a terrorist organization. However, Mo had known from the start that Landry’s request for him to run a terrorist cell was outside of protocol, even for the CIA, and had recognized early in their relationship the need to create some leverage. While still in Syria, Mo had worked to infiltrate Nawaz’s inner circle with his own asset, just as the CIA had taught him to do in Iraq. When Nawaz’s operations chief was killed in an air strike by the Assad regime, an Iraqi with impeccable credentials stepped up, one of Mo’s team leaders from the STU who had followed him to Syria. Mo was running his own small penetration operation to ensure he remained a valuable asset to who he thought was his CIA handler.

This Thursday evening, Nawaz would be visiting with a nine-year-old boy on this muddy street in Tirana’s worst slum. Reece and Freddy had been inserted into the city in a baby blue minibus known locally as a Furgon. A local driver, who happened to be an Agency asset, parked the bus a block from the apartment building at 10: 00 p. m. and walked inside to visit a girlfriend; any later and they may have aroused some suspicion by the local residents.

Reece and Freddy took turns napping intermittently under blankets on the van’s floor until 3: 00 a. m. They were both dressed in drab local clothing, over MultiCam combat uniforms worn by Albania’s special operations battalion that had supported allied operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Freddy had worked alongside one of the Eagle companies on the Pakistani border and, as a gun and gear nut, knew their weapons and equipment firsthand. Fortunately, most of it was German-made and all of it was good. Reece carried a suppressed MP7, a weapon also conveniently used by the Albanians, inside his jacket. The helmet-mounted night-vision devices didn’t match their disguises, so they kept them concealed until Mo’s hand-drawn map led them to the second-story apartment without incident.

Once inside, the two men cleared the small one-room dwelling, confirming they were alone and that the place wasn’t wired to blow. A set of jerry-rigged brackets on either side of the doorjamb held a two-by-four that Strain quietly slid in place to secure the door. They confirmed their line of sight to the target building and began constructing their urban hide site.

Freddy opened his pack and removed a 16. 5-inch-barreled HK417 rifle that had been broken down into its lower and upper receivers. He snapped the two halves together and pushed the takedown pins into place to secure them. A SilencerCo Omega sound suppressor ratcheted onto the muzzle brake, and he loaded a twenty-round magazine of Black Hills 175-grain match ammunition into the weapon. To avoid the clang of slamming the bolt home, he slowly worked the charging handle and pushed the receiver’s forward assist to ensure that the bolt was seated properly. A small AN/PAS-13G(v)1 L3-LWTS thermal optic was mounted to the rifle’s top rail in line with the Schmidt Bender 3-12x50mm riflescope. The Albanians had better long-range sniper rifles in their inventory, but this would be a 250-yard shot at the most and the select-fire 7. 62 would be plenty of gun to get it done. If the operation went south and turned into a firefight, a bolt-action sniper rifle would become a liability, whereas the HK would be an asset. An ATPIAL/PEQ-15 was attached to the rail. Be prepared. All the recent years of urban combat had taught the SEAL sniper community a great deal about life and death by the gun.

The apartment’s former occupants had been fully debriefed on the interior of their residence, and the notes from that interview had been passed to the sniper pair. A handmade rug, the nicest item in the room, covered the concrete floor from corner to corner. A tattered couch sat against the side wall, facing a small television with a built-in VHS player. Two mattresses lay on the floor with their sheets neatly folded and a heavy wooden table with three chairs occupied the room’s center. A gas burner rigged to some type of fuel tank alongside two empty buckets served as the kitchen. A bathroom was conspicuously missing.

A set of heavy blue curtains hung over a clothesline strung between the barred windows facing the street. Reece drew the curtains apart to allow a twelve-inch view between them and attached a dark, lightweight, see-through cloth to the curtain rod using metal binder clips. He unrolled it at an angle, securing it under the legs of the table. The forty-five-degree angle of the dark yet thin material allowed a sniper to observe a target area in an urban environment through what appeared to be just another empty window from the outside. The two snipers a clear view to their target building.

Freddy took a seat on the opposite side of the table from the window and unfolded the legs of the HK’s Atlas bipod. Using the table as a bench rest to support the rifle, he adjusted his position in order to have a better view of the target area. Satisfied the site was ready, they removed their NOD-equipped helmets, stripped off their hot outer layers of civilian clothing, and settled in for a long day of waiting. Freddy took first watch on the rifle while Reece sat on one of the mattresses and took charge of their communications.

The Harris AN/PRC-163 Falcon III radio on Reece’s vest was an incredibly capable piece of equipment, more of a computer, really, that did the work it would have taken two radios to do just a few years earlier. With it, he could talk to other units on the ground, satellites in orbit, and even UAVs loitering overhead. He plugged a ruggedized Android tablet into an L3 Technologies Rover 6 and powered it up. Within seconds, a satellite image of their location appeared on the seven-inch screen that looked like a higher-resolution version of Google Earth. Reece selected a menu that brought up a real-time ISR feed from an MQ-4C Triton drone operating high over the city. Confident all systems were working and were in the correct location, Reece sent an encrypted message to their operational commander on a vessel in the Adriatic Sea that was also received by higher headquarters back in Virginia.

Reece and Freddy had worked out a schedule in advance: each man spent an hour on the gun, observing the target area and working on a sketch that included ranges to potential enemy positions, while the other monitored the communications gear and slept. By Reece’s second shift, the dark skies turned to gray and then pink as the new day began. He unclipped the thermal optic from the rail, visualizing possible shot scenarios. Nawaz wasn’t expected until that evening, but his plans could change at any moment, and often did by design. Since most of the terrorist organization’s communications were designed to avoid electronic intercept, and were therefore slow, it was unlikely that Mo would be aware of a change in time to adapt. They needed a bit of luck. Reece smiled, remembering an old commanding officer who preached that luck was the residue of preparation.

It was 184 meters to the front of the L-shaped building where the young boy lived and 213 to the side entrance. Both were well within the capabilities of a modern rifle and optic with a trained shooter behind the glass, but the target would likely be moving quickly and could be among a gaggle of other people, some of whom might be civilians. This was where experience and wisdom entered the picture. There was no such thing as an “easy shot” in the real world. Reece dialed 0. 7 MILS of elevation into the scope, which would put the bullet’s point of impact dead-on at 200 meters. At 175 meters the shot would be two inches high and at 225 it would be three inches low. Not knowing exactly where Nawaz would be clear for a shot, Reece would make the slight adjustment at game time. That was one of the differences between a marksman and a sniper.

By 7: 00 a. m., most of Institut’s residents were out and about. Old women with handkerchiefs tied over their heads carried water in five-gallon buckets or limped toward the city’s markets. Elderly men stood in small groups and smoked while children in brightly colored jackets and backpacks walked toward what must have been their school. Like nearly all children around the world, these seemed oblivious to the poverty in which they lived; this was simply all they knew. As he watched them, Reece wondered whether the privileged children of the Western world would be able to compete in the twenty-first-century marketplace with kids like these, kids who would grow up with hunger, with grit. He fleetingly thought of what amazing assets these children could be to the world, if only they could escape the radicalization efforts of those like the man he hunted.

When it was Freddy’s turn on the rifle, Reece did a quick check of the radio and tablet before closing his eyes. He smiled to himself, barely able to suppress his laughter as he thought about a strikingly similar urban sniper hide more than a decade earlier. He and his platoon had been tasked with training and advising an element of Iraqi snipers. His element had made their way into an apartment, similar to the one in which he now found himself, and began the painstaking process of setting up a proper urban hide. Reece was sitting behind the spotting scope, confirming that they had a good perspective on the street below, when an overwhelming odor filled the room. He turned and was shocked to find one of the Iraqi snipers squatting a few feet behind him, defecating on the floor. The Iraqi had no regard for the fact that they were expecting to spend the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours living and working in this small space; he had to go. A CIA reports officer summed it up with a saying that gained some traction in theater: “The Haj does what the Haj does. ” Maybe Iraq hadn’t been as ready for Jeffersonian democracy as U. S. leaders may have hoped. One of Reece’s enlisted SEALs took a digital photo of the offending turd on the floor and later displayed the print on the plywood wall of their makeshift bar back at base above a handwritten caption that read “Real World Shit. ”

Reece managed a few minutes of sleep and, at the top of the hour, he and Freddy traded places again. All communication was done using hand signals and facial expressions since the neighbors would expect the apartment to be empty and any noise from inside would arouse suspicion. The day dragged on, one rotation after another, observing the landscape of poverty like voyeuristic assassins from the first world. The room grew hot and stuffy and, by midday, they had stripped down to T-shirts and removed their low-vis body armor.

At dusk, they changed to a sniper/spotter arrangement with one operator on the HK rifle and one seated just behind and to the left so that he could spot using an additional L3-LWTS thermal. Two is one, after all. Because the optics used thermal rather than traditional night-vision technology, they worked in both daylight and darkness. Reece was on the rifle when an aging Mercedes microbus parked next to the target building’s side entrance and six military-age males got out and took up security positions around the structure. One of them quickly disappeared into the apartment building. The locals gave them a wide berth. Everything about their behavior indicated that they were an advance security detail. No weapons were visible, but there was little doubt they were armed.

At 7: 18 p. m., the ISR feed began tracking an Opel Monterey SUV, trailed by a small pickup truck, as they steered their way toward the area at a high rate of speed. The two-vehicle convoy fit the profile Mo had described and the timing was right.

The SEAL sniper team observed the area, sending photos back to Langley via the Falcon radio. An hour after their arrival, Reece and Freddy noticed a perceptible shift in the advance team as they assumed a more aggressive posture. A man who appeared to be their leader reemerged from the side entrance along with another man in his thirties and a young boy. They both deduced the second man to be the boy’s father; there was no sign of his mother, which was unsurprising in the Muslim world and likely also due to the nature of the transaction that was about to take place. The boy was dressed in a white cone-shaped qeleshe cap, fustanella dress-like shirt, and xhamadan vest, and wore an embroidered brez sash around his waist. His parents had clad their young son in traditional Albanian dress like he was some type of doll to make him a more hospitable sex toy for the visiting terrorist leader. The sight of it sickened both men and Freddy was happy to be the one who would be able to put a bullet into the pedophile before he could violate this innocent child. He suppressed the urge to put a second bullet into the boy’s father.

Reece began whispering updates from the ISR feed as the SUV approached the target: “Five minutes out. ”

“Two minutes out. ”

“Thirty seconds out. He’s passing our position. ”

Both men watched the silver SUV and pickup pass down the gravel roadway below and to the right of their position as they steered toward the target building’s side entrance. It stopped next to the curb along with the truck, the back of which was filled with armed men.

The headache hit Reece with blinding speed and a pain worse than he’d yet experienced. An audible grunt and the thud of the handheld thermal hitting the floor took Freddy off the gun.

“Reece, you okay? ”

Reece pushed as hard as he could on his temples as the pain continued to radiate and blind him.

“Reece? ” Freddy whispered, looking back to the scene playing out in the streets below. “Reece, shit! ”

Then it was gone.

“I’m okay, it’s all right, ” Reece said, regaining his senses.

“Get back in the game, buddy; how far to the SUV? ” his visibly concerned friend asked.

Reece picked up the thermal and consulted the range card they’d built in daylight: “Two ten to the SUV, ” he reported. Taking a breath, he studied the laundry hanging from the building’s windows. “Wind is swirling, less than five. Hold dead-on. ”

A half-dozen men piled out of the truck’s bed carrying a mix of Kalashnikov-style rifles that varied in barrel length and national origin. Some carried them slung over their backs and all of them had their stocks folded to make the weapons more compact. They surrounded the SUV, with four on the side near the building and two remaining on the street side of the vehicle. All four doors of the SUV opened and Reece heard the metallic sound of Strain moving the selector switch to FIRE.

An overweight man in his fifties stepped from the backseat of the Opel and was immediately flanked by the four security men. Though they saw him for only a brief moment, both Reece and Freddy were confident that he was their target. Amin Nawaz knelt by the vehicle, becoming totally obscured from view by his detail. He must have waved the boy over as he was prodded forward by his father and then walked sheepishly toward the stranger. The boy disappeared into the rugby scrum of terrorists until his head popped up. Nawaz had him seated on his shoulders like a father carrying his child at a carnival. Shit. No shot.

“What’s the situation? Over, ” the radio headphone cackled in Reece’s ear. What asshole in Langley thinks this is a good time to be on the net? He did not respond to the ridiculous query.

Freddy exhaled deeply as he struggled with what had effectively become a hostage situation and the ultimate sniper’s dilemma. The gaggle of men began to move toward the door, the SEAL shooter tracking the position of Nawaz’s head as it bobbed among the men of his security detail. Between the risk of hitting the boy and the low probability of a clean hit on the target among his security men, there was nothing the snipers could do but watch. Ten seconds after placing the boy on his shoulders, Nawaz and his detail were safely inside the building.

“Fuck! ” Freddy whispered a bit too loudly, putting the weapon back on SAFE.

“You didn’t have a shot, buddy. You did the right thing. Okay, two options: assault the building or wait to take him out when he exits. ”

“There’s, what, twelve bad guys that we know of? ”

“Yeah, I counted twelve. We wait him out. ”

“Damn it. I can’t stand the thought of what’s gonna happen to that kid while we wait. Fucking savages, ” Freddy hissed.

“I know, Freddy, me neither, but there isn’t a damn thing we can do about that at the moment. ”

“Why in the hell wouldn’t they authorize a drone strike on this vehicle on its way here in the first place? ” Freddy said, even though he knew the answer.

“Politics with, in this case, a heavy dose of practicality. We need to protect Mo’s cover to keep him a valuable asset to the U. S. government. A drone strike would look like exactly what it is, a U. S. assassination. We need this to look like an Albanian operation. We have to sit tight and take him on the way out. ”

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