Dead Zero by Stephen Hunter Read Free Book Online

he’d be in character as the tribal wanderer until the very last, squatting on the roof. At the proper moment, he’d rise, lifting the rifle with him. If there was some structure upon which he could lean to stabilize himself, that would be excellent. If not, he’d take the kill shot offhand. It was only a little over 200 yards and he had superb offhand skills, something not many snipers build on but which had obsessed him one year at Camp Lejeune as a weakness in his game. He could hit that shot one hundredout of one hundred, no problem. He might even have time for a follow-up, put another one into the already stricken man.
    In the courtyard there’d be chaos, craziness, insane hubbub. It would take a few minutes for things to calm down, for someone to issue orders to Zarzi’s well-armed militia, for the pathetic Afghan police or the hopelessly incompetent Dutch peacekeepers to be called. Ray would use that time to dump the rifle, and slip out of the hotel and off into the crowds.
    Ray took another sip of tea.
    It was as good a plan as could be imagined.
    But it didn’t deal with the problem.
    The problem was: there was a mole somewhere who’d given him up to the contractors.
    He was blown. He was hunted.
    Now what does a nice Catholic boy do about that? He hadn’t figured it out yet, but he knew one thing. He’d have to slit some more throats.

UNIDENTIFIED CONTRACTOR TEAM
    QALAT OUTSKIRTS
    ZABUL PROVINCE
    SOUTHEASTERN AFGHANISTAN
    1700 HOURS
    The city shimmered before them in the afternoon sun. It almost looked like Oz or Mecca or the Baghdad of the many tales, white and dignified, sprawled across the plain under the mountains, except for the fact that it was utterly crappy. It had a skyline that consisted of a few decrepit buildings of the sort that were old fashioned in 1972 when they’d been built, and the rest low-rent ramshackle construction improvisations, none more than a couple of stories high, thrown together more or less on the fly, wherever. Mick and his pals wandered farther, heading downtown.
    What lay farther along was, to the Western mind, somewhat baffling: a maze of dusty, crowded streets lit up by a riot of color and confusion, Arabic signs amid universal symbols like small Coke bottle signs, a brand of Japanese gasoline, pictures of kabobs, the ubiquitous BankAmericard and MasterCard symbols, Indian teas. Other identifiables amid the clutter consisted of but were not limited to carts, shops, tents selling mostly woven things gaudy with color, pots, guns guaranteed to fire at least fifty times before exploding, kabobs, rice balls, custard, more pots, whatever. The vehicles seemed from 1927, many of them with an odd number of wheels, many painted extravagantly. You could not move in the place without raising a shroud of dust, for less than 2 percent of the roads were paved.
    Mick had ditched the ball cap—a long-billed SureFire giveaway for big-time customers in the trade—for his own turban, and by this time, he’d become expert in draping it so his features were obscured. The sunglasses and beard helped, but what helped most was that Qalatwas still tribal, meaning really lawless, and there were enough Westerners about of dubious pedigree that the addition of a few more didn’t set off signals. He didn’t have to pretend to be native, just psycho, not a stretch for him. Plus, he was escorted by two heavily armed Tals, whose glares and do-not-approach hand signals were enough to keep him safe from all but the most insane militia. And there was Mick’s size, impressive, and his body language, which said fuck-not-or-die, and his own AK-47, the Barrett being stashed in the foothills, to be picked up if time and circumstance permitted. Then too he had Tony Z and Crackers the Clown, also festooned with AKs, robes, grenades, daggers, and dust, and those two serious pilgrims amplified the fuck-not-or-die message.
    Mick’s ears were still red. Such a reaming he’d gotten. Mr. MacGyver had not been