Plausible Denial (7 page)

Culler
said, “I’ve heard of those guns. The Delta teams and SEAL teams use them in
Iraq and Afghanistan. They’re even dribbling down to the Special Forces and
Marines these days.” Culler took the gun from Mac. “You ever shoot one of
these, Bob?”

“No,
never had the pleasure,” said Mac. “I was long gone from the Marine Corps when
these were introduced. But I’ve heard of them. And of course I’ve fired the .50
cal. Is it true they pack a punch like a .50 cal?”

“Sure
can, with the right ammo,” said Barker. “The .338 caliber is the first and only
bullet designed specifically for sniping. The bullet will arrive at one
thousand meters with enough energy to penetrate five layers of military body
armor and still make the kill.

“Effective
range is about sixteen hundred meters, that’s about a mile, but under the right
shooting conditions it’ll reach out beyond the two thousand meter mark with no
sweat.”

“Unbelievable,”
said Mac, taking back the rifle from Culler, sighting it and caressing it
admiringly. “I want this gun.”

“We’re
not planning to be doing any sniping on this trip,” Culler chided, “and we
don’t need to be carrying around any extra baggage.”

Mac
sighed. “You never know. Does it come with a suppressor, Bill?”  

“Got
one right here.” Barker removed a Sierra suppressor from its box and screwed it
onto the gun’s barrel. “It fits on like this, easy. And like a lot of
suppressors, it actually improves the ballistics of the rifle and the ‘crack’
sound becomes a soft ‘poof.’ I’ll give ya’ll a chance to try it out tonight
with a little test firing in the dark.”

“I
sure do like that rifle. You sure we can’t find some use for it on this trip,
Ralph?” Mac joked. 

Culler
said, “You sniper dudes are all alike. You fall in love with your guns. Buy it
if you want it, but I’m not carrying the sonofabitch.”

Chapter Fifteen

P
utting
up the Lapua, Barker selected a short automatic rifle from one of the gun
racks.

  “This
here is a POF 416. POF stands for Patriot Ordnance Factory. Fires a 5.56mm
round and looks kinda like an M4 submachine gun, but it’s a whole hell of a lot
better. And it don’t gunk up like the M16 and M4. I’ve put fifteen hundred
rounds through it non-stop without any malfunction.

He
handed the gun to Mac who examined it and passed it over to Culler.

“This
is more to my liking,” said Culler. “Short, light, and lots of firepower.”

“That’s
because you can’t hit anything, Ralph,” chided MacMurphy. “You need to spray
things like a garden hose.”

“And
if that’s what you like to do, this is the weapon for you,” said Barker. “The
one you’ve got in your hand has a twelve-inch barrel. It also comes with a
fourteen and a half inch barrel which will give you a little more accuracy, but
this will definitely do the trick. The regular magazine holds thirty rounds,
but I’ll give you three Beta C-Mag drums for each gun. They hold a hundred
rounds each, so you’ll have plenty of firepower. One drum’ll last you a long
time.”

As
Culler was sighting the rifle in the direction of the ocean, Barker said, “It’s
got three separate sighting mechanisms on it. The sight on top is for shootin’
in the daylight. It’s the darling of the sandbox. See the red chevron in there?
Well, no matter where the chevron is within the scope, when the tip of the
chevron is on the target, that’s where the bullet goes, every time. Very fast
to acquire target. And over here is the built-in iron sight backup.”

Both
Culler and Mac paid close attention.

“Now,
for night shootin’ this is really neat. On the top of the grip’s forearm is an
infrared laser. It works with head mounted night vision which I’ll give you.
It’s very, very effective. The laser beam is invisible at night unless you’re
wearing your head mounted night vision gear. But with that gear you see a green
line of death. That’s what the guys in the sandbox call it. And whatever the
green line touches, fire the gun and bullets impact there—just like that garden
hose of yours, Ralph. Unless the bad guys are equipped with similar night
vision, they’ll never know they’ve got death kissing their brows.”

“Damn,
that’s cool,” exclaimed Culler.

“And
not only will they not see what is hitting them, they won’t hear nothin’
neither,” said Barker with a big grin. “Here at the end of the muzzle we’re
going to screw on this here Gemtech suppressor. It’ll add another seven and
three-quarter inches to the length of the gun, but you’ll be happy it’s there
when the shootin’ starts. All they’ll hear is a bunch of poofs, if anything.”

“Okay,
you’ve convinced me,” said Mac. “We’ll take a couple of these with all the
accoutrements and six hundred rounds of ammo. You got any more stuff we should
take with us? I want to talk to you about side arms and chemicals. Willett may
have mentioned that we needed some chemical advice. He said you were a
chemist.”

“Yep,
I am indeed, and Tom did mention somethin’ about that to me. I’ve got just what
the doctor ordered, I think. But first let’s get through the gear you’ll need,
and then we’ll get to that business. What about grenades? I’ve got some neat
concussion and fragmentation grenades to show you if you want.”

Mac
shook his head. “We’re not going to war out there. At least I hope not. We may
have to use the automatic weapons, but I don’t see any use for heavy artillery.
We’ll pass on the grenades, but we will need pistols and knives. I’ve got a
good hunting knife at home and I carry a Kahr PM45 sidearm. Maybe you could
just ship those out to Thailand for me.” He turned to Culler. “We could ship
your 9mm Glock out there as well.”

Barker
thought a moment and then responded. “As I understand it—and I don’t need to
know everything, just enough to get ya’ll equipped properly—you’re goin’ to be
out in the jungle doin’ some suspicious stuff with a lot of bad guys runnin’
around in the same general area. That about the size of it?”

“That’s
about it,” said Culler. “If we need to shoot our way out of a bad situation,
we’ll need to be able to do that, but we’re not going to be out looking for any
trouble.”

“Right,”
said Mac. “We need to be invisible and silent, but if someone steps on us we
need to be able to strike back.”

“Okay,
got it. Then leave your Kahr at home, and that goes for the Glock as well. I
don’t go anywhere with less than a .45, but yours is too small for what you
guys need. I mean, the PM45 only has a three inch barrel and only holds five
rounds. Great for concealment but no good for this. And the 9mm doesn’t have
enough hittin’ power.”

Barker
went back to his closet and returned with a pistol in hand. “This here’s a
Heckler and Koch MK 23. Leave it to the Germans to make an awesome, offensive
.45 caliber handgun.”

“The
.45s definitely pack a punch.” said Culler.

“My
favorite caliber too. This here gun was developed for U.S. Special Operations
Command in the late nineties, probably after you left, Ralph. It’s pretty big,
certainly not the best for concealment, but you guys won’t care much about that
where you’re goin’. And it’ll shoot two-inch groups out to fifty yards. It’s a
mean sonofabitch.”

“What
about a suppressor?” asked Mac.

“Oh,
yeah, you bet. It’s a quick detach suppressor. On and off in an instant.” He
demonstrated. Mac and Culler nodded their heads in approval.

“One
more thing. Wait’ll you see this…” Barker walked back through the closet and
returned with a sheathed knife in his hand.  He pulled the knife from its
sheath and held it out in front of him.

“It’s
a Russian made Spetsnaz Ballistic knife, a real good fighting knife under
normal circumstances, but this one has a special characteristic. See here on
the handle?” Culler and Mac moved closer. “That’s a safety pin. And see here on
the blade guard? That’s a trigger. Now, if I remove the safety pin like this,
and then press the trigger, the blade flies out. No shit, I mean it flies out
with a lotta speed and energy. Damn accurate too. It’ll penetrate a two-by-four
at twelve feet but makes absolutely no sound. Great for takin’ out a sentry
real quiet like without havin’ to get too close. Real nifty.”

MacMurphy
shook his head. “Amazing. Really amazing stuff. I want all of it. Go ahead and
talley up the bill, pack everything up and get it shipped out to your guy in
Thailand. I’ll get your money transferred as soon as I get back home.”

“You
want me to include the Lapua and spotter gear?”

Mac
glanced over at Culler with a longing look and then turned back to Barker. “Aw,
what the hell, you never know. Go ahead and stick it in the box with the other
stuff.”

“Well
then, let’s join Ruthie at the bar for a cocktail or two before dinner. She and
I are goin’ to take you down the road a piece, so you can taste some of our
local delicacies. Then we’ll come back here after dark and I’ll let you guys
fire off those weapons you just bought. Best to have a little familiarization
before you gotta use’em for real.”

Chapter Sixteen

I
t
was dusk when they left the restaurant and headed back to Bill’s place. Except
for becoming more jovial and relaxed, Bill did not seem too impaired by the
three martinis he had consumed. He drove two miles back home along the narrow,
two-lane road without a waver.

Ruth
busied herself brewing a pot of coffee and setting out cups and saucers and
desert cookies on the bar while Bill Barker assembled the rifles and pistols.
When he had everything together in his back yard, he joined the group at the
bar and helped himself to a cup of coffee and a handful of cookies.

“Ruthie
makes the best damn chocolate chip cookies this side of heaven, and her
coffee’s not too bad either.”

 Once
back at the house, Barker sobered up completely and began to inventory all of
the weapons and gear.

“Once
I get this list together and the prices, how am I goin’ to communicate with you
fellers?” said Barker..

“Jot
this down,” said Mac. “[email protected]. Send me an Email with a
list of the gear and prices along with your wiring instructions. I’ll get the
money off to you right away. Also, don’t forget to send me the contact
instructions for your police general friend in Chiang Mai. Send everything air
freight so we can pick it up within the next week or so.”

“No
problemo. I’ll see how fast I can get everything out to you and let ya know.”

Culler
nudged Mac. “There was one more thing,” he said.

Chapter Seventeen

M
ac
lowered his voice. “The chemist thing. You said you could give us something
that would make people sick if they swallowed it. We need something
untraceable, tasteless and odorless.”

“That’s
right, I can cook you up just about anythin’ ya want, but I’ll need to know a
little more about what you need it for before I can give you a good answer.
I’ve got lots of concoctions that’ll make people sick, if that’s what you want
to do, but a lot depends on what you want to put it in and how sick you want to
make the people.”

 “How
much did Tom Willett tell you?” asked Mac.

“Not
much. He mentioned something colorless and odorless that could be put in
something somehow that would kill or make seriously ill anyone who ingested
it.”

“And
what did you say?” asked Mac.

“Told
him ricin would do the job nicely. First thing that jumped to mind. I told him
there were lots of things that could make people sick, but then they’d recover
and wonder what made them sick and then go on about their business without
thinking much more about it. But if what ya’ll want to do is take down a couple
a drug lords,” he lowered his voice, “and that’s what I suspect you want to do,
then makin’ some people a little sick won’t do it for you.”

“What
then?” Mac asked.

“Then
you need something stronger, like ricin
.
A little bit of that and, well,
shit, they’d be dead, and then there’d be hell to pay. That would be the end of
the drug lords who produced the shit that caused the deaths.”

Culler
said, “Ricin. That’s what the KGB used to kill that guy on the bridge in
London. Remember that Mac? They stabbed him in the leg with an umbrella.”

“Georgi
Markov. He was a Bulgarian defector,” said Mac.

“Yep,
that’s the stuff. I know the story. It only takes five hundred milligrams to
kill you. That’s about the size of a half a grain of sand. Stuff’s made from
castor beans. You can buy them anywhere and I can mix you up a batch in no time
at all, powder or liquid—your choice. Just depends on what you’re gunna put it
in.”

Culler
and Mac considered how much to tell Barker, though Barker had clearly figured
out what they wanted to do. Maybe Rothmann had told him more than he would
admit. In any event, if they were to succeed, they would need Barker’s help.

Sensing
their dilemma, Baker decided to jump in with both feet. “Look guys, I’m here to
help y’all. I think I got a pretty good idea of what y’all want to do out
there, and I can tell you straight out there ain’t no half measures in this
business. Either go big or stay home. That’s what my ole daddy used to say. Do
it right the first time or don’t do it at all. Y’all look like good guys to me,
and Tom and I go back a long way. You’re on the right side and that’s the side
I’m on, too. We all wear the same color hats. You want to fuck up the drug
lords and turn their own people against them. That’s a good thing. I’d like to
have a part in that. Just tell me what you want to do and I’ll help you do it.”