Metzger scrolled through the intelligence analysis accompanying the revised STO, explaining to Boston the details. Rashid was in the undistinguished town of Reynosa, Mexico, on the Texas border. The U.S. intelligence assets NIOS was using down there believed Rashid was in town to meet with a senior man in northeastern Mexico’s biggest cartel. Terrorists had taken to working closely with the cartels for two reasons: to encourage drug flow into America, which supported their ideology of eroding Western society and institutions, and because the cartels were incredibly well equipped.

“We’ll have him handle it?”

“Of course.” Him. Bruns, that is, Barry Shales. He was the best in the stable. Metzger texted him now and ordered him to report to the Kill Room.

Metzger spun the computer and together he and Boston studied the images, both on-the-ground surveillance and satellite. The safe house in Reynosa was a dusty one-story ranch structure, good-sized, with weathered tan paint and bright green trim. It squatted in the middle of a sandy one-acre lot. All the windows were shaded and barred. The car, if there was one, would be tucked away in the garage.

Metzger assessed the situation. “We’ll have to go with a missile. No visuals to use LRR.”

The Long-Range Rifle program, in which a specially built sniper gun was mounted into a drone, had been Metzger’s brainchild. LRR was the centerpiece of NIOS. The arrangement served two purposes. It drastically minimized the risk of innocent deaths, which nearly always happened with missiles. And it gave Metzger the chance to kill a lot more enemies; you had to be judicious about launching missiles and there was never much doubt after the fact where the Hellfire had come from: the U.S. military, CIA or other intelligence service. But a single rifle shot? The shooter could be anybody. Plant a few references to a gunman working for an opposing political party, a terrorist group, or—say—a South American cartel, and the local authorities and the press would tend not to look elsewhere. The victim could even have been shot by a jealous spouse.

But he’d known from the beginning that LRR drones wouldn’t always work. For Rashid, with no visible target the only option was a missile, with its twenty-pound high-explosive warhead.

Boston’s long face was aimed out the window. He brushed his white hair absently with his fingers and played with a stray thread escaping from a cuff button. Metzger wondered why he always wore a jacket in the office.

“What, Spencer?”

“Is this a good time for another STO? With the Moreno fallout?”

“This intel’s solid. Rashid is guilty as sin. We have assessments from Langley and the Mossad and the SIS.”