Preston turned to her and said, “You don’t look particularly happy, Steph.”
“I’m not,” she said.
“Why’s that?”
With the jurors, judge, and attorneys gathered in one spot by a large gravestone, the defendant came strolling up, smiling, flanked by two sheriff’s deputies who definitely weren’t smiling.
Stephanie said, “You’ve got Tommy Zammit over there, coming up to his personal crime scene, smiling like he doesn’t have a care in the world.”
Her sergeant replied, “In some ways, he doesn’t. Think about it. Doesn’t have to worry about where he’s going to sleep tonight, or where his next meal’s coming from, or where to find a doctor if he gets a bellyache. Advantages of being a guest of the state.”
“Some guest,” she said, watching Tommy approach, still grinning. “You think he’d be worried about a guilty verdict coming his way.”
“Guys like Tommy, they don’t worry about that,” Preston said. “They live hour to hour, day to day, like some creature in the woods, scrabbling for survival. The end of this trial probably has as much meaning to him as the end of the next century. And besides, he has two fine defense attorneys trying to get him off.”
Stephanie looked at the man and woman defense lawyers — a husband and wife team from a prestigious law firm in Manchester — and she said, “That’s another thing that bugs me. You’d think a case like this, a woman wouldn’t want to be part of the defense, or a husband or father, for that matter.”
Her sergeant laughed. “Since android lawyers haven’t been invented yet, there’s no way cases like Tommy’s can be avoided, for lawyers who are mothers, fathers, husbands, or wives. As disgusting as his crimes were.”
Despite the fact that she was well armed, with a 10mm Glock at her side, with a collapsible baton, handcuffs, and pepper spray as well, Stephanie shivered. “Yeah. The Graveyard Stalker. The suspect in a couple of dozen sexual assaults in graveyards up and down the length of the state... and Maine and Massachusetts want him after we’re done with him... because he’s also a suspect in a couple of homicides.”
“Disgusting enough.”
She took a breath. “But look at him. Smiling and joking...”
Now Tommy Zammit was conferring with his defense lawyers, arms folded, as the jurors watched from about twenty yards away. The two male assistant attorneys general stood by glumly, as if they were being overshadowed by the show taking place before them.
Stephanie said, “One thing I can’t stand is seeing him standing like that, no handcuffs, no ankle chains.”
Preston said, “Prejudicial, that’s what his defense lawyers argued, and an argument they won. That’s why the deputies shielded him from view of the jury when they took him out of the van and removed his shackles. Even though he’s been charged, technically, the son of a bitch is still innocent. And having cuffs and chains on him would leave a bad impression on the jury.”
“Still...”
“What’s bothering you, then?”
She said, “Suppose he makes a break for it? Starts running and steals a car? Or pulls out a homemade shiv and takes one of the jurors or the judge hostage? What then?”
Preston didn’t say anything, and Stephanie wondered if she had gone too far. But then Preston leaned over a bit and whispered, “Don’t worry. We’ve got it covered.”
The sniper took it all in, getting into the zone. It was hard to explain to civilians what the zone was: It made you sound like a robot or something. But no, it was a way of eliminating outside distractions — birds, the sound of traffic, the root digging into his left thigh — and focusing on the mission at hand, and the target.
He could feel his breathing slow, even his heartbeat relax, as he got into the zone and waited, moving his arms slightly to keep the target in sight, to keep the crosshairs located on the man’s head. The rifle was loaded with a .308 cartridge, and he had fired thousands of such rounds with this same rifle. The safety was off and his finger was near the trigger. All it would take would be to move his finger, press upon it with just a few pounds of force, and there would be a movement of fine mechanical pieces, the sudden explosion of gunpowder, and the almost instantaneous death of the man down there, the man walking unchained, laughing and smiling.
Another thing the civilians didn’t understand. All the talk of pulling the trigger and ending a life sounded like you were playing God. Okay, maybe not the God, but a god nonetheless, one who carried the power of life and death around with him as if it were part of his daily equipment. And the sniper never got into such philosophical arguments, for what he saw himself doing was being an arm of justice. That’s all. An arm of justice. Other people above him — elected officials, others who were paid to make the tough choices — made a decision, and passed on the decision to him. And he had to trust that their judgment was sound; otherwise, it would be time to put the Remington in a closet and take up fishing.
He took another breath. All this thinking was getting him out of the zone.
It was time to get back to work.
Stephanie looked at her sergeant and said, “Covered? How do we have it covered?”
Preston grinned, rocked back on his heels a bit, like he was pleased to be teaching the rookie another lesson. “What you were saying about Tommy Zammit running away, or grabbing a hostage, or stealing a car... that was thought through a long time ago, when his defense attorneys argued that he shouldn’t be shackled while touring the crime scene with the jury. So the chief and the attorney general’s office came up with a plan. Now, if you want to know the plan, it’s classified, Stephanie. No gossiping, no telling tales out of school... you think you can handle that?”
A memory flashed to her, of her time in college, working two jobs to pay the tuition for her criminal justice degree, the sacrifices made, the late nights, and the one desperate night when it looked like it would all go wrong... and which instead made her work twice as hard to be where she was today.
“Yeah,” Stephanie said. “I can handle it.”
The sniper moved his head over to the left, positioned the water tube in his mouth, took a deep and satisfying sip of water. The end of the tube moved a bit in his mouth, felt loose. He’d have to check that later. A good sniper always kept on training, and always maintained his equipment, from the rifle to the rounds of ammunition that he hand-loaded himself so they were subsonic, not breaking the sound barrier, to the look of the ghillie suit, and even to something as simple as the water bottle.
To do otherwise was to invite disaster, and that was an invitation he was never interested in extending.
Preston kept on smiling. “Okay, don’t act different, don’t start looking around, but there’s another cop out here in the cemetery. Dixon. From the Special Response Team.”
“Carl Dixon? What’s he doing here?”
“Like I said,” Preston went on, “don’t move around to start looking, but Dixon’s hiding in the cemetery somewhere. None of us know where he is. He’s just out there... him and his Remington rifle and telescopic sight, and I can bet you right now he’s got the crosshairs centered right on Tommy Zammit’s forehead... or the back of his skull, depending where he’s standing.”
“You’re not joking?” Stephanie asked.
“Not for a bit. And here’s where it gets fun. The chief and the attorney general’s office came up with Carl’s rules of engagement... and if Tommy Zammit starts to run for it, or make a threatening move, or tries to steal a vehicle or grab a hostage, then Carl’s going to end it, right there. No fooling around. Just a clean head shot and that’s all she wrote.”