When he was sure that the last of his party had walked out of range and were looking at a collection of zinc cannonballs around the corner at the far end of the central chamber, he swiftly picked the ancient lock and entered the narrow stairway. The stairs began immediately inside the door, and with just enough room to turn with his backpack in the small space, he relocked the door and shot a bolt across from the inside to make sure.
Standing at the bottom of the narrow stairs, he looked up at a bright shaft of sunlight that came down in a diagonal stripe from the very top. It amused him for a moment that the monastery had once been engaged in the manufacture of cannonballs. War and the church had always been bedfellows.
Then he walked slowly up the winding stone staircase, until he reached the top, and through another door that led out into the bell tower.
The top of the tower was as far again above the roof of the monastery as the roof was above the ground. There was a fine, sweeping view, with a high balustrade for protection. The sea was blazing with the high light of the sun at midday, but the reflection wouldn’t affect his aim from this height.
The target was on the yacht lying at anchor farthest out at sea, the Aurora, just beyond the rocky claws of the huge sweeping bay. The twin promontories of the bay enclosed it, nearly three miles apart. The yacht was right in the middle; a safe distance, one would have thought, if you didn’t factor in the island with the monastery.
Lars undid the straps of the backpack and took out the barrel, casing, bipods, and lens. He fitted the barrel and screwed on the lens. The space in the bell tower was too small for lying flat. He would have to crouch, jacking up the rifle as far as the forward bipod would go and dispensing with the rear bipod altogether. It would be a sitting shot, knees drawn up, too much tension in the body, but that was all the space allowed. He kept below the balustrade all the time.
Now he looked again through the scope between the columns of the balustrade and towards the target, the lens in the shade of the tower’s roof and away from the sun’s glare.
The yacht Aurora was more like a ship, 235 feet long, rising 30 feet out of the water at the bow. Built in Sweden just the year before, it looked futuristic, something out of a science-fiction film. Its arrow-curved bow, indented halfway down with an aerodynamic wing, seemed to shoot the ship’s lines of design around the sides to the stern, as if it were in motion even when at anchor. There was a bridge, with a sheer, almost flattened glass curve that extended above and around the foredeck, slightly forward of midships; a helicopter pad behind it, and behind that a swimming pool surrounded by umbrellas and deck chairs and a long, curved bar that stretched almost to each side of the ship. Uniformed waiters attended to several slim topless girls and fat topless men. The target himself was nowhere to be seen.
Lars checked his watch: 12:20 p.m. The target’s visitor was late.
Then he checked the scene again through the rifle scope, which was more powerful, and read the distance: 2,401 yards—a greater distance than before, but still not the record.
He noted, however, that if he made this shot, he would have the two longest shots for a single sniper. Nobody would ever know it except him. But to Lars, this was like owning a stolen Picasso, kept hidden in the secret room of a collector’s home. His knowledge of his own achievement alone would be enough for him.
He saw two members of the crew, wearing white uniforms with white caps, begin to descend the ladder to the starboard side of the ship and step onto a wooden motor launch that gleamed with bright varnish. They started the engines and immediately cast off, heading towards the beach.
Lars picked up the scope and trained it on the town. The road along the front, above the beach, was crowded with cars and buses as before. But there was a dark blue custom Bentley parked at the top of an old stone causeway now. He saw a short man wearing a cream seersucker jacket step out of the back seat of the Bentley, the door held open by a uniformed chauffeur. It was the American.
A few onlookers tried to get a closer look at who was in the car, but they were kept at bay. Nearly a dozen bodyguards were in evidence, as far as Lars could count. Someone tried to take a picture of the Bentley. They had their camera snatched by a bodyguard, smashed on the ground, and then returned with a wad of cash wrapped around it.
The short American put on a wide straw hat and pulled it over his eyes. In his attempt to dress in the understated fashion of the rich, he looked immediately noticeable.
Then the American walked down the causeway, flanked by four bodyguards, and onto some old stone steps, green with dried seaweed, at the bottom of which the launch had tied up. Two of the bodyguards came with the short man onto the launch; the rest returned to a pair of Hummers that were parked, Lars now saw, on the far side of the street from the Bentley. How these Russians flaunted their wealth in front of the American!
Turning his scope back to the launch, he watched it as it cut across the glassy bay to the yacht at a more sedate pace now that it had the visitor on board.
The five figures walked up the steps and onto the yacht. The short American was met by two other men who wore dark glasses and matching khaki shorts.
One of them shook the American’s hand, the other guided him to a colourful striped armchair; there was a small debate on whether he wished to be in the sun or shade, and he chose the shade.
When the American took his hat off, Lars recognised the face. He had seen it before in pictures, a necessary part of his preparation, and he already knew the identity of the American visitor; Richard Rivera, PR guru, general fixer, and networker, with clearance from the CIA. He was one of three senior advisers to the Republican candidate in the American elections in just under three months’ time.
The target didn’t seem to be on deck.
Lars waited. The sun began its slow descent from the meridian. It was nearly an hour before the target appeared.
When he finally emerged and walked out into the sun, Slava the Russian, as he liked to be known, was dressed in a pair of faded jeans and a white T-shirt. Barefoot and unshaven, he stood on the deck, stretched, looked at the sky, then finally glanced down at his guest. It seemed to Lars that he wanted to demonstrate that he’d been sleeping. It bordered on disrespectful.
Rivera stood and shook hands with the Russian. Lars saw the words of greeting pass between them and then a joke, followed by a short laugh from Slava.
Levelling the rifle, Lars squatted with his back hard against the rear balustrade. It was uncomfortable, and he didn’t want to hold the position for long. But by the time he had gotten comfortable and squinted down the rifle scope again, he saw that a party of bodyguards and crew were descending the steps again towards the launch. The target and Rivera were still on deck, but walking away into the door from which the target had just emerged.
Lars watched the launch take off. It did a couple of sweeps of the yacht and then seemed to be widening its area of observation. Two of the guards were training binoculars on the beach, on other boats, and towards the monastery itself. Lars pulled the inch or two of barrel that might be visible back inside the balustrade, making the shot impossible now. He was too cramped with the trigger up this close.
He withdrew the rifle completely and screwed on the silencer.
The launch widened its circle and finally came to rest a hundred yards away from the island, only a hundred and fifty yards from the bell tower. It sat there, rolling gently from its own motion rather than any great movement in the water.