The event tonight was the man’s fifty-eighth birthday. He would not celebrate another.
In an impoverished nation the limos gliding down the street might as well have been figments of a country’s collective imagination — or nightmare, rather. But the country had a wealthy few and they were all coming out tonight because not to do so would probably ensure their deaths.
Since these folks had a lot more to lose than their bedraggled fellow citizens, they came, like the obedient pets they were. What good was it to be rich, if you were dead?
“Wind call,” said Robie.
Gathers checked his instruments and gave him the required data. Robie made the necessary adjustment on his optics. The biggest problem, he felt, was the gap between the buildings. The funneled wind there could do things that it wasn’t doing here or at the other end where the bullet would strike. He would have to penetrate glass, and unlike his last mission, at this far greater distance, the glass would have a profound impact on a bullet that had already traveled nearly a mile and a third.
And the drop of the ordnance had to be carefully calculated. That was what the spotter, range finder, and weather conditions would determine.
If Robie had placed his crosshairs on the target’s chest and fired, by the time the bullet had arrived nearly five seconds later, it would have struck the floor. The calculations involved were complex and there was no margin of error. It involved Newtonian dynamics, gravitational pull, and mathematical formulas that might well have confounded Einstein.
As the time drew closer for the shot, Gathers slid over to squat to the right and slightly behind Robie. That way, using the same opening Robie was firing through, he could follow the trace of the bullet through his scope. This was necessary if the first shot did not accomplish the kill. In a combat zone there were usually opportunities for follow-up shots. In this scenario there probably wouldn’t be. If the first shot missed, people would scatter, and the target would be surrounded and pulled to safety.
But since the bullet would take nearly five seconds to get to its target, Gathers might have the opportunity to call out adjustments to a second shot, if needed, before the first shot had even struck. If they were lucky the second shot would find its target. If they were really lucky they wouldn’t need the second shot.
The target arrived and swept into the room. He was a big man whose appetite for food and drink neatly matched that of his desire for wealth and power. He sat down in his chair at the head of the table.
“Vee one,” came over Robie’s ear mic.
“Last call,” said Robie immediately.
Gathers made his final calculations, focusing on the wind tunnel and the flag between the two buildings. He fed this information to Robie, who made the slight, nearly imperceptible changes to his optics.
“Dialed in and locked,” said Robie. He would make no more changes. With his naked eye he looked once more at the flag. Then he settled down with his scope. From this point until the shot fired, his optics were his only eyes. He had to trust in them, like a pilot did his navigation instruments while flying through fog.
His finger slid to the trigger guard.
In his mind he mouthed the term, True Vee One.
The target had picked up a glass of red wine. He was raising it up, as though to toast himself. He wore a tuxedo. The white shirt with the silver studs represented a huge bull’s-eye for Robie, but he would not be aiming there. Because ordnance dropped over distance, he was actually aiming at a spot above the target’s head. Everything was dialed in. Everything was ready to go. Gathers would tell him if the man moved from this spot.
Everything about Robie began to relax: his blood pressure dropped, his heartbeat slowed, his respiration grew even and deep as he reached cold zero.
Or rather all of those things should have happened.
But they didn’t. Not a single one.
His blood pressure was amped, his heart raced, and his breaths were more like gasps. He was stunned when, despite the coolness of the air, a drop of sweat slid down his forehead and leached into his left eye.
He could not rub it away. Not now. He refocused. His finger moved to the trigger. Right before he touched the thinnest and most important piece of metal on his weapon—
He saw the child.
The little boy ran across the room and held his arms up to the man. He wanted to be picked up. The man did so, cradling the little boy against his chest.
“Fire, Robie. Fire.”
He thought the voice was coming from his head. But it wasn’t. It was coming from his ear mic.
“Fire, now!”
This order was not coming from his head or his ear mic.
It was coming from Gathers, who squatted next to him.
But the little boy was in his daddy’s arms. To kill him, Robie would have to kill the child.
“Fire, Robie, fire!”
Robie’s finger was frozen, a millimeter from the trigger.
The shot rang out.
Seconds later the glass tinkled and the man fell out of his chair, mortally wounded.
Robie took his eye away from the optics and looked down at his finger. It had never touched the trigger.
“Egress, egress!” the voice in his ear mic called out.
Gathers was already pulling Robie to his feet.
“Move, Robie, move.”
In a daze Robie still managed to follow Gathers down the metal steps, their duffels over their shoulders. The next moment they were running pell-mell down narrow, dark streets toward the water.
Robie remembered getting in the RIB.
It took off fast and shot through the darkened water at a furious clip.
Then came the ride in the chopper. It was brief and turbulent as hell as the storm kicked it up a notch higher.
Ten minutes later they were hustling up the gangplank of the freighter.
Three minutes after that the huge ship moved away from the pier and gathered speed as it headed across the bay and into vast and open ocean waters.
Robie looked over at Gathers, who sat opposite him on the bunk in their cramped quarters.
“The shot?”
Gathers said, “They had a backup team in place. Just in case.”
“You told me you would take the shot if I didn’t.”
Gathers looked nervous. “I was under strict orders, Robie. I’m sorry.”
Robie looked away.
“But why didn’t you take the shot?” asked Gathers. “It was all lined up.”
Robie looked at him incredulously. “Why didn’t I take the shot? The little boy, that’s why. He jumped right into the target’s arms an instant before I was going to fire. If I had, he’d be dead.”
Gathers stared across at him, his features full of concern. “There was no little boy there, Robie.”
On hearing this Robie simply stared at Gathers. But he wasn’t actually seeing the other man. He was seeing a little boy. A little boy who looked familiar, but he just couldn’t place him.
Robie lay back on his bunk and didn’t move the rest of the trip.
One question kept beating into his brain.
Am I losing my mind?
Chapter
6
Late at night.
Washington, DC.
A place filled with more acronym agencies than any other city on earth.
When ordinary folks were asleep, others from these acronym platforms stayed awake keeping them safe.
Or else spying on their fellow citizens.