Mary stood at the front of the middle aisle on the second-level stand looking down on third base. She turned around, making sure that there were no other ushers nearby. So long as she didn’t get too close, no one would realise she wasn’t a regular member of the ballpark staff. According to the map Kelly Armstrong had given her, there were no undercover FBI agents nearby. At the top of the aisle she saw Kelly but she deliberately avoided eye contact. Mary wasn’t sure exactly what Kelly thought she would achieve by being present, but she’d said that she wanted to be close by, to watch and, if necessary, to help.
Mary turned and saw the Prime Minister walk to the centre of the mound, holding the game ball as if not sure what to do with it. His security men were standing to the side, scanning the faces of the spectators, alert for any threatening signs, and beyond them were the agents of the Secret Service. The First Lady stood at the side of the mound, some twenty feet or so from the Prime Minister. Mary smiled. She wished there were some way she could tell the Prime Minister what was going to happen, so that she could see the fear in his face. In a fantasy that made her head spin she imagined shouting to him just before the bullets struck, telling him that he was going to die and cursing him as his chest exploded.
She bent her neck and put her chin down close to the microphone. The transceiver was clipped to the belt of her trousers in plain view. Many of the genuine ushers carried radios and it added rather than detracted from her authenticity.
“Check One,” she said, pressing the earpiece into her ear to cut out some of the crowd noise.
“Check One,” she heard. It was Lovell’s voice.
“Check Two,” said Mary.
“Check Two,” said Schoelen.
“Check Three,” said Mary.
“Check Three,” said Carlos.
“Check Wind,” she said.
There was a pause then she heard Farrell’s voice. “One Nine Seven at Three,” he said. Mary’s heart lifted. The wind was negligible.
“One Nine Seven at Three,” repeated Lovell.
“One Nine Seven at Three,” said Schoelen.
“One Nine Seven at Three,” said Carlos.
“With you, One,” said Mary. Now it was up to Lovell. Mary leant against the metal barrier and watched the Prime Minister prepare to throw the ball. She frowned as she saw a man in a plaid jacket and jeans who was looking in her direction through binoculars. He didn’t look like the rest of the Secret Service agents or the members of the British security contingent and Mary squinted, trying to get a better look at the stranger.
Rich Lovell centred the cross-hairs of his telescopic sight over the centre of the Prime Minister’s chest. Lovell exhaled slowly, as he focused his entire being on the shot. In Lovell’s mind the Prime Minister was no longer a man. He was a target, nothing more.
The Prime Minister took a step to the side and Lovell moved the rifle to keep him centred. Four seconds was a long time and Lovell had to be totally certain that the target wouldn’t move while the bullet was in flight. The fact that there would be two more chances, two more snipers, didn’t affect Lovell’s judgment. He wanted his bullet to be the one that did the damage. He inhaled tidally, taking in just enough air for his body’s needs. There had to be no excessive movement. He had long ago tuned out the vibration and noise of the two engines at the rear of the airship. Even though Bailey was crouched only feet behind him, in Lovell’s mind he no longer existed. The heat and humidity were no longer factors. All that mattered was the target and the four seconds between it and the barrel of the Barrett 82A1.
“Do you see her?” asked the spotter. He had his binoculars fixed on Mary Hennessy, across the stadium.
“Got her,” said the sniper. He was kneeling down with his Sauer Model 200 hunting rifle resting against the parapet around the roof of the office building adjacent to the ballpark. It was an expensive weapon, and the sniper had bought it from a sergeant who had retired from the Baltimore SWAT unit. It was a.308 Winchester calibre and with hand-loaded factory ammunition it could easily achieve 1/2 MOA. The woman was about three hundred yards away.
The spotter spoke into his walkie-talkie. “We have a clear shot,” he said.
“Hold for green light,” said the SWAT team commander.
The Sauer had a three-round magazine, but the sniper knew he would need only one shot. He was using soft-point bullets and they would rip a human chest apart. He nestled the cross-hairs in the woman’s cleavage.
The man in the plaid jacket continued to scrutinise her through his binoculars, and Mary Hennessy instinctively knew something had gone wrong. She turned and looked up the aisle. There were two men standing just behind Kelly Armstrong, men in dark suits and sunglasses. They hadn’t been there five minutes earlier. She looked to her left and saw two more Secret Service agents, moving down the aisle parallel to her.
Her heart began to race. She whirled around and looked at the pitcher’s mound. The Prime Minister was preparing to throw the ball, the catcher squatting down and holding out a gloved hand.
She looked over her shoulder. The two men were moving down the stairs towards her, their hands moving inside their jackets.
“Sniper One, fire now,” she said into the microphone. “Shoot the bastard now, damn you!”
There was no reply and she realised that the microphone wasn’t working. She must have pulled it out of the socket of the transceiver when she turned. She reached behind her for the loose wire.
Kelly saw Mary Hennessy fumble for something at her waist. Something had alarmed her, and then Kelly realised what it was. Two men in suits and dark glasses were moving down the aisle parallel to her. Secret Service agents.
Kelly frowned, not sure what to do. “There she is,” said a voice behind her, and she whirled around. There were two more agents behind her, one young and one middle-aged, so similar that they could have been father and son.
“Excuse me, miss,” said the older agent, moving to get by her.
Kelly pulled out her FBI credentials and identified herself.
“Please let us by, miss, we’ll handle this,” said the younger agent. He put a hand on her arm and tried to move her. Kelly resisted.
“What’s happening?” she said, wanting to give Mary every second she could.
“She’s reaching for something, possibly a weapon,” the spotter spoke into his walkie-talkie. Through the binoculars he saw the female usher groping behind her back. Up above her, moving down the aisle past a blonde woman, were two Secret Service agents. One of them had a pistol in his hand.
“You have a green light,” replied the SWAT commander, “so long as there is no possibility of collateral damage.”
The spotter could see that there was no one directly behind the woman. There were spectators on her left and right, but not close enough to be in the way. “Green light confirmed,” he said. The spotter took the walkie-talkie away from his mouth. “Shoot the bitch,” he said.
“It’ll be a pleasure,” said the sniper, his finger tightening on the trigger.
Todd Otterman stood in the corridor while the two agents from the FBI Academy ran the fibre optic lens under the office door. Many of the businesses in the tower block had agreed to hand over keys to the Secret Service for the duration of the presidential visit, but some of the smaller offices hadn’t been contacted.
One of the FBI rookies was kneeling down and threading the cable through the gap, while his colleague looked at a small black and white monitor. The camera was one the FBI used for surveillance and it was perfect for checking those offices which were locked. Otterman and the rookies had been on the seventh floor in a travel agency whose manager had agreed to open his office late so that the agents could have a comfortable base while the game was on. They’d just been about to start drinking coffee when the call had come in to recheck the offices on the lower floors. Otterman and his two rookies had taken the fifth floor, another agent had gone to the sixth floor.