The agent scrutinising the monitor suddenly stiffened. He put a hand on his colleague’s shoulder and shook him. Otterman went over and looked at the monitor. The picture was fuzzy but there was no mistaking the figure of a man kneeling in front of a desk, his eye pressed to a telescopic sight. Otterman could see that the man was preparing to fire — there was no time to call for back-up. He slid his automatic from its leather shoulder holster and signalled for the two rookies to stand to the side.
Joker watched the two Secret Service agents head down the aisle towards Mary Hennessy, and saw her fumble for whatever it was that was hanging from her belt. He heard one of the agents reporting that she was reaching for something and then he heard another voice giving instructions to a sniper. Off to his right he heard the crack of a high velocity round and then Hennessy staggered back, one hand clutching at her chest. A red stain appeared on her usher’s shirt, and it reminded him of his days in the paintball arena in London. It was a perfect hit. This was different, though, and he knew Hennessy wouldn’t be getting to her feet and complaining about being taken out of the game.
She fell back and sat down heavily on the stairs. Joker could see that her eyes were wide open as if surprised, and the hand on her chest was twitching spasmodically. A blonde woman in a blue jacket rushed by the agents and knelt at her side.
Joker panned across to the office blocks, trying to see where the sniper was. It had been a good, clean shot. As he scanned the sky something passed across his vision, something large and white with the name of a Japanese electronics company on the side. It was so unexpected that Joker thought that he’d seen an advertising hoarding at the far end of the stadium, but then he saw wispy white clouds and knew that he was still looking up high, above the buildings. He took the binoculars away from his face and shaded his eyes with his free hand, gritting his teeth as pain from his shoulder lanced across his back. It was an airship, hanging in the sky more than a mile away. He frowned as he remembered what Cole Howard had told him about the long shot, the sniper who was planning to shoot the President from two thousand yards away, and how there was nowhere the sniper could make the shot from in Baltimore.
He let the binoculars hang on their strap around his neck and spoke into the radio again. His earpiece was buzzing with agents calling in situation reports following the shooting of Mary Hennessy. “Howard, are you there?” he asked, interrupting the agents.
“Is that you, Cramer?” It was Howard’s voice.
“Yeah. Have you seen the blimp?”
“Blimp?”
“The blimp. The airship. Over the city.”
Todd Otterman thought about trying to kick in the door but dismissed the idea. There was no way of telling how strong it was, and the door was certain to be locked. He had two advantages: he had surprise on his side and he had a handgun. The sniper would have to swing his rifle through almost one hundred and eighty degrees to get a shot at the door. Otterman was breathing heavily and he could see that the two rookies were trembling. He motioned with his free hand that he was going to shoot out the lock, and that the two Academy rookies were to kick the door, then move out of the way.
They nodded and watched as Otterman mouthed a quick count: Three, Two, One, then fired at the lock. The metal screeched and the wood splintered and immediately the two rookies kicked at the door, close to the lock. The door flew inwards and Otterman stepped across the threshold, the gun held firmly in both hands.
“Secret Service!” he yelled. “Drop the weapon!”
The sniper began to turn and made no attempt to release his grip on the rifle. There was no way the Secret Service agent was going to take a chance with the President’s life. He shot the sniper twice in the back.
Carlos centred his telescopic sight on the President’s chest as he looked through the window of the sky box. He steadied his breathing. It would be so easy to pull the trigger without waiting for Lovell. He had a clear shot and the President was standing stock still, his eyes on the Prime Minister far below. Carlos was the closest sniper to the target and his bullet would take less than a second to blow the man apart. The difference in drop between the target on the pitcher’s mound and the sky box would be minimal. It would be so simple to fire now. The anticipation was almost painful. He smiled to himself and blocked such reckless thoughts out of his mind. He had to stick to the plan. His plan.
Carlos was ready. He’d compensated for the wind drift based on the figures Farrell had given him, and he had already made allowance for the fact that it had been Dina Rashid and not himself who had calibrated the scope.
He heard something move in the corridor outside but he blocked out the noise. He had to be totally focused on the target. Nothing else mattered.
Lovell’s voice in his ear almost caught him by surprise. “Target sighted,” said the laconic West Virginian accent. “Countdown starting. Five. . four. .”
Joker looked across the field at the pitcher’s mound, which was about thirty yards away from where he was standing. Secret Service chatter filled his ear again. The Prime Minister was drawing back his hand to throw, amid good-natured catcalls and whistles from the crowd. The First Lady was preparing to applaud. The Secret Service agents and the Prime Minister’s own bodyguards were all concentrating on the crowd. None of them was looking at the airship. A chill ran down Joker’s spine. He pressed the binoculars to his eyes and focused them on the gondola below the blimp. His hands were shaking and he fought to keep them steady.
The door of the gondola came into sharp focus. He was looking at a logo of a hawk and a propeller. The logo of Farrell Aviation. “Jesus Christ,” said Joker, under his breath. He panned to the right and up and he saw a bearded man at the open window sighting down a rifle. Joker began to tremble. He wanted to shout a warning but he doubted that he’d be heard above the noise of the crowd. His mind was in a whirl as he tried to decide what his next step should be, then he saw the muzzle flash and in an ice-cold moment of clarity he knew what he had to do. He dropped the binoculars and began to run. Four seconds was all he had. Joker began to silently count them off. One thousand and one. .
Carlos felt his heart race, like an engine out of control. He had the President dead centre in his telescopic sight and his finger tensed on the trigger as Lovell continued his countdown. It was an awesome feeling, knowing that Lovell’s bullet was already in the air, hurtling towards its target at more than two thousand feet per second. In his ear he heard Lovell count: “One thousand and. .”
To his horror, Carlos heard a key being inserted into the lock of the door to his room. It was followed by the whisper of the door against the carpet and Carlos knew that he had only seconds to react. A hotel employee would have knocked, it could only be the police or the Secret Service, and if he stayed at the window they’d shoot him in the back. The SEAL’s bullet was on the way and Schoelen’s would follow shortly. Carlos knew he couldn’t wait. He squeezed the trigger and the sound of the shot echoed around the hotel room. He sensed a gun being aimed at his back and knew that if he didn’t move he’d be dead. He dropped the rifle, grabbed the P228 from the table and rolled off the chair, firing twice at the doorway before he’d even looked to see who was there.
He continued to roll across the carpet, the gun coughing twice more, until he banged into the sofa. He brought up the gun, preparing to fire again. There was no need. There was only one person in the doorway, a tall, thin man in his late thirties who was sinking to his knees, blood streaming from his neck and chest. He was holding a Glock automatic, unfired. In his ear, Carlos heard: “One thousand and two. .”