Slowly, the drone moved forward. As it got closer to the wall, she noticed the drone rising with an updraft of wind, so she corrected for it, angled the engines and altered the power slightly so that it maintained the same altitude.
She inched the drone forward. Through the binoculars she could see McNunn's hand beginning to open and close, grasping for the small bag dangling from the pole protruding from the front of the drone.
This was where she needed to be extra careful in her judgement. The next phase of the plan depended upon it.
When the bag containing the mobile phone came to about ten centimetres in front of Tommy McNunn's hand, she pressed the small red memory button on the top left of the drone's handset, programming the satnav's geospatial coordinates for the drone's current position into its memory.
From that point forward, at any time in the future, by simply pressing the green button in the top middle of the handset, she could make the drone return to exactly the same point in space, hovering in front of Tommy McNunn's desperate, clawing fingers.
To test it had been recorded correctly, she deliberately commanded the drone to rise and retreat by twenty metres. Then she pressed the green button and watched with respect as the drone automatically returned to its previous location. Alessandra couldn't help but stifle a small laugh. She'd used this capability of the drone several times before, but new technology never failed to impress her.
Flexing her shoulders and stretching her neck, she then urged the drone forwards those last few centimetres into the waiting hand of Mr Tommy McNunn.
She watched as his fingers grasped the bag and wriggled it around on the end of the small pole until it finally slipped off and came free.
For a second she held her breath as Alessandra thought the man was just about to drop it... but he didn't, and with relief she watched the hand retract into the cell behind.
Phase One complete.
Pressing the black button, on the top right of the handset, an instant wireless command was ushered over to the drone to return to base.
Almost incredulously - she loved this stuff! - Alessandra watched as the drone simply reversed, gathered speed, and swept back across the sky towards her.
Less than a minute later it slowed down, started its descent and parked itself on the ground almost exactly - within centimetres - of where it was before it had started its journey.
Alessandra stretched her neck again, placed the handset on the ground to her right, and glanced briefly at the battery level shown to reassure herself there was plenty of power left for everything she needed to do next.
Stretching, taking a sip of water from the bottle by her side, and blinking a few times, she then picked up the rifle and made her final preparations.
A few minutes later, now ready for the final phase, she pressed the dial button on her mobile and waited to speak into the headset now attached to the phone.
--------------------
Tommy McNunn was impressed. Whoever the hell this Amanda was, she was amazing. He couldn't quite believe what he had just seen.
As he stood down from the chair against the window, he sat on his bed and emptied the bag.
Inside there was a mobile phone, a flash memory card with the word "Porn" written on it, and a single chocolate in the shape of a red heart.
He unwrapped the chocolate, smiled, popped it into his mouth and then started to examine the phone.
It was small, but it was a good design. A small touch screen, no buttons, and slim. In other words, easy to hide. He could sell thousands of these things.
Suddenly, it began to ring.
Tommy stared at it, guessing where to speak into it and what to put to his ear, then assuming it was probably just like any other phone he placed it in the middle of the side of his head.
The phone kept ringing.
Looking at it, he saw a flashing icon on the front of the LCD display.
He touched it.
The ringing stopped.
He placed it against the side of his head again.
There was no voice, although he could hear the slight crackle of a connection. For a moment he wondered if he had done something wrong, but then remembered.
"Ah... shit... 9.8.7.1... PATRICIA!" he said slightly louder.
"Good morning again, Mr McNunn. So, you have the merchandise."
"Shit yeah! How much do they cost? And how do I get that app you mentioned to work? I couldn't see it on the phone."
"We'll discuss that later. The app's hidden. I'll text you the instructions how to access it later. But right now, I need to send you the other samples I want you to see. And quickly. There's no time for discussion just now. It's getting late. It's going to take a few minutes to load up the drone with the cargo. Then it'll take a few minutes to ship it over. I'll call you in ten minutes. Be ready."
Tommy McNunn was about to say something to the woman when the line went dead.
Standing back on the chair, he looked out of the window trying to see where on earth she could be. From his position he could not see down, only out and across. From the orange glow on the hill he could see the dawn fast approaching. The sun would be up very soon. In the far distance there were some small hills, covered in woods.
Could it be from there?
Or from one of the many hundreds of houses between here and there?
Or was she in one of the fields beyond the houses?
It angered him that he had no control. That he was just on the receiving end.
He stepped down and looked at his watch. Ten minutes?
Fine. In the meantime he could check out the porn on the memory card.
Picking up his laptop he inserted the card, and was immediately pleased by what he discovered.
Not only for his own viewing pleasure, but also for his future business. The woman was right. Over the years to come he could make a fortune from these by selling them to fellow inmates. If not, he would certainly benefit from them personally.
His trial was coming up very soon. If his lawyers didn't get him off, these videos certainly would.
--------------------
Alessandra looked at her watch, and across at the light now spilling over the tops of the hills. With any luck she'd have timed this perfectly.
Using the night vision goggles to watch and fly the drone over to the prison was fine, but it would not be possible to take the shot she needed to achieve if it was still dark.
Night vision riflescopes, image intensifiers, thermal imaging cameras...nowadays there were lots of accessories that marksmen could use to assist them in hitting targets in the dark, however none of them could replace natural light. They were all too heavy to attach to the barrel, and they shortened the range of accuracy. The shot would be just over a mile.
The realisation that the mission to kill McNunn could be possible was partially inspired by the simple discovery that his window faced the rising morning sun.
At dawn, on a good day, the sun's rays would shine directly into his window, and when she had checked the weather forecast the evening she had the idea, it was predicted that this morning and the day ahead would be perfectly clear.
No clouds. A brilliant dawn, literally. A good shot.
While she waited for the sun's rays to crest the hills behind her, she filled another small canvas bag with some small stones and attached it over the hook at the end of the pole protruding from the front of the drone.
Then she made herself comfortable on the ground, picked up the rifle and focused the daytime riflescope on the window of Tommy McNunn's cell, before making a few minor tweaks to the settings on the rifle.
It was going to be a challenging shot.
Previously, as McNunn had stretched out to grab the bag from the hovering drone, she had only been able to see the side of his head. The bulk of his head was shielded by the central strut of the window pane. She couldn't tell if it was made from wood, metal or plastic, and she had no way of knowing how thick it was. She could shoot sligh
tly to the right and hopefully place the bullet through his left eye socket into the brain, but she couldn't tell the angle he would be standing at with respect to the window. If he was standing at an angle, the bullet may skim past his nose or forehead, or miss completely.
One shot.
She would only have one chance.
In this case, opportunity would most definitely only knock once.
She looked at her watch.
From where she was, she could not see where the sun would appear. It was obscured by the surrounding trees. However, she could see it dawning over the hills to her right.
Pulling back from the sight, and using the binoculars, she could see the sun's light now appearing on the roof of the prison.
Watching it slowly meander its way down the roof, towards the top walls of the prison, dispelling the darkness and the shadows beneath, Alessandra flexed her muscles, stretched her neck again, and took some deep breaths.
Adjusting her position and the weight displacement on her elbows, she took her right hand away from the rifle and gently but firmly pressed the button on the drone handset that launched it into the air above her. Glancing again at the green lights on the display she confirmed again that the wireless relay units were still linked, and then pressed the green button. Without the wireless relay units to boost the signals from her handset, she knew she would not be able to control the drone so far away from her. Thankfully, they were working fine.
The drone immediately surged forward and moved with pace towards the prison.
Alessandra returned her eye to the riflescope and focused back on the prison.
She trusted that the drone would make the journey to its previous memorised position just in front of the cell window. It should appear at some point marginally to her left.
At any point in the next few seconds, Alessandra was hoping that before Tommy McNunn was forced to reach out through the window, that his head may appear in view.
Ideally, she wanted to see an eyeball, the nose, or the forehead.
He only needed to appear for a fraction of a second.
Just an instant.
As she watched, the first rays of the sun begin to creep down over the window.
Slowly the light crept down the glass.
Darkness turned to light.
Almost at the same moment the sunlight began to shine directly through the middle of the window, the drone arrived on cue.
It hovered exactly where she hoped it would.
Obediently. Patiently. Like a fly on the end of a fishermen's line, it attempted to lure the fish to take the bait.
At which point Alessandra swore, and it looked like the whole plan was doomed to fail.
In spite of all her careful planning, Alessandra had forgotten one tiny detail.
And in her line of work, the tiniest details could mean the difference between success and failure.
"Shit," she swore in English.
The sun's light was reflecting off the glass windows, straight back at her, obscuring any movement she could see through the window, and threatening to momentarily blind her at the most crucial of moments.
Pulling back from the riflescope and blinking, she quickly considered her options.
She could wait. Eventually the sun's position would change the angle it met the window, and the light would not bounce straight back at her. But that could take either minutes or hours. It was getting late. People would soon start to wake up in the prison. Time was running out.
Her eyes wandered to the control box for the drone, looking for answers.
And then she had it. Inspiration when she most needed it.
Quickly picking up the handset and looking through her normal daylight set of binoculars, she carefully adjusted the position of the drone, moving it from left to right in front of the window until it was almost exactly in front of her and casting a shadow over the window in front. The reflected light was gone.
Just then, a hand re-appeared through the window and tried grasping for the drone.
Estimating that the shadow cast by the drone was at shoulder height of the man in the cell behind, she increased its elevation slightly so that the shadow it cast would be at head height.
Lowering the handset to the ground, and settling herself in comfortably behind the riflescope again, she refocused on the window.
Tommy McNunn's hand was flailing in the air only centimetres in front of the drone's location.
Quickly, Alessandra picked up the handset once more, and once again peering through the binoculars, instructed the drone to retain its height, but to retreat by five centimetres.
It was now safely beyond his grasp.
She looked at the time on her watch. 5.40 a.m.
Time was running out. And she was now as ready as she would ever be.
Speaking into her headset she told her phone to call McNunn.
--------------------
Tommy had seen the drone approaching. The technology amazed him. As soon as he got out of prison he was going to get one of those things.
When it came to a rest in front of his window, he tried to reach out and grab hold of the bag hanging from the pole, but it was tantalizingly out of reach.
His fingers flailed through the air, trying to establish some sort of contact.
Then it moved, swinging over slightly to the left.
"Fuck..." Now it would be even harder to reach.
The phone rang, and he immediately clicked on the green answer button.
"Amanda?"
Silence.
"Amanda, is that you?"
More silence.
"Aha..., shit,..." he swore, suddenly remembering. "Patricia... 9.8.1.7?"
More silence.
"Fuck..no, no, I've got it now. ... 9.8.7.1... PATRICIA!"
"Mr McNunn, I gave you the benefit of the doubt there. Next time I will not. Do you understand? I am taking an extreme risk by offering to provide you with my services. The longer I am on the phone, the easier it is for the authorities to track me down. Next time, get it right immediately, or I hang up."
"Got it. Listen Amanda, that drone of yours is too far to my left. I can't reach it."
"I can't do much about that, I'm afraid. Now the sun's up, the air's heating up and there's a thermal really screwing up my holding pattern. You need to try harder to get it. I can't get it closer now."
Tommy tried harder to push his hand as far out of the window as possible.
"No, Mr McNunn. You're still missing it. Listen, I have an idea. It might work. Do as I say ... move your chair and your body a little to your right, and turn your head to the side and reach forward as far as possible, I'll wait until you are in position and then I'll reduce power to the motor and it should drift into your hand. Do you understand?"
"Yes, move my chair and then try to lean out the window as far as possible?"
"Yes. And if doesn't work first time, just keep your position, and I'll slowly try to line it up again. Be patient. Okay? Hang up now, and good luck!"
Tommy smiled and laughed.
Who was this woman?
Tossing his phone on the bed, he followed her instructions to the letter. By also putting his pillow on the chair and a couple of books, then standing back up on top of them, he discovered he was able to angle his head, neck and shoulder closer into the gap of the open window, with his left hand now definitely reaching much further out.
He closed his eyes and tried to sense where it was.
Any second now and he'd get it.
Thanks to Amanda, he would have it coming to him.
Any second now...
--------------------
Ending the phone call, Salvador blinked, flexed his fingers and gently increased the pressure on the trigger.
Thanks to the position of the drone, the shadow it cast was perfect for blocking out the reflection which had previously blinded him.
Until now he had been able to see McNunn's arm and shoulder, and the edge of his head, bu
t not enough to take a shot.
However, as Salvador watched, he saw the edge of Tommy McNunn's head briefly move slightly more into the frame. But downwards.
He was moving the chair.
As he stood back up on to it, his right hand came through the window, and his head briefly passed across the small gap in the window that he could see through.
For a second it was gone, but then his body moved slightly to Salvador's right again, and he watched patiently as McNunn angled his shoulder further forward than before, and a vertical slice of the middle of his face came into view.
Salvador had already adjusted his breathing in preparation for the kill shot. And at those final moments of a mission, it was always Salvador that completed it. Never Alessandra. Always Salvador. Alessandra had been taught long ago, that distancing herself from the kill, unless it was highly personal, was essential to retaining impartiality and judgement: to sometimes make a difficult call when normal emotions could otherwise jeopardise a correct decision.
But there was a problem. At this angle, a bullet would pass straight through his jaw. It would make a mess but would not be terminal.
Fortunately, his head was still turning slightly, no longer facing directly forwards but now presenting a side view.
As the man struggled to get as much of his shoulder and arm through the window as possible, he presented Salvador with a view of the side of his nose, and his eye-socket at about forty-five degrees.
The angle was not yet quite perfect, but Salvador could see that the man had not yet quite finished moving. He was really trying hard to get the perfect angle, just get that perfect angle...
"Almost,..." he thought...."Almost...", as he took the first of several final, controlled breaths.
Suddenly, 'Alessandra's' fingers began to tingle. Not significantly, but enough to cause her to interrupt her train of thought. By now, she knew immediately what it could mean.
"Shit..." she thought to herself. "NOT NOW!"
Using all of her mental energy she forced herself to focus, to ignore the discomfort in her fingers, adding it to the list of twinges and itches she felt from the rest of her body, but all of which she controlled and blotted out of her mind.
The Assassin's Gift Page 24
