by Jude Hardin
I sighed. “All right.”
She opened her laptop and navigated to the Street View function on Google Maps.
“This is the address you’ll be going to,” she said. “The backyard is on a slope, and it overlooks a stretch of woods adjacent to the highway here.” She pointed to a spot on the paper map. “This is the only spot on the green route where the Meyeleyon Koh could be hidden well enough and have a clear shot at the president’s limousine.”
“The Beast,” I said.
“Right. And it’s the only spot where they’ll have a reliable way to escape unseen once the deed is done. We were pretty sure this would be their location, and last night we confirmed it. They’ve hidden a weapon there, and they’ve hidden two more weapons at strategic locations along the yellow and red routes.”
“What kind of weapons?”
“That’s where they were pretty clever. They’re using Hotchkiss thirty-seven-millimeter revolving cannons. They’re antiques, so they were a lot easier to acquire and transport than any sort of modern military weaponry. They use a hand crank, like a Gatling gun. The projectiles leave holes the size of silver dollars, and they can shoot up to forty rounds a minute. That was key, because it’s going to take several rounds fired at precisely the same spot to penetrate the six-inch window glass on the Beast.”
“Is that even possible with the car moving?” I said.
“No. Their plan must involve stopping the motorcade somehow. But we’re not going to let it get that far.”
“Since they already have weapons in place, why don’t they just go ahead and post men along all the routes?”
“Because they don’t have to. They have someone inside telling them which route will be used. Posting men at all three routes would triple the chances of getting caught.”
“I guess that makes sense,” I said.
“The address you’ll be going to is a private residence, but the owner won’t be home. One thing I might not have stressed before is the narrow window we have between the time the homeowner leaves and the time the president’s motorcade will travel by. It’s only about fifteen minutes, so you’ll have to watch the residence closely. When the owner leaves, you’ll need to get in and get set up as quickly as possible.”
“And I’ll be shooting from a bedroom window?”
“Yes, the bedroom on the north end of the house, in back, the window closest to the patio door. You won’t be able to see the president’s motorcade from there, but you’ll be able to see the Meyeleyon Koh in the wooded slope that leads to the highway. There should be two of them, three at the most.”
“All right.”
“And what else is important about that window?” she said, quizzing me on what she’d gone over before.
“I need to break it before I go into the house,” I said. “So the glass will fall inside. To make it look like a burglary. While I’m in there, I’ll pull drawers out and mess things up, to make it appear as though a thief had been searching for cash and jewelry and what-not. If I find anything of value that’s easy to carry out, I’ll take it.”
“Right. But you won’t actually be breaking the window at first. In a little while, I’ll show you exactly how you’re going to gain entry. I’ll let you practice with some tools on one of the windows here.”
“And you’re sure there aren’t any alarms or dogs or anything else that might trip me up? I would hate to be arrested for breaking and entering while the president’s being riddled with a machine gun.”
“No dogs, no alarms. I’m sure.”
“What if the homeowner doesn’t leave?”
“The homeowner is definitely going to leave. She has a regular Friday appointment that she never misses, and she already has a confirmed time for county transportation to pick her up.”
“Shit happens,” I said. “What if the van is involved in an accident or something? What if she gets food poisoning, or has a headache, or for some other reason just doesn’t feel like going to her appointment today? I can’t just knock on her door and ask to use her bedroom to pick off some terrorists, can I?”
“No, you obviously can’t do that. But you’re smart to bring up these contingencies. It means you’re thinking analytically, and that’s the way I need you to think. I’ve been waiting four hours for you to ask about that.”
“Well? What if she doesn’t leave?”
“If she’s not out of the house by two-fifteen, you’re going to have to eliminate her,” Di said. “It’s essential that we position you inside that house.”
I got up and poured myself a cup of coffee. My fingers were trembling from too much caffeine and too little alcohol. I was tired and wired and I felt like telling Diana Dawkins to take her three hundred thousand dollars and stick it up her ass.
“That’s insane,” I said. “You said yourself that the motorcade probably won’t take the green route. A hundred-to-one odds, you said. It’s the longest route, and the most isolated, and the one with the most potholes and other road damage. So, on that one chance in a hundred, I’m going to kill an innocent civilian so I can stand at her bedroom window and more than likely watch nothing happen?”
“You’re not going to have to kill her, Nicholas, because she will leave the house to go to her appointment. I’m ninety-nine point nine percent sure of that.”
“I hope so,” I said. “Because I don’t know if I could do it.”
“You were prepared to kill Terry Vine, weren’t you?”
“Yeah. But maybe it was because somewhere deep in my subconscious I knew he wasn’t real.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to know what is real and what isn’t,” Diana said. “This might all be a dream, and you might still be in your bed at Orange Park Medical Center.”
I thought about that. I needed a drink, but most of all I needed sleep. Di finally let me go back to one of the bedrooms and take a nap. Unfortunately, when she woke me up two hours later, I was still in the same place. I wasn’t back in my bed at the hospital. This wasn’t a dream.
I was still at the safe house, and for some reason I just didn’t feel very safe.
Diana dropped me off half a mile from the residence I was supposed to invade. It was in a rural area along State Road 21, about ten miles north of Keystone Heights.
I walked along the shoulder of the highway carrying a backpack and a hardshell guitar case. I wore black fatigue pants and a black T-shirt, and a pair of flight deck boots that Di had picked up from an army-navy store. I was supposed to look like an itinerant musician. There were a variety of tools and weapons in the backpack, everything from a walkie-talkie to a pair of high-powered field glasses.
The interior of the guitar case had been remodeled to fit a Ten-Point Carbon Xtra CLS ACUdraw crossbow with a Nikon Bolt XR 3x32 scope. There was a laser pointer and a stabilizer and six 31-inch carbon arrows with razor sharp G5 Striker broadhead tips. I’d been in the archery club in high school, so I knew how to shoot a compound bow, but I’d never messed with a crossbow. Di had given me a crash course on how to use it, and I’d taken some target practice before we packed off on our mission.
When I made it to the turnoff that led to the house, I hiked fifty feet or so beyond the tree line to stay out of sight. I stayed parallel to the road until I spotted the mailbox with the correct numbers on it, and then I set my things down and waited. It was 2:06. If the presidential motorcade took this route, it would pass the Meyeleyon Koh setup at approximately 2:34. One way or another, this would all be over in twenty-eight minutes.
I pulled out the walkie-talkie and dialed in the frequency Diana and I had agreed on. I clipped the unit onto my belt and attached the headset to my left ear. My code name for this operation was Bullfrog, and Diana’s was Wild Canary. Di had refreshed my memory on proper radio-voice procedure, and she stressed that for security reasons we should keep our conversations as brief as possible.
“Wild Canary, this is Bullfrog requesting a radio check. Over.”
“Bullfrog, this is Wi
ld Canary. You are five by nine. Over.”
“Wild Canary, this is Bullfrog. Roger that. Over and out.”
Five by nine was good. It meant she was reading me loud and clear, with an extremely strong signal. We probably wouldn’t need to communicate much by radio, but it was nice to know we had a good signal if we needed it.
2:11.
Still no sign of the homeowner. She had exactly four minutes to get out of there, or I was going to have to go in. If I went in, I would have to eliminate her. Collateral damage, Di had called it. Sometimes it was essential to sacrifice the one in order to save the many. That’s the way it always worked in war, she’d said.
And we were at war.
It made sense, unless of course you were the one being sacrificed. Then it sucked.
I didn’t want to kill this lady. I didn’t even know her name. Diana had shown me a photograph, but that was it. No personal history. The only thing I knew about this woman was her address: 1555. Di had said it was best not to know the names of potential targets, because giving them a name made them more human. The less intimacy the better, she’d said. It’s much easier to shoot at a thing than a living, breathing person.
I didn’t know the names of the Meyeleyon Koh guys I might have to shoot either, but at least I had a good reason to take them out. The homeowner, not so much.
2:14.
I was about to call Di on the radio and ask if there was any possible way to avoid murdering this poor woman, when I heard the hum of tires on pavement. The county transportation van turned into 1555’s driveway. Less than a minute later, it backed out to the road with the passenger buckled securely in the backseat.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Once the van was out of sight, I crossed the road and trotted up the driveway and walked around to the backyard. I looked down the hill. There was a row of crape myrtles along the far edge of the property, and beyond that nothing but pine trees. Diana had told me that would probably be the case, that I might not see any signs of the Meyeleyon Koh until seconds before the motorcade rolled by. It amazed me that there might have been a cannon hidden there somewhere, and if there was, it was camouflaged well enough that I couldn’t see it.
The rear of the house faced north. There were two double windows on the right and a single window on the left and a glass patio door in the middle. I was interested in the single window on the left. That was the one Di had instructed me to break into. It was the position I would be shooting my arrows from, if need be.
At first, it had seemed to me that a sniper rifle would make more sense in this situation, but Diana said no. The report would be too loud. The president’s limousine would speed away surrounded by police escorts, and in a matter of seconds a team of Secret Service agents would be all over the woods and surrounding area. They would find the Hotchkiss thirty-seven millimeter and the dead terrorists, and then they would find me. We didn’t want any of that to happen, Di said. It was crucial that nobody outside the Circle discovered anything about the assassination attempt. If anyone did, it would be nearly as harmful to the nation as the terrorists succeeding. It was a case of need-to-know, and nobody outside the Circle needed to.
My earpiece squawked.
“Bullfrog, this is Wild Canary. Are you inside? Over.”
“Wild Canary, this is Bullfrog. Negative. The homeowner left just a couple of minutes ago. Over.”
“You need to hurry. You’re behind schedule, and Silver Stallion is headed that way. I repeat: Silver Stallion is headed that way. Over.”
Silver Stallion was the code word for the president of the United States of America.
Damn it.
He was headed my way.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
A surge of anxiety washed over me, a red-hot bolus of adrenaline-soaked fear. My heart rate and respirations went from a simmer to a rolling boil.
“Roger that,” I said, trying to at least keep my voice calm. “I’m at the window now. Will be inside ASAP. Over.”
“Just hurry the fuck up. Over and out.”
I reached into the backpack and pulled out a roll of duct tape and a utility knife and a glass cutter and a little mallet with a pointed rubber hub on one end and a flat steel hammerhead on the other. It would have been quicker to just smash the window and climb inside, but I needed to get in as quietly as possible. There weren’t any neighbors nearby, but if the Meyeleyon Koh had already trekked into the woods, the sound of breaking glass might alert them to my presence.
I definitely didn’t want that. Di had said that along with the antique Hotchkiss they would be armed with some very modern assault rifles, fully automatic, and they wouldn’t hesitate to mow down anyone who got in their way.
I cut the screen with the utility knife, and then promptly went to work on the glazing. I reached into the backpack and pulled out a ten-inch bar with suction cups on each end. I attached the bar to the center of the window, to be used as a handle. Once that was secure, I scored an area around the perimeter of the glazing with the glass cutter. I picked up the mallet and tapped the scored area with my right hand while holding the ten-inch bar with my left. I had to do it twice all the way around, but then the center of the window popped out cleanly like a piece from a jigsaw puzzle.
I lowered the loose piece of glass to the carpet inside. I had made some noise tapping the glazing with the rubber end of the mallet, but not much. Not enough to carry into the woods, I hoped.
There was a five-gallon bucket on the patio beside the barbecue grill. I walked over and grabbed it and took it to the window, turned it upside down and used it for a step. I shoved the guitar case and the backpack in first, and then eased myself through the opening one leg at a time.
I glanced around the room, assessing my surroundings. There was a full-size bed and a dresser with a mirror and a chest of drawers. There was a basket of laundry on the bed, waiting to be folded and put away. No pictures on the wall, no figurines or perfume bottles or any other dust collectors on any of the surfaces. Either the homeowner was a minimalist, or she’d moved in recently and hadn’t had a chance to unpack those kinds of things yet. Or maybe she just had an aversion to clutter. I could relate.
The only thing that might have qualified as a decoration was a wooden hat tree with a dozen or so purses hanging from it. It was a nice collection, some of the handbags old and worn and some in mint condition. One of them looked like something Jacqueline Kennedy might have carried.
2:25.
If Diana’s estimate was correct, the president’s motorcade would start to pass through in nine minutes. I needed to focus, and I needed to work fast.
But first I needed something to calm my frayed nerves.
I walked out of the bedroom and found my way to the kitchen, moving quickly and taking in the layout of the house. It was an open floor plan, with the living room clearly visible from the food prep area and the dining area. I looked in the pantry. Among the boxes of Froot Loops and saltines, and the cans of tuna and pinto beans and SpaghettiOs, there was a bottle of very cheap dry vermouth. The homeowner probably used it for cooking. Or maybe martinis. That was a thought. But if the homeowner used it for martinis, it seemed the vodka or gin would be there beside it.
As much as my body craved alcohol, I shuddered at the thought of actually pouring the vermouth into a glass and drinking it. Maybe there was something else. I started opening cabinets and drawers, finding nothing but pots and pans and tumblers and plates and Tupperware and coffee mugs and silverware. Then, in the little cupboard above the stove, there it was. A seven hundred and fifty milliliter bottle of Stolichnaya vodka. The good stuff. Unopened.
Maybe it had been a Christmas gift or something. Maybe the woman who lived there was saving it for a special occasion. I didn’t know. I couldn’t fathom why she would bother to have something so lovely in her house and then not drink it. Maybe she’d finished one bottle yesterday and would start on this one today. I didn’t know. I didn’t care. I cracked the seal and poure
d some into a coffee cup and headed back to the bedroom.
I’d taken two steps toward my destination when a voice from behind me said, “What are you doing, Mr. Colt?”
I turned. There in the kitchen, by the door to the garage, stood Terry Vine.
I took a sip of vodka. Not a sip. More like a gulp. Terry stood there leaning against the wall with his arms folded across his chest. He had a toothpick in his mouth.
“Go away,” I said. “You’re not real.”
“I’m as real as you are, Mr. Colt. What are you doing in my house?”
“It’s not your house. A woman lives here.”
“She’s Darrel’s cousin,” he said. “I told you we were staying with his cousin.”
It was a lie. Terry Vine wasn’t real, and his stepfather wasn’t real, and his stepfather’s cousin wasn’t real. I kept trying to convince myself of those things as I continued the conversation.
“This isn’t the address you gave me,” I said.
“Sorry about that.”
“And why did you tell me you had the briefcase when you didn’t?”
“Sorry about that too. I was just messing with you. What can I say? I have a little bit of a mischievous streak. But I guess you’ve probably figured that out by now.”
“You’re not real, Terry. Anyway, even if you are real, you’re still in California.”
“I had to come home early, but my dad’s still trying to get it worked out so I can move out there permanently.”
“Where’s Darrel?” I said.
“Believe it or not, he’s out looking for a job. About time, don’t you think?”
The seconds were ticking away, and there I was, standing around having a conversation with a hallucination. An apparition.
2:29.
“I have to go now,” I said. “Excuse me while I try to save the world.”
I turned and headed back to the bedroom, drinking more of the Stoli as I went. I didn’t look back. I didn’t want to know if Terry was following me or not.
