In Harm's Way (A Martin Billings Story Book 3)

by Ed Teja

  “I think we each have our assignments,” I said. “We don’t know what she’ll do, when it comes to it. So it’s best if you keep all your people focused on keeping the perimeter security tight while Bill and I do what we can to pre-empt any attempt she might have in mind to take him out from the distance.”

  “So, you think there is a chance she might still try to kill from close in?”

  “It’s possible. From what I’ve seen, and things Nate said, I think her strength is with close-range weapons. For a killing in public, on an island like this, where escape routes are limited, If it was me, I’d want to be close to the target to ensure I made the kill. I’d want it to be near the water, because getting on a fast boat provides the best chance of a clear escape.”

  “So you don’t think she’ll use the rifle?”

  “I can’t know. It’s reasonably certain she’s been watching your preparations. If she thinks they are thorough, then she is going to take that into account. We don’t know what resources she has available to her. If the only safe shot is a long-distance shot, she might have arranged a helicopter to pick her up from the interior. If she is a real pro, anything is possible and we have to prepare for all options.”

  He sighed. “That’s concerning.”

  “All we can do is try to cover all the bases, Inspector. If you are fairly sure your people can create that nice safe space and keep someone with a knife or pistol at bay, then our best bet is this one… Bill and I will comb the territory that a sniper might choose and see if we can flush her out. For once, however, time is on our side.”

  “How’s that?” the inspector asked.

  “She’ll have a narrow window for setting up her nest. She’ll scout a couple well ahead of time, but she won’t want to get into position too early or too late.”

  “Why not early?” Bill asked. “She can just hunker down.”

  “If she’s sitting there with a rifle, the longer she is there, the higher the chance of someone discovering her, either someone hunting her like us, or just stumbling across her. My guess is she’ll select a couple of spots that she can watch from a distance. Then, as late as possible, say after she’s seen us checked it out and move on, she move in.”

  “Sounds too much like whack a mole,” Bill said.

  “Sort of. What’s our timetable?”

  The inspector looked at his watch. “The Coast Guard will bring our visitors to the dock tomorrow morning at nine,” he said. “They go straight to the cars and run the route.”

  “No speech on arrival?”

  “A quick welcome from the mayor that he’ll repeat when they get to the square.”

  “That’s another reason she won’t just settle into her nest,” I said. “She’s going to want to make sure they arrive on schedule. Have your people watching the crowd on the dock.”

  “That’s the first danger spot,” the inspector agreed.

  “I don’t think there is much risk there,” I said. “The dock would be crowded, and if she took off on a boat, which is the only reasonable escape route I can think of, the coast guard cutter is right there. How long is the circuit?”

  “They planning on driving around slow so the minister can wave at folks and pretend the important man is really seeing we island. They supposed to get to the square about nine thirty.”

  “So we do an early check to identify likely places, the same way she will, then move ahead of the parade. If we are lucky, we might see her moving into position. If she moves fast, we will have to root her out.”

  “You can do that fast enough?” the inspector asked.

  “We only need to grab her before she pulls the trigger,” Bill said. “But you seem concerned.”

  The inspector nodded. “I’m thinking that the square would be the place where she would kill him. There are building around it, and that’s where the men will be standing out… making speeches on the podium. A sniper would have plenty of time to take the shot.”

  “It’s the most obvious spot, but she knows we are looking for her, and to that end has been good at doing things that aren’t obvious. Bill and I will check that possibility, but don’t count on her not picking some other spot. The men will be visible in slow-moving convertibles; even a half-assed sniper only needs to have the man’s head in her sights for a few seconds to do the job.”

  Bill scratched his head. “So, have you got a copy of the route they will take?”

  The inspector laughed. “Where you think you is? This island has two main roads. The cars gonna leave the dock at Front Street and follow Back Street. That road makes a horseshoe loop up the hill and back down, to cross the other end of Front Street at the square. Don’t take much of a map, but I can draw one if you like.”

  Bill shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I got wrapped up in planning and forgot where I was for a moment.”

  “Okay, we will look for likely spots today.”

  The inspector let out a long breath. “You know, at Scotland Yard you learn a lot about various motives for crimes, and they teach a lot about human nature. But not much about this kind of criminal seems natural or human. And in this case, the way these killers been fighting each other, to the death, they seem more like wild animals than people to me.”

  He was right. “If you keep thinking of them as wild animals, you stand the best chance of catching them. And it is definitely the best way to make sure they don’t get you.”

  I looked out the window and could see the black clouds of a storm forming on the horizon. If it weren’t a common enough event this time of year, it might have made for an ominous, if obvious, bit of symbolism. It wouldn’t affect our hunt for Donna or interfere with the grand event, or even Donna’s plans. The storm would hit this afternoon and pass on by. Even if another hit tomorrow, it would be in the afternoon, and the storm Donna was kicking up should be over one way or another.

  Still, you had to appreciate the symbolism.

  25

  After we left the inspector, Bill and I walked the route our VIPs would take, getting a feel for the terrain and the possibilities. As we walked, the awareness that Donna would do the same, or had already done it, weighed on me. We were trying to second guess a professional who’d had lots of time to plan and explore options. While we’d been busy with rescuing Gazele, Donna had been free to prowl, to set things up.

  Although we saw no indications that she’d prepared anything, “didn’t even find the fucking rifle,” as Bill bluntly put it, we familiarized ourselves. Most of the buildings were single story, concrete-block houses. While any of them was a possibility, the people who lived in them, largely the island’s middle class business owners and such, would notice a stranger. Our inquiries didn’t turn up anything concrete. A few people said they’d seen women they didn’t know around, but they did all the time.

  We completed the circuit, pointing out possibilities to each other, and then walked it in the opposite direction, trying to see it with different eyes.

  “I know it ain’t the Middle East, but does anything strike you as likely, Junior?” Bill asked.

  As we made it back to the square, I shook my head. “Pretty slim pickings, I think. Nothing pops out.”

  “Like you told the inspector, a sniper is going to have it tough finding a place she can establish herself — a spot with the visibility she needed, that would give her a clear view of the target and still let her take up her position without attracting unwanted attention. Me, I’d want a place I could snuggle down and remain comfortable and unnoticed until you had a clear shot.”

  “Where are you taking this, Bill?”

  “Just that, if it were me…” he said. “Never mind. It isn’t me.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’m a fair shot, but I’d want a nest with a clear view of the square. The square is surrounded with tall buildings that have offices and such with good views. And we know she likes shooting down. When these idiots are making their self-servin
g speeches, they will be totally exposed to anyone peeking out of any number of windows.”

  “How does she get there unnoticed? Tomorrow there will be cops all over the square.”

  “They’ve been looking for her for days and haven’t seen her. I don’t think she’d have a problem. And it isn’t like she has to stroll across the square with the rifle over her shoulder, like Daniel Boone going out after raccoon.”

  “Then?”

  “While we’ve been rather occupied, saving friends from her friends, she’s had plenty of time to set things up for herself. I’m willing to bet she used that time to her advantage. And those old office buildings have tons of places, closets, niches, corners, where a clever killer could have a rifle stashed.”

  He had a point. “Then we need to check that out.”

  “Search the buildings?”

  “Why not start off by visiting the spot Donna picked to kill Nick? It might give us an idea of her criteria for picking a location.”

  “Now that makes some sense, Junior.”

  We made the short walk to the alley where Constable Clyde’s body had been found. “Up there,” I said, pointing to the building across from the dumpster. A flight of steps in the alley led to a second floor. We went up the stairs to find a deserted storefront office with the remnants of police crime-scene tape scattered around.

  The office looked as if it had been vacant for some time. The phone number written on the bleached out “for rent” sign in the window was impossible to read.

  “Well chosen,” Bill said. He pointed to the window. “No one would see her up here unless they were out there on a boat, and even then they’d need a reason to look in an empty storefront window. I can’t see that happening.” Then he snorted. “Think that’s hers?”

  I looked at the large window and saw a smudged hand print on the window. “I doubt that’s a sign she was being careless. At that point she had given up worrying about covering her tracks.”

  “She assumed a kneeling posture,” Bill said, pointing to marks in the dusty floor then bent forward slightly to look out the open window.

  I went over and saw he was right. “Troubling,” I said.

  He looked at me. “Why? She picked a great spot. From here she had a view of everything that she needed to see to make her kill without a hassle.”

  I went over to look out past him. “That part is right,” I said, noting that the place Jeff had tied his boat so we could unload Nick stood out clear as day.

  “She wouldn’t have had to do much research,” Bill said. “You watch the dock for an hour, and you can make the reasonable assumption we would tie up there — it’s a local favorite, and convenient. Most of the other places we might use would have made it more awkward to get a prisoner out of the boat.”

  “And once we were there, no matter which way we decided to go, she had a clear shot. She could have picked any one of us off with ease.”

  The sight of Nick’s bloodstains on the concrete dock brought the events of that shooting rushing back. I don’t like chewing food twice, much less reliving something like that.

  “So, we are assuming that this is her idea of a perfect nest?” Bill asked.

  “I was hoping so.”

  “But it isn’t?”

  “The spot is fine, if pretty generic. It has a view… office buildings, deserted buildings—”

  “Then?”

  “She isn’t a sniper.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Kneeling isn’t a stable position. If she was serious about making a kill, she’d want to be prone.” I pointed to a desk in the corner. “If I was taking the shot, I’d have dragged that over so I could lie on it.” I paced uneasily.

  “You don’t see what you are looking for.”

  “No. For a quick kill, this is perfect, what any trained person would pick for a quick shot. But it makes me think we called this wrong.”

  “Now you’ve got me confused, Junior.”

  “I’m saying that I think that when she killed Nick with the rifle it was just a ruse.”

  “A ruse? For what?”

  “I realized that this has been bothering me. The more I think about it, I’m asking myself an important question: Why did she kill Nick?”

  “So he wouldn’t talk.”

  “About what? What would Nick know about her plans? He and Nate were in the dark as much as we were. And with him in custody, that meant he was well out of her way. No, she didn’t need to kill Nick, and doing so put her at risk.”

  “So why do you think she did it? What is the ruse all about?”

  “I think she did it to give herself options. I think she killed Nick with that rifle to put the idea of a sniper threat into our heads.”

  “Damn,” Bill said.

  I called Inspector George and went through the same doubt Bill had shown.

  “So she killed a man with a rifle just to get us looking for a killer with a rifle?”

  “I think so. She’s confident and figured the risk was minimal.”

  “Why bother?”

  “To raise sand. While Nick was playing kidnapper and Nate was hunting her, I’m betting she was busy watching your people make their security preparations. Remember, she needs both an opportunity to make the kill and a chance to escape. If she can spread your people thin by introducing the idea of sniper, that improves her odds.”

  “We don’t know for sure,” the inspector said.

  We didn’t. “No. But I’ve been thinking about the way she killed the constable. She doesn’t mind working at close quarters. She’s a martial artist and the way she handles a pistol is impressive. In my experience, people prefer to go with their strengths.”

  “How does that change things?”

  “It doesn’t, really. Unfortunately, even if I’m right, we need to pursue both possibilities. I just wanted you to know about my doubts.”

  “We can only do what we can do,” he said, correctly.

  After I hung up, Bill stared out the window. “So nothing we learned changes anything.”

  “Nope.”

  “I still think we need to check the buildings around the square. When the targets reach the square, she’ll have all the time in the world. She could even have paced off the range without arousing suspicion. She’d even know the timing, since the agenda clearly said that was when the Minister would stand up and make his self-congratulatory speech and claim credit for the grand prosperity about to come, and then introduce the country’s benefactor.” Bill pretended to sight down a rifle. “And bingo. He’s nailed.”

  “Could be.” I sighed. “And we have to check it out.”

  Bill arched an eyebrow. “Well, you came here to learn something, and finding out that our possibilities are even less certain than we thought is.”

  We scouted the buildings, looking up from the square to see what might be likely and even going upstairs and exploring some of the empty ones, but I didn’t see anything that screamed out sniper nest and there was no way we could search every room. Even if we did, it was unlikely we’d find clues.

  “It’s just scouting,” Bill said.

  Somehow that didn’t make it better.

  One of the places that struck me as a likely choice was a multipurpose government building, home to the Post Office, Court House, and several other functions. The two-story building, about the size of a modest mid-western farm house in the US, sat on the edge of the square. It had several windows facing the podiums being set up on a stage.

  We walked around the square, looking up, with me focusing my attention on the upper stories of the buildings surrounding the square, including that big, ugly government building.

  As many times as I’d been on St. Anne, as much time as I’d spent on the island, I’d never really looked at most of these places, as during my time on the island I normally stayed by the waterfront, wanting to be close to my boat even when ashore.

  Although
I saw a number of locations overlooking the square that might be ideal for taking a shot, places that would give her a great view, none were suitable. Not one offered her a reasonable chance of escape. If she fired a shot from any of those buildings, she’d have to exit into the crowded square. While that was a possible route, if there was enough confusion, a smart killer, and Donna was smart, wouldn’t want to count on that.

  Without knowing more about what to expect, the square wouldn’t afford a high enough likelihood of escape — too much could go wrong. No, she’d want something better. Much better.

  When we finally staggered into The Barracuda for dinner, no wiser than we’d been that morning, Sally was running it alone. “I made Gazele take a sleeping pill and get her ass to bed early,” she told us.

  “Probably for the best,” I said, although I’d been looking forward to a reassuring hug. “Tomorrow could be a crazy day.”

  “Sure thing,” Bill said. “We got a parade, and if no one gets assassinated, there is a party after.”

  “And we will be doing some serious dancing,” Sally told him. “I gonna be closing up tonight and I promise you that you better rest up for that, Big Man.”

  And so, after dinner, we took Lilly back to the ship. I went straight to my lonely bunk, wanting to be rested in the morning. Unhappily, part of my brain kept trying to tell me that my efforts to locate Donna were wasted time. I drifted in and out of sleep and later remembered fantasies or dreams (I couldn’t be sure which) of tracking Donna to her lair in the middle of the night and putting a bullet in the center of her forehead.

  Another brain part, the practical, SEAL-trained part, reminded me that worrying was pointless. The woman was apparently a pro who would lie low and stay invisible until it was time to strike. Trying to anticipate what she’d do would only drive me crazy, and if I didn’t quit, by morning I’d be a wasted mess of no use to anyone.

  Ultimately, my pragmatic side won, and I slept, but it was a close fight and a long one. I still managed to be up early the next morning, waking with a surprising amount of energy. Before light, I went to the galley to make coffee. I walked in to find Bill sitting in the galley reading a thick book. I looked at the cover. “Journey to the end of the night,” was the title.