Fear the Night

by John Lutz

  Minutes later the Night Sniper stopped and stood with his back pressed against the tile walls of the Fifty-first Street subway stop. He was on the shadowed edge of light from above, waiting for the opportunity to emerge from the tunnel and climb onto the concrete platform. He knew he’d be seen by at least a few people, but they’d quickly looked away from his shabby clothes and threatening demeanor and put him out of their minds. It was no secret that many of the homeless spent their days in the subway stops, and perhaps he’d dropped something near the tracks, or spotted a coin, and had pocketed it and was climbing back up onto the platform. It was no concern of theirs, not in the real world where they lived their lives of relationships, appointments, and responsibilities, the world that mattered.

  The time came and the Night Sniper moved smoothly to the steel maintenance ladder near the end of the platform and began climbing it. He was noticed by another of the homeless, a large African-American man preparing to panhandle on the next train, and an older white couple who looked like tourists. The woman had a camera slung around her neck. The Night Sniper hoped she wouldn’t attempt to use it. He’d been photographed before, as part of the flora and fauna of the city, and he’d gone to some trouble to steal the camera, a digital one, so he could destroy the image. Cameras could see deeply, beyond flesh and posture and into the real self.

  Everyone who noticed the ragged figure climbing onto the platform quickly turned away with the same curiously wooden features that routinely rejected him as a fellow human. Only a blond girl about ten, standing behind the tourist couple, continued staring curiously at the Sniper.

  She stared until a train rolled in and she boarded with a man who was probably her father.

  The Night Sniper joined the throng of passengers who left the train and made their way toward the Fifty-first Street exit.

  A few minutes later he was in sunlight on the surface, sure he’d drawn no undue attention. He’d scouted the neighborhood and knew where he was going, to a private spot behind a Dumpster where he could quickly change clothes and his homeless persona.

  For now, though, he was one of the untouchable and unseen. He felt safest this way. The police knew the various rifles he used were expensive, so they were searching for a man of wealth. That deliberate misdirection was part of the game. The Sniper hardly appeared wealthy now, shuffling along the sidewalk with his thirty-thousand-dollar J.G. Anschutz target rifle—once owned by a member of Saddam Hussein’s cabinet—broken down and fitted into his worn backpack.

  He was only blocks from Rockefeller Center.

  Deputy Mayor Marcus Pelegrimas stood watching the mayor stand erectly to his full height before the mirror in the room adjacent to his office, where he often rehearsed his speeches.

  “Night must not be synonymous with fright!” the mayor proclaimed, raising a finger.

  He turned to Pelegrimas, a much taller man with a shaved head and a studied expression of impartiality. “Should I do that, Marcus? With the finger?”

  “Never wise to give the voters the finger,” Pelegrimas said, deadpan.

  Hector Chavez, the mayor’s on-duty bodyguard, glanced at him and smiled. He was a medium-height, blocky man with impeccably combed black hair that matched his impeccably tailored suit. He had about him the air of a man who didn’t move around much, but when he did move, it was fast and with purpose.

  There was a slight noise from the office on the other side of the door. Chavez immediately locked the door between the office and the room they were in, then slipped out an opposite door.

  Pelegrimas and the mayor stood silently. Then there was a soft knock on the office door and it opened just far enough so that Chavez could squeeze back in.

  “It’s the people from the Committee to Revive the Southern Tip,” the bodyguard said.

  Pelegrimas nodded to the mayor. “I’ll deal with them, sir.”

  “Fine, Marcus. Tell them I can give them ten minutes, starting in a few.”

  “Yes, sir.” Chavez stayed with the mayor as Pelegrimas opened the door to the office.

  “Do I smell smoke?” the mayor asked. “Is someone smoking out there, Marcus?”

  “No, sir,” Pelegrimas said, and closed the door behind him.

  When he returned, the mayor was back before the mirror, trying the “Night must not be synonymous with fright” line again, only without the raised forefinger.

  “You’re really going to do this, sir?” he asked.

  “I didn’t point the finger that time, Marcus,” the mayor said.

  “I mean the speech itself. You’re going to take the risk?”

  “I didn’t get elected to sit in my office in a flak jacket,” the mayor said.

  “Ready for tomorrow?” Melbourne asked Repetto.

  They were in Melbourne’s office, along with Lou Murchison. Melbourne was seated behind his big desk, making a tent of his fingers and barely turning this way, then that in his swivel chair. Repetto and Murchison were in the leather chairs angled toward the desk. The swivel chair squeaked. The office smelled faintly of cigar smoke, making Repetto wish he had a cigar. Not one of the ropes Melbourne smoked, though.

  “There’s no being all the way ready for something like this,” Murchison said.

  Melbourne stopped swiveling and gave him a cautioning look over his tented fingers.

  “Our SWAT snipers know their stations and have their instructions,” Murchison said. “The Rockefeller Center area’s flooded with NYPD, in uniform and undercover. We’ve synchronized with the mayor’s security and know the schedule, but you know how these rallies can get out of hand.”

  “I don’t care how out of hand this one gets, as long as the mayor survives,” Melbourne said.

  “Two of his security men have that special responsibility,” Murchison said.

  At first Repetto didn’t know what he meant. By the time he’d caught on, Murchison was explaining.

  “One on each side of the mayor is assigned to take the bullet.”

  “Jesus!” Melbourne said.

  “They’re gung ho,” Murchison said.

  “Mostly gung,” Repetto said. “By the time they can react, the bullet’ll be in the mayor.”

  “Guts, though,” Melbourne said.

  Probably all over the podium, Repetto thought, but knew better than to say.

  “Ten minutes before the mayor speaks, we go on high alert,” Murchison said. “We stay that way until he gets his political tail away from the podium.”

  “Will he be wearing a protective vest?” Repetto asked.

  “No. Says it’d be noticeable under his suit coat and ruin the effect of what he’s trying to do, which is to show the Sniper the city can’t be scared into shutting down.”

  “More guts,” Melbourne said.

  “Votes,” Murchison said.

  “You’re a cynic.”

  “I’m a cynic. Maybe it’s the job.”

  Melbourne turned to Repetto. “How about the subway system?”

  “It’s been staked out the last couple of days, especially the closed stops. If our sniper does travel by abandoned train tunnels, he probably enters and leaves them at closed stops.”

  “Are there that many abandoned or temporarily closed subway tunnels?” Melbourne asked.

  “Miles of them.”

  “And all we’ve got suggesting the Sniper’s using them is that match with the mud.”

  “All we’ve got so far. Are any of the names on the disgruntled employee list transit workers?”

  “Some. But they’ve been ruled out. And the list goes back ten years.” Melbourne rooted through a file on his desk and leaned forward to hand a copy of the list of names to Repetto.

  Repetto’s gaze played down the column of thirty-seven names, complete with last-known addresses. Thirty of them had been lined out. The name Joel Vanya did not appear.

  “Why only ten years back?” Repetto asked.

  Melbourne made a dismissive motion with both hands, as if flicking away something
that was closing in on him from all directions. “Long time to hold a grudge. You gotta figure, more than ten years, the Sniper would’ve struck back at the city a long time ago.”

  Repetto didn’t answer. He saw that Alex Reyals’s name hadn’t been lined out. The former cop. Meg had been assigned to that one; Repetto would have to ask her about him.

  “Here’s something else both of you should see,” Melbourne said. “An anonymous letter written to the Times. A journalist there with sharp eyes and a curious mind saw that the note was typed rather than done on a computer printer. The newspaper doesn’t get many of those these days. He also noticed the similarity in the typeface with the previous Sniper notes. The lab confirmed the same typewriter was used. Times doesn’t know that yet.”

  “Our killer’s actually urging the mayor to speak at the rally,” Murchison said disbelievingly, handing the note back to Melbourne. “The bastard has some gall.”

  “Either that or he’s a great admirer of the mayor,” Repetto said.

  Melbourne looked at him, doing the tent thing again with his stubby, powerful fingers. “What do you think?”

  “I think he’s gonna be there tomorrow,” Repetto said. “He might even have wanted us to figure out this letter’s from him. And if he didn’t want it, he sure as hell doesn’t care about it, or he wouldn’t have sent it.”

  “He could be daring us,” Murchison said.

  “Oh, with every breath.”

  “We gonna be ready for him?” Melbourne asked, looking from one man to the other, and sounding too much like a desperate football coach exhorting his team to overcome a lopsided score.

  Murchison nodded and held up crossed fingers on each hand.

  Repetto said, “If he shows, we act. He won’t get away via the subway system.”

  “And how we gonna know if he shows?” Melbourne asked.

  Repetto and Murchison exchanged glances. It was Murchison who said it:

  “The only plan with a reasonable chance of getting our man is one that concentrates on what happens after the mayor is shot.”

  Not what the coach wanted to hear.

  47

  At the plush Marimont Hotel on West Forty-eighth Street, a block south of Rockefeller Plaza, a handsome man wearing sunglasses and with a slight foreign accent paid cash for a requested suite on a high floor. He was carrying a large gray Louis Vuitton duffel bag and politely refused a bellhop’s offer to take it to his room.

  The hotel was too far from the Plaza to provide opportunity for an accurate rifle shot, made even more difficult because the shooter would have to aim over shorter buildings between rifle and target. This apparent impossibility was exactly why the Night Sniper had chosen the Marimont. That and the fact that a serial killer would be highly unlikely to check into such an exclusive hotel. The mayor’s security wouldn’t consider the site a threat.

  Upon entering the spacious and tastefully furnished suite, the Night Sniper placed his bag on the bed and unzipped it. He seemed to know exactly where everything was in the bag and didn’t unpack completely, only removed a pair of jeans, a dark T-shirt, and worn jogging shoes. From his pocket he withdrew a pair of flesh-colored latex gloves and slipped them on. From now on he would be extremely careful about what he touched in the suite, or he would be wearing gloves.

  After changing clothes and hanging his tailored suit in the closet, he went to a window, opened it, and looked out at the tar and gravel roof of the setback in the building’s construction. There was a drop of about three feet from the window ledge to the roof. The Night Sniper sat on the ledge, swiveled his body, and stepped down onto the firm, rough surface.

  He’d scouted the location carefully. It would do, but barely—which was exactly why it was ideal. After tomorrow night, his reputation as a marksman would become legendary, and fear would know no bounds. The roofs of surrounding buildings were all much lower than the outcropping on which he stood, and behind him the Marimont rose another five stories of blank brick wall. No one could peer up at him, or down. The Sniper was invisible to anyone earthbound, but there was always the possibility of a police helicopter spotting him, some observer being alert for anything suspicious even this far from Rockefeller Plaza.

  He glanced at the sky uneasily, then went back to the window and hoisted himself back up into his suite.

  He returned to the bag he was carrying when he checked in. He felt around in it carefully, then removed a light aluminum frame and a small tool kit. Carrying frame and tool kit, he went back out onto the outcropping roof.

  It took him only a few minutes to screw four steel brackets into the roof, then fit the legs of the metal frame into them. On the frame’s top cross braces, he attached with thumbscrews two small but sturdy vises, then returned to his suite and assembled the custom target rifle.

  On the roof again, he checked the sky to make sure there were no helicopters about, then went to the edge of the roof, where he’d bolted down the frame and vises. Making sure the telescoping aluminum frames were tight in their brackets, he adjusted the frame so it was slightly higher than the parapet, then fitted the rifle firmly in the vises.

  With another glance at the sky, he crouched low and peered through the rifle’s telescopic sight to the corner of a distant building, adjusted the sight, and could see the plaza where the podium was being constructed for tomorrow night’s TBTC rally. He knew his bullet would have to barely miss the distant building’s corner that was almost in line with where the lectern would be, and where the mayor would stand to speak. The Night Sniper thought again that any skilled marksman would assess this as an impossible shot, and would be correct, which was why the Marimont wasn’t being factored into rally security plans.

  He waited patiently, sighting through the scope, an ear attuned to any sound in the sky.

  The sounds below were from Con Ed continuing lengthy repairs that entailed tearing up the sidewalk near the hotel with jackhammers. Con Ed, the city, his unknowing accomplice. He was amused by the notion.

  The Sniper waited for the pounding of the jackhammers to cover the report of the rifle, then squeezed the trigger.

  Carefully maintaining the position of the rifle in the vises, he unlocked the legs of the framework from its brackets affixed to the roof. Carrying rifle and framework as one inflexible piece back to the window, he returned to his suite.

  Now for perhaps his biggest risk. He placed frame and rifle on the closet floor, then left the suite. The DO NOT DISTURB sign was still on the door, but there was always the off chance that a maid or maintenance crew member would for some reason enter the suite and look in the closet. A slim possibility, but the Sniper knew it was such possibilities that posed the most danger. Enough of them, and the odds tilted.

  Wearing his sunglasses, he elevatored to the lobby and left the hotel. He walked the three blocks to the blank brick wall he’d just shot. Standing nearby with his arms crossed, his sunglasses hooked over the neck of his T-shirt, he glanced around and above like a tourist taking in the city. It was easier than he’d anticipated to see where the soft bullet he’d fired from so far away had chipped the brick surface, six inches from the building corner it must barely clear. The rifle was shooting true, as he knew it would.

  He returned to the hotel, then patiently, patiently, repeated this process three more times. Each time he removed the inflexible frame with vise-attached rifle from the roof brackets and concealed it in the closet, walked the three blocks to the corner, and observed the results of his shots. Each time he calculated trajectory, angle, and windage. The wind, of course, would be the only variable, but the weather report for tomorrow night was a virtual repeat of this evening’s. Fate was cooperating.

  His last shot had struck the wall less than an inch from the building’s corner. When he returned to the hotel, the slightest adjustment of the precision scope, the precision rifle, its frame secure in its roof brackets, was all that was needed, and he could be sure.

  Precision.

  He felt a wa
rmth spread in him, and a confidence. He’d figured out how to make this seemingly impossible shot. He’d make it by not making it.

  Well, not exactly.

  In a sense, he’d already made the shot, or at least set it up, though it had taken him four tries. Next time he wouldn’t have to sight in and aim, because that had already been done.

  When he squeezed the trigger tomorrow night, he wouldn’t have to rely on the bullet going to the mayor, because the mayor would have gone to where the bullet would be.

  The Night Sniper would stay with the firmly mounted and aimed rifle now; it needed only have its supporting frame affixed to the metal roof brackets to duplicate today’s shot. Until the time of the mayor’s death arrived, the Sniper would remain behind the DO NOT DISTURB sign, wearing surgical gloves even while eating crustless sandwiches and drinking Evian.

  While he was confident about the shot he’d make tomorrow night, it bothered him that the subway stops were being watched. It was something he hadn’t planned on. He’d been counting on his frequent manner of traveling underground and avoiding attention and capture after a shooting; his homeless clothes and backpack were in the Louis Vuitton bag. The cloth bag itself would fold and fit neatly into his backpack, along with his rifle, when he left the hotel via a side door.

  He shrugged inwardly, knowing nothing other than vengeance was writ in stone. Perhaps the tight subway security necessitated a change of tactics. He had some ideas in that regard.

  Placing his water bottle on the carpet, he walked to the window and looked out at the descending night and the array of lights that lay before him like a kingdom he’d sworn to destroy. His was a life unwasted. A life that meant something grand. Pride stirred deeper emotion. For a moment a yearning for his dead mother and his wronged and lost fathers rose like fire in him and he thought he might cry.

  Instead he smiled, liking the way his plans were shaping up, admiring his own nimble adaptation to his opponent’s every move.