Roy's Independence Day

by M. L. Buchman

  She started dialing.

  Chapter 13

  Roy watched them through the scope.

  He needed proof that he was right. He knew he was, but that wasn’t enough.

  He huddled in the shadow with the rifle resting on the railing as he squatted. But it was useless, the boat was rocking too much.

  Order the boat to shore?

  They were mid-channel with heavy traffic to both sides. He’d already seen that the dinner boat didn’t maneuver quickly. It was designed to mosey along a slow-running river, not deliver troops.

  Their actions were wrong for a fireworks team. They were sticking to a single level horizontally rather than moving up or down a vertical line of wiring that might have been tested due to having a last minute problem.

  Extreme base jumpers—seeking a showy stunt—would have gone straight to the top.

  Reporters would have stayed on the stairs.

  These guys were way out on the structure, all lined up along one side.

  Demolition work. They were going to cut all of the struts down that one side.

  But still, he didn’t have proof.

  He could hear Sienna getting heated up on the phone and then hanging up with a soft, “Merde!”

  Even if she reached Paris SWAT, it wouldn’t be in time.

  “Far left,” Jankowski called softly.

  He swung the scope. A man stood on the corner strut. He was fumbling inside a pack.

  Sienna got through to Dumont and began speaking in rapid French.

  The fumbler pulled out a square block of something, and slapped it against the metal.

  C4. No firework in the world would have been placed like that. He passed along the sighting and heard Sienna echo it to Dumont.

  “Winds aloft?” He couldn’t feel crap down in the boat between the river banks.

  “I see a flag,” Chen replied. “It’s not doing much but its moving. Call it ten K from the north-northeast.”

  “Is that kilometers or knots?” He hissed it out.

  “Sorry, kilometers per hour. Told you Jank was better at this. Five knots, give or take.”

  Roy clicked the scope’s adjustment one notch for the effect the light wind would have on his bullet during its long flight. He also rotated the vertical adjustment to compensate for the fact that he was aiming upward at a target, not down. The bullet would have to arc up higher than the target, and then fall to strike home.

  “I need something soft,” he was on one knee, but he could feel the boat’s motion moving him at its whim from his contact with the wooden deck.

  Chen handed him a bread roll.

  He’d have laughed if he had time. He slipped it under his knee and it squashed flat and useless.

  Then, before he had time to ask, Sienna handed him her folded-up shawl. It almost broke his focus. He didn’t want this memory attached to his gift to her.

  But it was exactly what he needed so he dropped it on the deck without comment.

  He loosened his hips the way Kee had taught him until his leg could move separately from his torso. He would hinge at the hip and keep his torso and hands steady.

  Roy flipped off the safety.

  He sighted, let a small correction from some deep-honed instinct shift the crosshairs slightly left of the target.

  Then—for better or worse—he rested his finger on the trigger and began to apply the two-point-seven pounds of pressure he had it set for.

  Chapter 14

  Sienna would never forget how surreal the event was. She and Chen sat as if casually chatting while they provided a shadow for Roy.

  In reality, she was on the phone with Dumont who was working multiple phone lines in the background.

  Chen was relaying information from Jankowski as spotter.

  Everything conversational. Nothing happening here, folks.

  Except Roy was…

  She was turned just enough to see the napkins he’d taped in a tube around the barrel flop about. There was no flash, no bang. The shot itself was no louder than the small crackers and other noisemakers that were in use along the shore. More noisemakers on the boat were adding additional cover. Chen was spinning a wooden toy that gave out a sharp “Clack! Clack! Clack!” as she quietly relayed instructions.

  “Don’t waste time, buddy,” Jankowski had said right before Roy shot. “If one of them figures out what’s happening, they might throw some manual trigger.”

  Roy didn’t shoot every heartbeat, but perhaps it had been every other.

  It was about every twenty of hers—she was surprised her heart could even beat that fast.

  “That’s five,” Jankowski announced. “All look to be clean hits.”

  “Dumont,” Sienna echoed the reports over her phone, “says that a SWAT sniper got two more around the other side.”

  “Must be strapped in. None of them fell, But I don’t see any movement,” Jankowski reported.

  The first firework went off. It made her jump, but there was no unwarranted explosion along with it.

  “We didn’t have a chance to warn the firework display controller before that first one,” Dumont continued speaking over her cell phone. “But we’re having him not set off anything on the level the bombers were working. We have a special squad headed up there right now to clear the bodies and explosives. The fewer people who know about this, the better.”

  Silently Roy packed away his weapon. There was a smell of scorched cloth from the improvised napkin silencer. But that soon faded.

  He settled back in his chair as they were serving the crème brûlée.

  “I believe that we’ll need fresh napkins,” Chen said.

  Sienna didn’t know whether to laugh or to weep.

  All of her discussions with the Parisian authorities. All of their preparations. All of the hatred of a bunch of crazies. And it had ultimately come down to one observant man sitting in the right place with the right hardware—and it had all lasted under five minutes.

  In a world of asymmetric warfare, that’s what it came down to.

  The strategies of her predecessor were going to have to be completely rethought. She’d known of the existence of small, unreported events that were resolved without the public’s knowledge. The former NSA had told her how the future First Lady had saved the President’s life, unreported. Delta Force took down drug lords and warlords with near perfect invisibility. Drone strikes were public, but when it was a two-man strike team on the ground, what the drone saw was never reported.

  The world had changed irrevocably. Since the American revolutionaries had hidden behind trees rather than marching in the open to face the British, the balance had shifted. The recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had brought the lesson home.

  And as she’d just seen, the trend was continuing. Rather than giving her a chill, it made her eager to get back to work. There had to be methods to achieve what Roy had just done on a consistent basis.

  Fresh napkins were brought.

  She missed her shawl. Glancing behind her chair where Roy had knelt, she didn’t see it in the shadows.

  “Where is it, Roy?” Sienna patted her shoulders.

  “In my pack. I’ll replace it for you.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  “But—”

  “I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. It will serve to always remind me how safe you can make me feel.”

  He actually stood and brought it around the table to drape it about her. His grip was strong on her shoulders and she wasn’t sure who was comforting who.

  Tomorrow there would be a post-mortem and multiple security meetings before they flew back to D.C. But for now it was just the four of them. It might have been a somber table, but it wasn’t. But neither was it a joyous one. Instead it was soft-spoken and they all treated each other very ge
ntly.

  That night when she and Roy curled up in the same bed, they didn’t make love. Instead he simply held her so tightly that she could barely breathe.

  He held her a long time before he spoke. It was a lesson for her life, giving Roy the space to find his words.

  “No amount of training prepares you.”

  All of those hours on watch, he’d never had to shoot anyone before.

  “They were bad people, Roy, bent on doing unreasonable harm. You probably saved hundreds of lives in addition to a national landmark.”

  “Probably,” he admitted at length.

  “Head of detail doesn’t mean you aren’t still one of the top shooters. It also doesn’t mean that you don’t have feelings.”

  She could feel his nod against her hair.

  He rubbed his hand along her back for a while.

  “Hell of an Independence Day,” his voice was thick with chagrin.

  She laughed and patted his chest. “I need to start teaching you French.”

  “Why?”

  “Because July 14th is not their Independence Day. On the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille prison, they held a Fête de la Fédération to celebrate the unity of the French people even though it was the middle of the French Revolution.”

  “Unity, huh?”

  “Uh huh,” she did her best to imitate one of his grunts.

  “How do you feel about unity, Sienna Aphrodite?” It was ridiculous, but she was utterly charmed by his nickname for her. She knew she was up on no pedestal, for Roy truly saw her, but still it tickled her.

  “We’re lying about as close together as can be.” Was he actually talking about their unity? As a couple? If he was, he was going to have to say it himself.

  “I think we could manage to get a little closer,” he rolled until they were lying nose to nose wrapped in each other’s arms and she’d hooked a leg over his hips to hold him close.

  “We could, if you think you’re going to get lucky tonight.”

  “Oh, I think I have an inside track on that,” Roy tone was far too self-assured even if he was absolutely right.

  “What makes you so sure?” Sienna brushed her lips over his.

  “Unity Day,” he kissed the tip of her nose.

  “July fourteenth.”

  “Le quatorze juillet.”

  “That’s what they call it,” Sienna agreed.

  “Say you’ll marry me, Sienna.” His voice turned suddenly harsh and thick with emotion. “Say you’ll be my wife through thick and thin, good and bad, because I don’t know how I could ever live a day without you.”

  Sienna couldn’t imagine how she’d live a day without Roy.

  But his speech—rough and all mixed up in need and the evening’s events—wasn’t what she wanted between them. There would always be love and truth, this she knew. And safety, because nobody delivered that like Roy Beaumont.

  But she also wanted a lightness in their unity. She wanted Sienna Aphrodite as well.

  “Marry you?” She did her best to sound a little puzzled by the idea. She hadn’t quite forgiven him for saying “About time” when she’d said that she loved him. She leaned back just enough to see the truth in his eyes revealed by the Paris lights which glowed through the soft curtains.

  He nodded tightly.

  “Sure,” she kept it light as if the most important change in her life was of little consequence.

  Then she stole one of Chen’s lines.

  “Yankee Boy.”

  About the Author

  M. L. Buchman has over 40 novels in print. His military romantic suspense books have been named Barnes & Noble and NPR “Top 5 of the Year,” nominated for the Reviewer’s Choice Award for “Top 10 Romantic Suspense of 2014” by RT Book Reviews, and twice Booklist “Top 10 of the Year” placing two of his titles on their “The 101 Best Romance Novels of the Last 10 Years.” In addition to romance, he also writes thrillers, fantasy, and science fiction.

  In among his career as a corporate project manager he has: rebuilt and single-handed a fifty-foot sailboat, both flown and jumped out of airplanes, designed and built two houses, and bicycled solo around the world.

  He is now making his living as a full-time writer on the Oregon Coast with his beloved wife. He is constantly amazed at what you can do with a degree in Geophysics. You may keep up with his writing by subscribing to his newsletter at:

  www.mlbuchman.com.

  Frank’s Independence Day

  (excerpt)

  Frank: July 4, 1988

  Frank Adams had his boys slide up around the metallic-blue late-model BMW at the stop light on Amsterdam Ave. One stood by the passenger door, one ahead, one behind, and he took the driver’s window himself as usual.

  It was only the third time they’d done this, but Frank saw, without really watching, that they made it look smooth. They’d split the thousand that the chop shop had just paid for the Ford they’d jacked and two grand for the Camry. But a new Beemer? That was a serious score. What they were doing so far uptown this late on a hot, New York night was the driver’s own damn fault.

  He started it like any standard windshield scam. Spray the windshield to blind the driver, then shake them down for five bucks to clean it so they can see to drive away. The bright bite of ammonia almost reassuring to New Yorkers who had come to expect the scam. He’d long since learned to flick the windshield wiper up so that the driver couldn’t just clean their own damn window. It was when the driver’s window rolled down, and the person at the wheel started griping, that the real action would begin.

  A glance to the sides showed not much traffic. Lot of folks gone down by the water to watch the fireworks, or off with family for July 4th picnics at the park, or on their fire escapes in the sweltering summer heat. The acrid sting of burnt cordite hung like a haze over the city from a million firecrackers, bottle rockets, M-80s, cherry bombs, and everything else legal or not. Hell, Chinatown would be sounding like they were tossing around sticks of dynamite.

  Night had settled on the roads out of Columbia University and into his end of Manhattan, and as much darkness as could ever be happening beneath the New York City lights had done gone and happened.

  Frank’s boys were doing good. At the front and back, they’d leaned casually on the hood and trunk of the car not facing the prize, but instead watching lookout up and down the length of Amsterdam Ave. They’d shout if any cops surfaced.

  And no self-respecting BMW driver would run over someone they didn’t know just to get away, especially ones who weren’t even looking at them threateningly.

  Other drivers were accelerating sharply and running the red light just so they weren’t a part of whatever was going down at the corner of Amsterdam and midnight.

  Three minutes. That meant they had about three minutes until someone nerved down enough to find a pay phone and call the cops and he and his boys had to be gone.

  They’d only need about one.

  The Beemer jerked back about two feet with little more than a hiss and a throb from that smooth, cool engine.

  His boys were on the pavement before Frank could even blink.

  Japs had been sitting on the trunk but was now sprawled on his face and Hale sat abruptly on his butt when the car’s hood pulled out from underneath him. It was almost funny, the two of them looked so damn surprised.

  Then he was facing the rolled down window, just as he’d planned. He could taste the new-car fine-leather smell as it wafted out.

  What he hadn’t planned was to be staring right down the barrel of a .357. Abruptly, all he could taste was the metal sting of adrenaline and the stink of his own sweat.

  He’d seen enough guns to know that the Smith & Wesson 66 was not some normal bad-ass revolver.

  He was facing death right between the eyes.

  His bod
y froze so hard he didn’t even drop the knife nestled out of sight in his palm.

  The woman who looked at him, right hand aiming the gun across her body, left hand still on the wheel, had the blackest eyes he’d ever seen. So dark that no light came back from them, like looking down twin barrels of death even more dangerous than the gun’s.

  A cop siren sounded in the distance, but his boys were already on the move out of there.

  “They’re leaving you behind.”

  Her voice was as smooth as her weapon. Calm, not all nervy like someone surprised by a carjacking or unfamiliar with the weapon she held rock steady.

  “What I told ‘em to do.”

  “Don’t risk the whole team?”

  He shrugged a yes.

  That siren was getting louder and it was starting to worry him. But even doing a drop and run, well… He was fast, but not faster than a .357. He stayed put. Classy lady in a Beemer and a dead carjacker, she wasn’t risking any real trouble if she gunned him down where he stood.

  “Decision point. Go down for it. Spend some time in juvie—”

  “I’m twenty, twenty-one next week.” Why’d he been dumb enough to say that? Not that the cops wouldn’t find out, but they didn’t have his prints anywhere in their system… yet. He didn’t carry any ID either, but there was only so long you could play that card.

  “Okay, do some time or get in the car.”

  He looked into the deep well of those dark eyes, allowing himself three heartbeats to decide what the hell she was up to. The sharp squeal of cop tires swerving around some other car too few blocks away won the argument.

  Frank moved around the front of the car fast, flicking down the wiper blade as he went, and slid into her passenger seat.

  While he circled, she’d shifted the big gun into her left hand. Could shoot with either hand, that took training. Some off duty cop in a Beemer, just his luck.

  He was barely in the car when the fuzz rounded the corner, their lights going.

  “Buckle up.”

  It was only after he buckled in that another thought struck him. A bad one. She just might drive him somewhere, gun him down, and dump his body. Never knew with cops in this town. Then she wouldn’t even have to fill out any damn paperwork. Little bit late to think of that shit, Adams. Dumbass! Once around the passenger side, he should have just kept running, not climbed into the lady’s damn car like a whatever it was that went to the slaughter. Sheep? Calves? Something. Frank Adamses.