He had zeroed his rifle, an Accuracy International AS50 (the British Army’s latest long-range harbinger of death), three days ago in one of the many Montenegrin forests en route. He’d set up a head-sized target at 1,000 metres and hit it first time. That was the beauty of the AS50 – you had to run over it with a tank before it lost its zero. But he always checked, just in case.
Today’s target was 340 metres away. It was going to be simple.
He was lying on the platform, which was at a height of 1.5 metres above the floor. The gap in the window afforded a very clear view of the target area, and allowed him to switch left and right and acquire others. That always made him feel like God. Anyone in his sights was never more than a split-second away from death.
But he never killed anyone without good cause; and without being paid. And he expected his employer to meet both requirements before he accepted a task.
He snuggled the butt of the sniper-rifle against his cheek and placed his right eye against the Nightforce NXS sight. He kept his left open. He could do that. Pick out a target at up to 1,500 metres through the scope with his right, whilst looking out for peripheral trouble with his left. Not many could do that. And that’s why he’d survived this long.
He gently placed his right hand on the trigger guard and slipped his index finger in front of the trigger.
Looking through the scope, he made very minor adjustments to the direction of the weapon – which pivoted on the forward bipod.
He controlled his breathing. In. Out. In. Out. He would shoot when his lungs were empty. And just after a heartbeat. When any body movement was minimal – and success guaranteed.
He never missed. Well, that’s not exactly true. He’d missed once, when the target tripped over something just as he had pulled the trigger. Ergorov had got him with a second shot, when the target had stood up, and was brushing himself down. He didn’t really consider it a miss.
Today’s was a key job – there was little questioning that. He didn’t get many taskings directly from the Russian government. He had no idea exactly which department, but the tell-tale signs were clear – he had his methods. The detail came from, he guessed a man, who addressed himself as ‘V’. They’d not met, which was not unusual, but he had agreed to one of Ergorov’s key prerequisites: that he should know why the tasker wanted the person dead. A single line would do. Like, ‘the target is having an affair with my wife’; or ‘the man has embezzled over $1 million from the company’. Ergorov needed his conscience clear. And either of those, or something similar, would do.
The line he’d got from his contact couldn’t have been more unequivocal.
A threat to national security.
That was a good enough answer.
And the money was acceptable.
So here he was. Regulating his breathing.
In. Out. In. Out.
He twisted the near focus on the scope a fraction of a millimetre.
There she was. The woman. In the centre of the lens. The one with the coffee, the vase and the binos, sat outside the restaurant. She had been looking at the boat for an hour. And she’d been there yesterday, doing the same thing. She was in perfect focus. The beautifully constructed crosshairs were poised, hovering over her left ear.
He carefully closed his trigger finger, taking up the tiny bit of play there was in the mechanism.
She moved. She was picking up the binos.
Now she was back in focus. He adjusted himself.
In. Out. In. Out.
His left eye picked up some movement on the stern of the boat, a deck up. Two people had come out through the sliding glass doors. A large woman, carrying a tray of drinks, and a man. He recognised him immediately.
Perfect.
It took Ergorov three seconds to switch the barrel of the rifle so that the crosshairs were on the man’s forehead.
Nikolay Sokolov. He knew him. Everyone in Russia knew him. He was all over the news. The oligarch of oligarchs. And, surprising for Ergorov, a former client of his. The cafe bomb in Moscow last year.
How things come around.
In. Out.
His trigger finger took up the slack.
In. Out.
Heartbeat…
Bang!
The noise was muted by the silencer, a car backfiring to the outside world. But it was still deafening at the shooter’s end.
A quick move of the scope downward showed that the target was down. When a 0.5 inch round travelling way beyond the speed of sound hits your head, there’s rarely anything left of it.
There wasn’t.
Just a flaccid body with no face to speak of. Lots of blood.
He remained still, gauging the reaction on the ground. Checking if anything had happened that would upset his planned escape. As he looked, focusing on the target area, he reached for his mobile which he’d left beside him on the platform. He had already prepared an SMS to send to ‘V’.
It simply read:
Magpie is down.
A threat to national security.
Not any more.
He pressed ‘Send’.
As he lifted his chest from the platform, he looked down to the restaurant.
The woman was gone. All that was left to remind anyone that she had been sat there was an empty coffee cup and a €10 note, tucked under the vase to make sure that it didn’t blow away.
Sam Green books by Roland Ladley:
Unsuspecting Hero
Sam Green’s life is in danger of imploding. Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after horrific injuries and personal tragedy in Afghanistan, she escapes to the Isle of Mull hoping to convalesce. A chance find on the island’s shores interrupts her rehabilitation and launches her on a journey to West Africa and on a collision course with forces and adversaries she cannot begin to comprehend.
Meanwhile in London, MI6 is facing down a biological threat that could kill thousands and inflame an already smouldering religious war. Time is not on anyone’s side and Sam’s determination to face her past and control her future, regardless of the risks, looks likely to end in disaster. Fate conspires to bring Sam into the centre of an international conspiracy where she alone has the power to influence world-changing events. Blind to her new-found role, is her military training and complete disregard for her own safety enough to prevent the imminent devastation?
Fuelling the Fire
Why are so many passenger planes falling from the sky? Why are two ex-CIA agents training terrorists in the Yemeni desert? Why is a religious cult transferring millions of dollars to unattributable bank accounts around the world? Are these events connected? If they are, is this the mother of all conspiracies?
MI6 analyst Sam Green desperately wants to establish why her only surviving relative died in the latest plane crash. But can she put aside her grief and make sense of it all? Or is the clock ticking just too quickly, even for her?
Finding Roland Ladley
On Facebook and Twitter @rolandtheauthor
On Instagram with #rolandtheauthor
On Goodreads here: Roland Ladley where you can link to all his books.
And his travel/writing blog: the.wanderlings
The Innocence of Trust Page 41