Viral

by Robin Cook

  Charles Kelley’s routine was somewhat similar, although on arrival he did a cursory property check himself, accompanied by his liveried driver. A half hour later they both re-emerged onto the terrace, one from within the house and the other from around the side, both dressed in T-shirts, shorts, and high-top sneakers. Since the driver didn’t come from inside the house, Brian assumed he lived on the premises but in the guest house. He recognized that the driver’s presence would need to be taken into consideration if a home invasion became necessary.

  After reappearing in athletic gear, both Charles and his driver proceeded to the tennis court. They didn’t play tennis but rather played one-on-one basketball, during which Charles invariably prevailed by a wide margin. In contrast to Heather Williams’s solitary riding routine and its favorability for a sniper shot, Charles Kelley’s basketball playing was not ideal, not only because he wasn’t alone, but because the court was surrounded by a metal chain-link fence. As Brian explained to Jeanne, trying to target through the fence could be a problem, since there was a substantial probability that a bullet would be deflected, potentially wounding the target instead of killing him.

  The most disappointing aspect of Charles Kelley’s routine, as they observed on the first day, was that after his basketball triumph, he didn’t swim solitary laps like Heather Williams in his Olympic-sized pool as they had hoped. But it was a good thing they had been patient and stayed while the sun set because Charles had eventually reappeared. To their surprise he suddenly emerged out of a Moorish arched door onto a second-floor balcony, and what surprised them even more was that he was naked save for a towel casually thrown over his shoulder. Later, thanks to the floor plans they had obtained online from the Kings Point Building and Assessor’s Office, they learned that the door led out from a master bedroom/bath complex. While they watched him on that first occasion and on subsequent evenings, Charles Kelley always took lengthy outdoor showers. Thanks to his significantly above-average height, he was visible from mid-thorax to the crown of his head the entire time—a perfect setup for a sniper shot.

  “I hope you remembered your French passport,” Jeanne said half in jest and half to break the tense silence as they turned onto the Cross County Parkway, heading east. In contrast to his practiced calmness, she was a ball of nerves.

  “I remembered mine,” Brian said. “I hope you brought yours, too.”

  “No problem for me. I’m bringing everything I still own. You are the one leaving an entire house full of furniture, an extended family, all your personal stuff, and a lifetime behind.”

  It was true. The last few days had been hectic for him, trying to get everything done, including signing the new deed to transfer the house to Camila and sign over the car as well. Luckily Patrick McCarthy had been willing to help, since he wrongly assumed it was merely a private deal that Brian had arranged with Camila to keep the house from the hands of MMH Inwood via their subsidiary Premier Collections.

  With the major assets out of the way, Brian then tried to decide what to bring with him as souvenirs of his past life. Ultimately, he settled on just taking some clothes and nothing else. The mere process of trying to decide on more personal things had evoked too much pain and even more anger in him. The only thing he was going to miss was his family and some of his NYPD buddies, though he was confident he’d be seeing them sometime in the future.

  The plan that they had settled on, provided things went as they envisioned that day, was for him to take Jeanne directly to JFK Airport, where she was scheduled to take one of the last flights of the night heading to Europe. It was a Turkish Airlines flight to London. From there she was scheduled to go on to Frankfurt, Germany, where she would pick up a rental car. Brian was to go from dropping Jeanne off at JFK to Floyd Bennett Field in order to return the Remington plus the equipment he’d borrowed from the ESU Academy. He was then to drive out to Newark Airport where he was scheduled to take a morning Delta flight to London. From there he was to also connect to Frankfurt, where he and Jeanne would meet up and drive to the South of France.

  Ten minutes later they were heading south on the Hutchinson River Parkway, and Jeanne again broke the silence. “What do you think are the chances we’ll need to break into one or both houses?”

  “I’m counting on the chances being relatively small,” Brian said. “Both Kelley and Williams strike me as mildly obsessive-compulsive creatures of habit, as we’ve observed. If there is to be a break-in, it will be at Charles Kelley’s and only if he fails to follow his normal outdoor shower routine. You’ve remembered your handheld two-way radio, right?”

  “Of course.” She patted the shoulder bag on her lap. “And one for you, too, so that we can communicate if need be.”

  “Good idea,” he said.

  One of the first things they’d done after determining where each executive lived was to go by the homes the following morning so that Jeanne could figure out the frequencies of their respective wireless security systems. She’d done it with her laptop when the outer gates had opened and closed for a delivery. She had explained that by dialing in the frequency on her radio, she would be able to swamp the respective systems, making it possible if need be for her and Brian to walk in their front doors without being detected and deal with any indoor motion detectors. She reminded him that the key thing that she’d have to remember was to let her radio stop transmitting for a second or two every so often to keep the central alarm system from recognizing it was being artificially overwhelmed. Brian wasn’t sure he understood, but was confident that she knew what she was doing.

  “I know it sounds silly considering what we are planning to do,” Jeanne said, speaking up yet again after a few more miles of silence. Although he was pensive under the circumstances, as accustomed as he was to anticipating action and controlling his emotions, she had a nervous urge to talk. “But I’m glad we learned that both of them had been recently divorced.”

  “I know what you mean,” Brian agreed.

  During their intense, weeklong investigation of Heather Williams’s and Charles Kelley’s habits, they had learned a number of unexpected things, some of which were encouraging for what they were planning to do. They discovered that prior to the coronavirus pandemic both executives had undergone messy and rather public divorces, during which custody of the involved children had been awarded to the respective former spouses, none of which surprised them. This information bolstered the impression Brian and Jeanne had that Heather and Charles were grossly egotistical, greedy, unempathetic, narcissistic people, and accordingly bad parents.

  A few minutes later they drove across City Island Bridge and turned onto City Island Avenue, a straight-shot street that ran due south the entire length of City Island. It was now slow going because of traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, made worse by numerous double-parked cars and a series of traffic lights.

  “I like this neighborhood,” Jeanne commented as they passed numerous hole-in-the-wall restaurants, all of which had expanded their outdoor dining onto the sidewalk and into the street due to the pandemic restricting their indoor seating. “It feels authentic and reminds me of parts of the Jersey Shore, with a kind of run-down but charming honky-tonk feel.” The architecture ran from ramshackle modern to bastardized Victorian.

  Brian was preoccupied and didn’t answer. At this point of the journey, it was taking longer than he’d planned, as they had never driven the length of City Island Avenue in the afternoon. It was now almost four-thirty, and he wanted to be in position at least by five, when Heather Williams would arrive home. The plan was to wait until after the security people had done their daily sweep of the grounds before he would take up his intended position within a group of dark green Adirondack chairs grouped at the end of Heather Williams’s pier. His intention was to shoot supine, using the chairs as cover. Jeanne was to remain in the Zodiac beneath the pier alongside the sailing yacht to be prepared for a fast getaway if it was nece
ssary. A similar strategy was to be used at Charles Kelley’s, only there Brian was going to take advantage of being able to shoot from within the cabana, which offered significantly more cover.

  “Jesus Christ!” Brian complained, losing a bit of his composure as they were forced to wait behind a pickup truck double-parked outside of the Original Crab Shanty. There was no break in the line of cars coming from the opposite direction.

  “Are you getting nervous?” Jeanne asked, glancing in his direction.

  “Only time-wise,” Brian admitted. “I hope we haven’t planned this too tightly.”

  Finally, there was a break in the incessant oncoming traffic, allowing Brian to skirt the truck blocking the road. He quickly accelerated but then immediately had to stop for a traffic light that inconveniently turned red.

  “I think we are good,” she reassured him. “We’re almost there.”

  Jeanne was correct, and they were able to pull into Butler Marine just a few minutes later. It was on the opposite, east side of the street such that the marina faced out toward Hart Island. Traversing the parking lot, he drove as close as he could to the base of the dock, which was home to the slip where their Zodiac slowly bobbed. Once there he quickly did a three-point turn and backed up as close as he could.

  “Okay,” Brian said, jumping out of the car. “Let’s get her loaded up quickly. No turning back now.” They gave each other a look of agreement.

  Along with some of the fishing gear and several canoe paddles, Brian gingerly picked up the bag containing the Remington MSR and slung it over his shoulder. Jeanne gathered up the rest of the fishing gear, and the two of them walked out to the boat without attracting any undue attention from the half dozen or so people attending to their boats farther out on the dock. While Jeanne climbed on board to stow everything and make ready, he went back to the car to get the equipment he’d borrowed from the ESU if a home invasion became necessary, including the ketamine dart pistol. The dart gun was in case they had to deal with Charles Kelley’s two pit bulls, which they had learned about during their extensive reconnaissance.

  With everything shipshape in the Zodiac and the outboard idling, Brian went back to the Subaru, pulled the blanket back over their luggage, and moved the car to park as close as possible to the marina’s office. He thought that would be the safest place in the lot because the office was open until eleven p.m. with people coming and going. At that point of the venture, a theft of their luggage would be an unqualified disaster.

  “Are you happy time-wise now?” Jeanne questioned nervously once they were underway and heading out through the marina’s rather elaborate dock system. Following the rules, he had the boat going at a very slow speed to avoid any wake.

  “We’re good,” Brian said, knowing that the distance between the marina and Heather Williams’s pier was just a little more than two miles. Since there was little wind and no waves or chop, crossing the Sound into Manhasset Bay would only take five to ten minutes.

  Once out in the open water, Brian pushed the boat’s throttle forward and let the forty-horsepower engine do its thing. With the resultant noise and stiff breeze, conversation was near impossible. Instead of trying to converse, they both mused privately about what the next few hours would bring. At the same time, they couldn’t help but appreciate the near-perfect late summer day and the salty smell of the sea. And once they cleared the southern tip of City Island and were in open water, they could admire the impressively jagged skyline of Manhattan along the horizon off to their right. Had the circumstances been different, they might have even enjoyed themselves.

  Entering the mouth of Manhasset Bay, he cut back on the throttle, and the boat rapidly slowed and settled into the water. There were a few fishermen in view, and the last thing that Brian wanted to do was draw attention to themselves by potentially irritating anyone. Several hundred yards out from the tip of Heather Williams’s pier, Brian turned off the engine completely. He handed one of the fishing rods to Jeanne and picked one up himself. They both dropped their weighted lines into the water on opposite sides of the boat and pretended to be fishing.

  Thanks to the prevailing westerly breeze, they were drifting directly toward their ultimate target. About a hundred yards away from the pier, he tossed out the anchor and the boat’s westward drift slowed dramatically. It was now five o’clock. Pretty much on schedule, the security people appeared, meaning Heather had arrived at home, and Brian and Jeanne watched as they followed their established routine of inspecting the grounds, the pool house, and the sailboat. As he watched one of them board the vessel, he wondered if there’d been a problem in the past with the yacht, perhaps a homeless person taking up residence or something of that nature to explain its invariable inclusion in their rounds.

  Most important, they never gave any heed to Brian and Jeanne while doing their security check. If they were at all concerned about a couple of people fishing a hundred yards or so off the end of the pier, they didn’t let on. Brian was mildly surprised but gave them the benefit of the doubt since they weren’t the only fishermen in the area. Once the security men were on their way off the pier, essentially finishing their inspection, he quickly pulled the anchor. In response, the boat’s westward drift recommenced.

  By the time Heather appeared from inside the house decked out in her riding gear, which comprised a tattersall vest, a black velveteen riding helmet, and a pair of white, form-fitting riding breeches, Brian and Jeanne were close enough to the pier for the deck to restrict their view. Depending on the tide, the pier could be as much as seven feet off the surface of the water, but at the moment it was about six. Although they couldn’t see the beagles, they could hear them in their excitement as Heather followed her normal routine, heading for the stable.

  As close as they were to the pier and wanting to avoid being seen by neighbors, Brian and Jeanne snatched up the paddles and quickly moved the Zodiac under the pier’s expanded T-shaped end. Shaded from the sun, it was like entering a forest of pressure-treated pilings with the deck above serving as the forest’s canopy. Speaking curtly in hushed tones and using mostly gestures, Brian directed Jeanne to help turn the Zodiac around and then hold it in position facing out into the bay in case a fast escape was necessary. As they had earlier decided, Jeanne would be staying in the boat.

  With care, he then removed the Remington from its protective cover. Before he’d left home, he’d readjusted its telescopic sight from its three-hundred-yard setting back to the hundred-yard setting, which was the distance Brian estimated from the end of the pier to the waterside edge of the paddock. All he had to do to the gun was unfold the stock and secure it since he’d already made all the other adjustments prior to his visit to Rodman’s Neck. He then handed the readied rifle to Jeanne while he climbed out of the boat and moved around to the outside of the ladder. When he was in position, she handed him the rifle.

  “Bonne chance,” she whispered, giving his arm a squeeze.

  After flashing Jeanne a thumbs-up, Brian carefully made his way up the perfectly vertical ladder. While holding the rifle in his left hand, it was a difficult process and would have been far easier if the gun had a shoulder strap. It required hugging the ladder with his body and sliding his right hand up its side between each step.

  Finally gaining the deck, he immediately crouched down among the gaggle of Adirondack chairs while he slowly and silently rearranged them to form an outward-facing U. He made sure there was ample space for him to lie supine in the middle. After being in the relative darkness beneath the deck, he now had to squint against the bright, late afternoon sunlight. Once he was happy with the chair placement, he lay down, facing in toward land. Carefully he advanced the barrel of the rifle beneath the chair that formed the base of the U and set it on its bipod. After making himself comfortable, he leaned against the cheek-rest and sighted through the telescopic sight. Using the bolt action, he loaded a shell into the firing chamber.


  Since Heather Williams had yet to appear from inside the stable, Brian used the time to scan around the swimming pool with the aid of the telescopic sight. If a paddock shot proved unacceptable for some unexpected reason, he wanted to have a plan for the pool. While he was so occupied, he saw Heather appear out of his left eye already mounted and coming toward him. Quickly he moved the gun to bring her image into the telescopic field. As was her normal routine, she started out at a walk coming toward him and moving clockwise around the paddock. Later she would trot, and canter, and even gallop. Since this walking entailed the least up-and-down movement, Brian was eager to make the shot quickly. As for the velveteen riding helmet, he was mildly concerned about what it might do to the bullet. Instead of taking any risk for a deflection, he decided to target just below the helmet from the rear, aiming for the brainstem. As he waited, she reached the curve and began turning to her right. The dogs at this point were considerably out in front of her in their eagerness.

  With some difficulty but benefitting from experience, he maintained his breathing at a calm pace although he was conscious his pulse had quickened. All of their planning came down to mere moments. Without moving any other muscle in his relaxed body, he slipped his right index finger within the trigger guard and gently connected with the trigger. Through the telescopic sight, he followed Heather Williams’s progress on the turn as well as her methodical up-and-down movement. Soon he was observing her profile, and then as she began to turn away, he increased the pressure on the trigger while lining up the crosshairs on the base of the woman’s skull. At just the right moment, he made the shot. With the suppressor there was just a thumping hiss with the recoil. By reflex he used the bolt to rapidly eject the used cartridge and reload. But a second shot wasn’t necessary. Heather Williams fell off the horse with such suddenness the horse didn’t interrupt its walking even though it was now riderless.