His government had trained him to be an assassin.
And now he would assassinate his own President.
Hurt cradled the rifle and moved the scope toward Roland Sand.
All he saw was the back of the man’s head.
It was squarely in the sniper rifle’s crosshair.
Every security agent atop Midway had no doubt seen Sand.
But only one knew why Sand was at the airport.
Only one could stop him.
Hurt heard Air Force One roll to a stop.
He took a deep breath.
All he had to do was gently squeeze the trigger, and it would be all over.
Hurt hesitated.
He knew Sand had been assigned to kill a President.
Hurt knew who had assigned him.
But how the hell could he prove it?
SAND WATCHED THE door to Air Force One open. His mind tensed. His muscles didn’t. He held the rifle against his cheek as lightly, as gently as he would hold a newborn.
The Secret Service Agent stood in the doorway, casting a long, slow gaze over the terminal. He was obviously convinced that everything seemed to be in order and under control. He bounded down the steps, looked up to the doorway and nodded.
The President appeared.
He was smaller than he looked on television.
He flashed a big smile and waved in case anyone in the terminal might be watching or perhaps even cheering.
He grabbed the hand rail and cautiously eased his way down the steps.
The President was looking older with every step he took. He appeared so much younger when the cameras were on him.
HURT KNEW HE couldn’t wait any longer.
He might be tried and convicted for shooting an innocent man in cold blood.
He might go to prison.
He would lose his rank.
He would lose his reputation.
But he would save the life of the President.
He would know the truth.
No one else mattered.
No one else cared.
He had Sand in his crosshairs.
SAND CUT HIS eyes toward the Bohemian.
Kolinski was still grinning broadly, his face beaded with raindrops.
It was a smile as bitter as gall.
Hurt’s gaze fell on Eleanor.
She was too frightened, too young, too lovely to die.
Hers was just one small life among many.
In reality, none of their lives mattered.
All anyone was promised was an obituary.
Quickly written.
Quickly read.
Promptly forgotten.
The President stopped to shake hands with the mayor.
His full profile filled the scope.
It was a perfect shot.
Sand couldn’t miss.
His gaze darted from the President to the girl.
One a politician.
One an innocent in a deadly game.
Sand knew he wouldn’t kill the President.
He couldn’t let the girl die.
He fired.
HURT WATCHED THE recoil of Sand’s rifle.
He heard the shot.
Jesus, he was too late.
He looked toward the President.
He saw the Bohemian’s head explode.
Blood splattered across a crimson raincoat.
Hurt’s eyes cut back to Sand.
Sand had taken a dead man’s shot.
He was condemned as well.
Hurt saw the man in black shove the barrel of his pistol against Sand’s head.
The Commander waited no longer.
He squeezed the trigger.
The man in black convulsed only once before he died.
Everyone began running toward the plane.
Hurt swung off the roof and dropped to the ground.
The night was alive with screams, shouts, and voices.
He couldn’t make out the words.
He heard only the sounds as he ran toward the President, lying on the ground, a Secret Service Agent pressed against him.
Hurt knelt beside him.
“The assassin’s dead,” he said.
ROLAND SAND REMOVED his rain suit and ran down the stairs. He stood in the corridor, in the midst of chaos and confusion, waiting on Eleanor.
She pushed her way through the crowd.
Her eyes were wild with fright.
She looked as if she had been screaming.
Now she was crying.
Her face was a mask of black mascara running in the rain.
It was matted with streaks of the Bohemian’s blood.
Sand took her hand, and they ran out into the night.
The rain had returned to Chicago. Sand held Eleanor tightly and wrapped a gray mist around their shoulders. They didn’t stop walking until morning.
Epilogue
SAND CHECKED OUT of the hotel before daylight found Chicago, using a credit card issued to Sydney Toliver. Somewhere between Midway Airport and the Hyatt Place, anyone answering to name of Roland Sand had vanished. The last remaining card with his identity had been ripped apart and buried in the rain beneath a boxelder tree just beyond the airport’s remote parking lot.
He bought a newspaper and settled down in the back seat of a taxicab headed toward O’Hare. The front page of the Sun-Times had the facts that would now go into history books as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
The President had escaped an assassination attempt.
A highly-ranked and decorated American intelligence director, Bartus Kolinski, was gunned down and killed in the attack.
A Navy SEAL Commander working in the President’s security detail shot the assassin, identified as Darrell Pendleton, a former intelligence officer who vanished two years earlier on an assignment in Tehran.
A second man also died in the attack. An intelligence operative named Archie Conway had apparently been shot and killed by the assassin earlier in the day.
Authorities were still searching for the lady in red who fled in the confusion of Midway Airport just after the gunfire ceased.
Sand smiled.
Maybe it was Toliver who smiled.
It was difficult to tell anymore.
He had left the lady in red an address.
Maybe she would come.
If she were smart, she wouldn’t.
He wouldn’t be there.
But the little old lady who ran the boarding house would know how to reach him.
She might have mercy on a beautiful, dark-haired attorney from Colorado.
She wouldn’t give anyone with a badge the time of day.
He closed his eyes and saw the image of Eleanor lying naked and alone on the bed. She had still been sleeping when he left her.
Lovely Night to Die Page 11