Decorated in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Federal-style, the home had antiques chosen by his late first wife, Lauren, who favored Duncan Phyfe, Thomas Seymour, and Lannuier. There was even a priceless Klismos side chair attributed to Hugh and John Finlay, identical to a design by Benjamin Henry Latrobe who designed the earliest version of the United States Capitol building.
Fifteen years his junior, Berkshire didn’t argue the expense with his young and beautiful wife.
Through a set of French doors opposite his desk, Berkshire looked out onto a private garden awash in mid-morning sunlight. Outside the window, a group of hummingbirds jockeyed for position at a feeder like a squadron of F-35 fighter jets. A flock of Monarchs fluttered among a copse of blossoming Butterfly bush in preparation for the two-month long migration to Central Mexico. There was a rock garden with a waterfall and a pond stocked with colorful Koi fish. Some evenings, Berkshire would stand at pond’s edge to feed the fish by hand.
The garden had been a preoccupation of his late second and also much younger wife, Bethany. Twice widowed, these days Berkshire remained a committed bachelor believing it the best defense against the mathematical improbability a third much younger wife might choose to predecease him.
For my sins, he sometimes wondered though never truly believed.
Easing himself back in his favorite well-used leather armchair, Berkshire replayed the video for the countless time.
Shortly before midnight the previous evening, he’d received an automated text notification alerting him to the posting of the video to YouTube. Within moments of the event, video clips of the shooting in New Orleans began circulating on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media websites, going viral before being pulled from circulation an hour later.
By early morning, bootlegged copies of the video appeared on CNN and Fox News as the lead-in for the day.
A random act of violence or a public coming-out party for The Shooter? Berkshire wondered.
Six hours after the kill, he received a preliminary assessment from Langley. According to first police reports, emergency room reports, photos, and the Agency’s own topographical analysis using satellite and map data, analysts estimated weapon and ordnance used, the velocity at impact, spray pattern, pass-through, and tissue damage. On the ground in New Orleans, Agents determined the kill-shot had originated from an east-northeast direction at a range of one thousand to two thousand yards traveling at a downward angle of forty to seventy degrees, likely from a rooftop or window of a structure taller than three hundred feet in height, possibly as tall as seven.
This wasn’t the work of a random whack-job taking pot-shots from street level at close range.
This was the work of his Shooter.
On local media, law enforcement characterized the incident as an act of random violence unconnected to any known terrorist threat. A manhunt including NOPD and Sheriff’s Deputies was underway. From ignorance and in haste to apprehend the shooter, police confined the immediate search to buildings, vehicles, and pedestrians within a four-block radius extending out from the crime scene; the search did not include The Sheraton New Orleans Hotel.
By the time the perimeter had expanded outward, the shooter was long gone, asleep safe and sound aboard a Greyhound bus on the red-eye trip to Atlanta.
Berkshire knew Mathias was in DC, huddled that very moment at FBI headquarters with Resnick and her team analyzing the New Orleans video. Nevertheless, he believed it vital for Mathias to be on the ground at the crime scene, for the hunter to breathe deeply of the killer’s scent and, like a tracker-dog, unleashed upon his prey.
More importantly, for the hunted to know Mathias was coming.
Before traveling to DC, Berkshire had convinced Mathias the best way to draw-out The Shooter was to set Mathias up as bait.
“The Shooter’s target needs to be you, Mathias. You know it,” he’d said. “He’s one of you.”
“Ex-military off his meds?”
“Only ex-military could notch those kills.”
Or CIA, Mathias thought but didn’t say. “Tara won’t like it; she’ll shoot me.”
“No, Mathias; she’ll shoot me.”
“And the Deputy Director?”
“Coming from me, Resnick will never agree.”
“But coming from me, she will?”
“Gloria has no plan, Mathias. Left to the Bureau, the kill-count will hit triple digits by Thanksgiving. My bet is, The Shooter is working up to something big.”
“Political assassination?”
“An attempt wouldn’t hurt the incumbent’s prospects for re-election. A successful attempt would put Dems back in the White House.”
“Sounds like a conspiracy to me.”
Berkshire shrugged, the innocent man. “Put it to her, Mathias. Coming from you, she’ll warm to the idea like a lover on a cold night.”
◊◊◊
Reaching for his desk phone, Berkshire dialed into his personal assistant at the Counter Terrorism Center. He requisitioned a Gulfstream G280 to make the thousand-mile trip to Alvin Callender Field at the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Louisiana, ninety minutes from DC wheels up to wheels down.
With luck, he’d be home in time to feed the fish.
THIRTY-NINE
New Orleans, Louisiana
SEATED ALONE AT THE REAR of the cabin, Mathias digested the preliminary crime scene report and Agency analysis. Two rows forward, Resnick and Berkshire conferred in muted tones. Mathias was able to hear just enough to know the Deputy Director was annoyed at Berkshire tagging-along to what was a Bureau operation; her operation.
Unapologetic, Berkshire said, “It’s my ride, isn’t it?”
Lunch arrived shortly after takeoff. Knowing enough to eat when offered, Mathias swallowed without tasting. The police report was much as expected. Crime scene photos, the cause of death—as if it wasn’t obvious—time of death—as if this, too, wasn’t apparent courtesy of video time stamp.
On a laptop, he viewed the clip showing the precise moment of impact. Mathias felt terrible for the little girl and the young woman and man. Serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, seeing so many dead children with bodies mangled to beyond human recognition, Mathias was surprised to find himself, again, deeply moved.
On Mathias, the irony was not lost, given his former occupation as a hired killer. Or, rather, the peculiar set of skills enabling him to do what others said he did best.
Though amounting to just one single, concise page, the Agency report was enough for Mathias to draw his own conclusions.
In the meantime, he thought about Tara. Since landing in DC, she’d returned none of his calls or text messages. Mathias understood both her anger and her worry that, after seven years away, he’d been sucked back into the Game by Dabney Berkshire.
And because boys will be boys, Tara had shouted at him, to you, it’s all just a game. And, she argued further, that son-of-a-bitch raising the possibility of National Security to sweeten the pot is his way of ensuring you won’t be able to resist.
Despite Mathias arguing One and done, Tara, one and done, Tara remained skeptical of his motives and resolute in her objection to the point she refused to say goodbye.
Over the intercom came the pilot’s instructions to prepare for landing.
From the port-side window the Mississippi Delta stuck-out from the marshy-green headland like a hitchhiker’s thumb into the Gulf of Mexico. The surface of the water shimmered under the sun like a carpet of cut-glass stretching all the way to the horizon. Up and down the River from Southwest Pass to The Port of New Orleans tankers, cargo ships, and barges left a stew of murky water in their wake. To starboard, surrounded by water and marsh, the Big Easy looked vulnerable and adrift, tethered to the mainland of America—if not to the mainstream—by a slight twist of thread known as the Mighty Mississippi River.
With only a handful of tall buildings, the Mercedes Benz Superdome was the City’s most prominent landmark, looking
to Mathias fittingly like a giant fuel storage tank.
Approaching Alvin Callender Field from the northwest, the Gulfstream bucked a modest headwind hitting the runway with a gentle thud. On the tarmac, a nearby Cadillac Escalade waited to drive them the thirty minutes to the scene of the crime, the Contemporary Arts Center downtown at the corner where Camp Street and St. Joseph Street converge. With the outside air temperature hovering at an energy-sapping ninety-six degrees, both Resnick and Berkshire began to sweat as soon as they deplaned. Having survived the Registan, Mathias was immune.
Never having been to the city, Mathias knew of New Orleans only what he’d learned from travel brochures and in newspapers: Mardi Gras, Bourbon Street, Dixieland Jazz and, most famously, Hurricane Katrina. He knew the city to be a Cajun-Creole jambalaya-mash-up of epically diverse food, music, religious, language, ethnic, racial, and cultural divides all competing to stay relevant in a city plagued by natural disaster, poverty, corruption in high office, and the constant threat of death by gunshot and drowning.
To a man who’d spent years in Kabul, it was a wonder to Mathias how in America a place such as this could exist.
At the crime scene, hazmat-clad investigators cataloged evidence and scoured the pavement in search of clues. The intersection remained closed to pedestrians and through traffic, cordoned-off by construction barriers, yellow police tape, and NOPD cruisers with rooftop lights flashing. Uniformed Patrol Officers and Sheriff’s Deputies patrolled the barrier. Behind the cordon locals, tourists, and media snapped photos and shot video. A search of whitney white linen on Google returned thousands of results. On YouTube, video views of the aftermath had climbed to over three million.
Onstage, a pool of tarry-black blood shimmered like a patch of pavement sealer under the midday sun. The air was heavy, ripe with the sickly-sweet scent of plasma. Somewhere in the mix, Mathias detected the waft from a charcoal broiler: Fifty yards beyond the perimeter, a street vendor had set up his cart to feed a crowd of ravenous onlookers. Swarming black flies buzzed relentlessly, dive-bombing in sympathy to feast on the tacky blood and to lay eggs. The stage was littered with scattered bits of clothing and surgical gauze left behind by bystanders and emergency workers in a valiant attempt to staunch the flow of life, all to no avail.
A scene of carnage familiar to him from the streets and the outdoor market stalls of a world a million miles away.
In addition to the New Orleans Superintendent of Police, on the scene were Commanders for both the Criminal and Specialized Investigative Divisions and the Commander for the Eighth District in which the crime occurred. Approaching the quartet, credentials raised like a bullfighter’s red flag, Berkshire and Resnick asserted their authority. Even from a distance, Mathias could see the Superintendent snort and click his heels in resentment.
Standing alone, as he’d done so often in the past, Mathias reconnoitered his surroundings. As a killing field, the stage, itself, was ideal; elevated, exposed, noisy, well-lit, multiple targets to choose from. Ditto the street below. Even a poor shot could easily pick-off dozens of targets a la a Vegas-style massacre, no skill or “bump-stock” required.
But he hadn’t: No massacre even though it could easily have been.
For a sniper, the first order of business is concealment because no shooter wants to be blown to bits by an incoming RPG or hostile retaliatory fire. A trained shooter avoids the most visible and apparent locations; near to open windows and windowsills, rooftops, symmetrical man-made structures against which an irregular human form is easily detected, places where a muzzle flash and rifle shot can be seen or heard, or a shooting distance less than five hundred yards out from the primary target.
In other words, sit back, blend in, sight your Joy, press the trigger, evaporate.
From various accounts, Mathias knew the kill-shot had originated from elevation, from a distance, in the dark. Scanning the skyline, adjusting his shades against the mid-afternoon sun, he settled on the most obvious vantage point, a skyscraper between a half and three-quarters of a mile east along Camp, a building about sixty stories tall with a metal tower.
Easy for authorities to overlook among the panic and in the dark.
Summoning a patrol officer, Mathias pointed. “There, what’s that building?”
Giving him the once-over, the woman said, “New Orleans Sheraton. What’s it to you? Looking to book a room?”
With a tilt of his chin and flash of a hastily issued FBI Special Agent Identification, he gestured toward the Brass. “I’m with them.”
Looking unimpressed, the patrol officer moved off.
◊◊◊
In the lobby of the Sheraton, Mathias presented his ID to a clerk, who at once summoned the manager. The manager was a sprightly young woman who exited from a glass-front office looking harassed. From the young woman, Mathias requested access to the hotel rooftop.
“Of course, we all know what happened last night, guests returning to the hotel in a panic,” she said. “We’ve had over two hundred early checkouts this morning alone; a hundred cancellations. By tonight, we’ll be half-empty.” Talking non-stop, she continued nervously. “My God, you don’t think he shot those poor people from up there, do you?”
“Just your passkey,” Mathias said. “You stay put. In twenty minutes, this place will be crawling with cops.”
Hand trembling, she passed him a swipe-card. “Shit, I might as well lock the door. Probably lose my job.”
Already, Mathias was heading for the stairs.
FORTY
New Orleans, Louisiana
A SIMPLE MAG-STRIP would be enough for The Shooter to gain access to the hotel rooftop. Mathias sighed.
On the rooftop, the sniper’s perch was immediately evident to him only because it was where he would have set-up-shop himself; sufficiently high above street-level for a muzzle flash not to be seen or a rifle report not to be heard, a vantage point high enough to get a clean line-of-sight down to the Whitney White Linen stage. Though the only path to escape was the emergency stairs, The Shooter knew he’d be long gone before authorities pinpointed his location.
Mathias crossed over the steaming pebbled blacktop to the metal framework tower bolted to the roof. Rusting and decrepit, it might once have been used to send radio signals, he surmised.
The heated surface was tacky beneath the rubber soles of his shoes. With ease, he scaled the rusty framework to a height of twelve rungs, to a point at which he could no longer wedge his frame comfortably among the metal cross-supports.
Though not unusually tall nor exceptionally broad, Mathias was well-built. Depending on the sniper’s height and weight—unless he was a dwarf—he’d have selected a perch between three rungs below to three rungs above.
Braced among the crossbeams, Mathias scrutinized the girders for fibers, discoloration, flaking, peeling, any tell-tale sign of recent human activity. As expected, he discovered none.
Despite the heat, he wore a multi-pocketed nylon-mesh jacket. From a zipped left pocket, he extracted a tube the approximate size and shape of a stubby cigar sleeve. Mathias unfastened caps at each end of the tube. Placing the mini-sighting lens to his right eye, he scanned the distant streetscape below from an elevation of six hundred feet. He paused when he reached the intersection at Camp Street and St. Joseph Streets.
From his perch, Mathias watched as the crime techs went methodically about their business. He watched Resnick and Berkshire speak to the local officers in charge. The debate seemed heated. Or maybe it was the humidity. Nonetheless, pinched faces all-round signified disagreement, most likely over jurisdiction.
With so many dead bodies already, the locals didn’t stand a chance.
Mathias reclined. As he was trained to do, he relaxed his muscles, used position and weight to wedge himself securely in place; even if he were to nod-off, he wouldn’t fall. Not necessarily comfortable, but critical to reducing muscle fatigue and strain over long stretches waiting for the right shot to appear.
Fro
m here, Mathias had a sniper’s-eye view of the killing ground from eleven hundred yards out, two hundred down at a shallow declining angle of about sixty degrees. According to the weather forecast, relative humidity the previous evening had been high, wind speed negligible. For an experienced marksman firing into a crowd, a simple shot.
But The Shooter had not wanted simple; he’d not wanted the shot to be through-and-through, taking out multiple targets at once; he’d not wanted to mow-down the audience like an amateur causing them to panic and flee. No: he’d wanted to make a statement shot, one he knew would be viewed and admired by audiences on social media around the globe. Hence, the highly visible center stage roll-em-cameras! take-down moment.
But why the child? To now, he’d targeted only adult victims. Again, to Mathias, the answer was as simple as it was obvious. The little girl was a mistake. She’d become a target of her own volition, placing herself in harm’s way by commandeering center stage from the older girls. Likely, it violated The Shooter’s code of One Shot, One Kill, the twofer being an unintended consequence of the little girl’s showmanship.
A trained sniper learns early-on to avoid collateral damage. A Naval instructor once barked at his class: “For a sniper, it’s one shot, one kill; any more makes you a mass murderer.”
Unintentional though it might have been, as a Coming-Out-Party, it was a bloody—literally—grand gesture.
For a full ten minutes, Mathias remained immobile, wedged in the skeleton of the metal frame, absorbing the ambient heat from The Shooter’s body, breathing in his after-scent. Finally, wave after wave of heat radiating from the rooftop, Mathias began to perspire. Not much; a drop here, a drop there.
Not immune, after all.
American Sniper Page 6