by Dalton Fury
He took a step forward, then another, and then before he knew it, he was running. Behind him, the crowd erupted in pandemonium, only now realizing that something terrible had just happened. Raynor knew there would be a stampede, with frightened spectators trampling one another to escape the nameless danger that had triggered the panic. His earpieces—he wore two, the one on the left monitoring the Secret Service net, while the right was reserved for Unit comms—crackled to life with crisscrossing traffic, protocols momentarily forgotten in the chaos.
“Hold the line. Keep them back.”
“Champ is secure!”
“Status. What’s happening? Where did the shot come from?”
Raynor ignored the questions even though he knew the answer.
Over the tumult, he heard a throaty roar of engines as the presidential motorcade sped away from the scene, continuing south to the designated rally point.
Raynor kept going north.
Directly ahead were six police motorcycles—Honda TransAlp 650s, white with the word POLICE printed in regular Roman letters on the side fairing—sitting idle and riderless, facing south and blocking the street. A dozen officers wearing full tactical kit and motorcycle helmets stood nearby, staring back at the mayhem in collective disbelief. Standard operating procedure for DIAS—the controversial Greek police motorcycle squad—was two men to each bike: one to drive and one to shoot. As Raynor drew near he reached inside his windbreaker and secured his cover credentials and badge. The closest officer tensed, one hand drifting toward his weapon.
Raynor held up his hands, flashing his bright silver badge with one and waving as if to get the man’s attention with the other. “Don’t shoot! I’m one of the good guys.”
He didn’t even know enough Greek to find a restroom, but he figured the gestures were universal. Without slowing, he pointed his left hand back down the street and shook it emphatically. “They need you back there.”
The policeman’s gaze flicked away from Raynor and he took a halting step in the indicated direction, giving Raynor the room he needed. Without slowing, Kolt veered in the direction of the last motorcycle in the row. He grasped the handlebars and squeezed the clutch lever on the left. As he threw his full weight behind his outstretched arms, he hauled the bike around in a tight 180, facing north. The vehicle grudgingly began rolling, the spring-loaded kickstand snapping up against the underside of the frame as the bike started picking up momentum.
He got about twenty meters before he heard the policeman’s frantic shout. It might have been a threat or warning; Raynor couldn’t tell the difference and he didn’t look back. When the bike was moving as fast as he could run, Kolt threw himself onto the saddle, giving it one last boost forward. He got his feet on the foot pedals and then, in one smooth motion, let out the clutch and hit the starter. With a lurch of compression, the 647 cc engine turned over and roared to life, and then the machine shot forward under its own power. Raynor gave the throttle a twist, revving the engine up before shifting into the next gear.
He was halfway to the base of Mount Lycabettus before it occurred to him that he should probably let someone know what he was doing.
He had no difficulty hearing the radio traffic over the earpieces screwed deep into each ear canal, but transmitting while riding, with the four-stroke V-twin engine buzzing underneath him, was another matter. He let go of one handlebar and groped for the push-to-talk button.
“This is Racer,” he shouted into the collar mic. “I’m going after the shooter. He’s on the mountain. About a klick to the north.”
He must have keyed the wrong mic, because instead of Slapshot or one of his troop commanders, the first voice he heard was Simmons. “Negative, Raynor. Hercules’s people can handle that. I need you and your people at the airport.”
Hercules was the code name the Secret Service had given to Police Colonel Kostas Drougas, a senior commander of EKAM—the elite Greek Special Anti-Terrorist Unit—and the man Raynor and Simmons had been liaising with. As Simmons had suggested, EKAM was in a much better position to run the sniper down. It was their city, after all. Raynor’s priority was protecting POTUS.
The contingency for an incident like this was to get the president back aboard Air Force One and out of the country as fast as possible. The drawback to that, of course, was that an enemy might easily anticipate such a move, and be waiting in the woods outside the airport with a man-portable surface-to-air missile, ready to shoot down the plane on takeoff. The modified Boeing VC-25 aircraft was equipped with countermeasures, but like any other aircraft, it was particularly vulnerable during takeoff, which was why the contingency plan called for Noble Squadron to establish a two-mile perimeter around the airfield.
Kolt knew that overseeing the efforts to protect Champ’s escape route was the correct thing for him, as squadron commander, to be doing under the circumstances. There was every reason to believe that the assassination attempt might have been intended to herd the president into exactly such an ambush, but Raynor didn’t think that was the case. He was certain that the sniper was acting alone, and that the single bullet had found its intended target.
Slapshot answered on the Secret Service freq before Raynor could formulate his response. “Way ahead of you,” he said. “Our recce teams are reporting the route is clean. Champ is good to go.”
There was a brief pause and then Slapshot’s voice sounded in Raynor’s other ear, and his tone was considerably less diplomatic. “Racer! Champ is the priority. What the hell are you doing, boss?”
Raynor knew the answer he was ready to give Simmons wouldn’t clear Slapshot’s bullshit detector. He found the push-to-talk for the Unit radio and answered with the truth. “It’s Shiner.”
Raynor did not disagree that protecting Champ was the first—the only—priority, but he also knew that the American president had never been the sniper’s intended victim. There was no immediate threat to POTUS—at least, not one related to the incident that had just occurred—but the sniper, the man designated as “Shiner”—and Kolt had no doubt about the killer’s identity—was a threat of a different order; one that the Unit, and Kolt Raynor in particular, were obligated to eradicate. He hadn’t been gunning for POTUS today, but tomorrow that could change, so as far as Raynor was concerned, there was no conflict between his current assignment to protect the president and his pursuit of the man who had just killed Midas.
He let go of the push-to-talk and focused on the ride. With the streets cleared in anticipation of the president’s motorcade, he was able to accelerate down the empty urban canyon, hitting sixty miles per hour in a matter of seconds, but a few hundred meters ahead, the street split in a Y-junction around a wooded plaza known as Kolonaki Square. Above the treetops and framed by the buildings to either side, Kolt could just make out a small sliver of Lycabettus, still more than a quarter of a mile away.
Kolt had no idea how much time had passed since the sniper’s bullet had ended the life of the Greek leader, but he knew it was measured in seconds, not minutes. Barely enough time for the shooter to move from his location, which meant the sniper—Shiner—was still there, on the mountain.
“Where’d that bullshit assessment come from, Racer?” Slapshot said. “Your gut instinct again?”
Kolt squeezed the Transmit button. “The long-range shot, the eye-orbit point of impact. That’s signature Shiner, Slap.”
“Fuck, Racer, that’s a helluva leap in logic,” Slapshot replied. “Ever heard the word ‘coincidence’? Maybe it was just a lucky shot.”
“Nobody is that lucky. Just get here,” Raynor barked, then let go of the push-to-talk so he could gear down, shedding speed as he neared the junction.
He did not turn but instead pushed straight ahead, bouncing the front wheel up and over the curb, and then accelerated into the plaza, slaloming around trees, to reach the broad paved walk that bisected the square. The pavement undulated up and down through a series of terraces and ramps—thankfully the square was only sparsely occupi
ed—ultimately culminating in a short flight of steps that rose to the street on the far side. The TransAlp was a dual-sport motorcycle, built for riding on- or off-road, a necessity in the rugged environs of the Greek Isles, and the front shocks absorbed most of the bone-jarring impact of navigating the plaza, but not quite well enough to keep the business end of his concealed Glock from busting his balls with each bump. As he approached the final set of steps, Raynor leaned forward and twisted the throttle hard forward. He felt the bike shift under him, the front end suddenly almost too light to stay on the ground, and then in a series of a tooth-loosening jolts, the motorcycle began climbing the steps.
Despite the extra boost of gas at the start, the Honda was barely moving at a crawl when it reached the street on the far side of the square, but another twist of the handgrip remedied that. With a shriek of burned rubber, the motorcycle shot out into the street, which, unlike the streets on the other side of the park square, had not been closed off. Over the screech of hastily applied brakes and angry honks, Raynor heard police sirens. A lot of them. He didn’t know if they were coming to back him up or arrest him, and he wasn’t about to stop to find out. One way or another, they would all be there when he ran Shiner to ground.
The angular profile of the mountain disappeared behind a row of apartment buildings on the far side of the street. The tallest of them stood seven stories high and lay directly in the path of the sniper’s bullet. Raynor did a quick calculation in his head: the shooter’s position would have to be a lot higher upslope in order for him to shoot past them.
He steered into traffic and headed east, skirting the residential buildings and searching for a route that would take him north to the mountain, but even though he was essentially already on its slope, with so many apartments and trees in the way, he couldn’t see the summit. Growling a curse, he took the first available left and headed north.
How long had it been now? Two minutes, maybe? Not much more than that.
Radio traffic continued to buzz in his ears, as distracting as a swarm of mosquitos. Simmons was busy checking and rechecking the route to the airport, urging his people to stay alert. Kolt did his best to ignore it. The noise from his right ear—the squadron freq—was a lot more professional. Every member of the squadron and the aug cell knew the SOP for such a situation: Stay the hell off the net unless you have something important to say.
Kolt knew his plainclothes operators had melted away with the crowd and were en route to their linkup point. Sticking around after the damage had been done was a waste. No need to keep an eye out for suspicious actors, or forward observers for the sniper, or even a shitbag with a GoPro filming the assassination for a propaganda video. No, experience told them all those assholes would be long gone by now. Which reinforced the fact that Kolt was the single main effort of the half-baked mission he was on.
Raynor tuned out the radio chatter and focused on navigating the streets to reach the foot of Lycabettus. He located the trail leading up the mountain, mostly by following the stream of tourists moving along the sidewalks.
Slapshot broke in. “Racer, what’s your location?”
“Heading up the southernmost Lycabettus summit,” Kolt said.
“Don’t do anything stupid. The street cops might mistake you for a terrorist, especially with your Grand Theft Auto performance.”
“Got it.”
There were several routes leading up to the twin summits of Mount Lycabettus: meandering footpaths, uneven stairs, a paved road, and even a funicular railway. Most were farther east or situated on the north slope, well away from where the sniper’s hide was probably located, but there was a narrow footpath leading up from the southwest corner of the hill.
Throughout his entire military career, Kolt Raynor had always trusted his gut. His critics called that proof that he didn’t always have his shit together, and once or twice, his gut had gotten him into serious trouble—life-and-death trouble—but when faced with a critical choice, following his instincts was always a better option than mental masturbation or paralysis by analysis.
He could almost visualize Shiner, up on the hillside right above him, shedding his camouflage and abandoning his rifle and then hiking down to the trail where he might blend in with the crowd, strolling out nonchalantly with all the other visitors, who were completely unaware of what had just happened half a mile away.
He would walk, not run.
Kolt slowed and guided the motorcycle up a short flight of steps to the trail. The handful of pedestrians he encountered pushed to the side, getting out of his way, the police markings evidently sufficient to explain the motorized vehicle on the footpath. He checked every adult face—male or female—looking for some hint of the face etched into his memory … a memory from sixteen years earlier.
Will I even recognize him? Raynor wondered. What if he recognizes me first?
That seemed unlikely. Not only had Kolt been a lot younger back then, but he’d also sported a beard and a thick mane of hair. This was one situation where a shave and a haircut was the better disguise.
The sound of sirens at his back reminded him of an only slightly less immediate problem. He pressed the push-to-talk. “Slap, status. Are the police on our side yet?”
Slapshot came back almost immediately, but he spoke in abrupt bursts, breathing heavy. Raynor realized the other man was probably running to catch up with him. “They’re running your shit through Interpol right now, man, but yeah. I convinced Hercules that you’ve pegged the shooter. You have, right?”
“He’s here somewhere.” Raynor said it without hesitation or uncertainty. He glanced back, saw the apartment buildings still blocking his view of the National Garden. The shot had come from a more elevated position, but at a normal walking pace, the sniper could have made it this far. Or taken another path.
“Vector us in, Racer,” Slap said.
“Tell Hercules to get his people to Mount Lycabettus. They need to block every route off this mountain, ASAP. Nobody leaves. And get Stitch up there, too. He’ll know exactly where to look.”
Kolt trusted Clay “Stitch” Vickery as much as he did Slapshot and Digger. He had rolled with Kolt in the Mike Squadron assault troop for years, and Webber recently yanked him over to Noble Squadron to be Major Barnes’s troop sergeant major. Although he was arguably the top Unit sniper, Stitch considered himself an “advanced assaulter”—a sniper who preferred to kick in doors with an assault team even though he didn’t have to. With his hunter’s instincts, Stitch was the perfect guy to home in on Shiner’s exact position.
“Roger,” Slapshot said. There was a pause. “This ain’t news yet, but Midas bought it. One through the eye. You were spot on with that.”
“That’s Shiner’s MO.”
“If he’s that shit hot with the long shot, why would he pass up a chance to take out POTUS? Think he hit the wrong guy?”
Raynor shook his head absently. Anything was possible, but he doubted it. “Not likely” was all he said.
The target file on Shiner was spotty at best. Some of the old guard operators, men who knew the whole story, were convinced that Shiner was Raynor’s white whale. Or maybe a windmill he’d mistaken for a monster. But if Shiner did exist, and if he was the man Raynor believed him to be, then he was someone with a deep and abiding hatred of the United States of America. It was hard to imagine that Shiner, or whomever he was presently fighting for, would have regarded the Greek prime minister as a worthier target for assassination than the leader of the free world. It might have been an error. At almost a thousand meters, with no spotter—Shiner reputedly always worked alone—it was entirely possible that he had mistaken one milquetoast Caucasian politician in a suit for another.
Raynor didn’t believe that for a second.
He kept going, scooting up the trail with little nudges to the throttle, giving each hiker a perfunctory look, even those that bore absolutely no resemblance to the man he remembered. There was a general lack of ethnic diversity among the fa
ces he passed. Most were white—probably EU citizens or Americans. Shiner would blend right in.
He passed a young couple holding hands, and a shirtless old man with white hair and skin almost the same shade of pale. He passed a huffing, puffing family—the parents dangerously overweight, the two preadolescent kids already headed in the same direction.
Then Raynor saw him.
THREE
Sixteen years earlier
The report of the Barrett M107 antimateriel rifle boomed across the valley like a shout from the god of thunder. It was especially loud where Captain Kolt Raynor was crouching, just a few feet behind the weapon and the young man—a boy, really—who had just pulled the trigger. Raynor felt the rush of air and the blast of hot gasses from the Barrett’s arrow-shaped muzzle brake, but kept his eye pressed to the spotting scope. Eight hundred meters and a second or so later, he saw a large puff of dust rise up from the ground, just a few feet away from the metal plate on which a rough approximation of an E-type silhouette had been painted.
“Told you.”
“Beginner’s luck, Musket,” Raynor said, though he wasn’t convinced of that.
“It’s not,” insisted Sergeant First Class Michael “Musket” Overstreet. “He’s like a savant.”
“Seeing is believing,” Raynor said. “Maybe he’s hot shit with his AK at three hundred meters. I’ll believe it if he can dial it in with three shots.”
“It’s a bet.”
“Holdover, four point four.” Raynor raised his voice, enunciating the words for the kid’s benefit. Nineteen-year-old Rasim Miric spoke English pretty well—that was how he’d gotten the job as interpreter for the Delta troop—but it would be just like Musket to blame Miric’s poor shooting on Raynor’s unclear communication.