The Long Shot (Stephen Leather Thrillers)

by Stephen Leather

  “Yeah, well I think he’s more worried about covering his arse than anything else,” said Mulholland.

  “Ed, wouldn’t it be much easier to withdraw The Man from view until this has been resolved?”

  “Bob’s already been to see the President, and his views haven’t changed. The President insists that he can’t be held hostage in the White House by an assassin. He’s allowing the extra security, but he’s not prepared to cancel a single appearance. That goes for the Prime Minister. We’ve been in touch with his security people, and the PM has made it clear that he is not willing to cancel any engagements either. He says they don’t bow to IRA threats in the UK and they’re not prepared to do so here.”

  Howard had expected that to be the position, but was disappointed nonetheless. “How many calls have you had?” he asked.

  “About two hundred so far, but they’re still coming in,” said Mulholland. “It’s like every man and his dog has seen Bailey or Hennessy; we’ve had sightings from San Francisco to Key West and all points between. About a dozen are from the Baltimore-Washington area and we’re working on them now.”

  Howard told Mulholland how O’Brien had tracked Bailey from an airfield, and that he was pulling Patrick Farrell in for questioning.

  “What do you think that’s about?” asked Mulholland.

  “Could be their escape route,” said Howard. “If they do succeed, they’ll need a way out. Look, I’ve an idea that I want to run by you. This guy O’Brien is the only one who’s actually seen Hennessy, Carlos and Bailey close up. I was wondering if we could use him in some way.”

  “What do you have in mind?” asked Mulholland.

  “I want to have him around the President, not as part of the guard, obviously, but close by, in case they try anything at close range.”

  “Yes, but I thought we were assuming they were snipers, right?”

  Howard explained Andy Kim’s theory that Hennessy, Bailey and Carlos might be intending to be close to the target, as shown in the Mitchell video, either to guide the snipers or as a fall-back position if the sniping went wrong.

  “So you want O’Brien on the ground looking for them?” asked Mulholland.

  “He’s seen them in person, whereas we’re only working from photographs. If they do try to get close to the President they’re as sure as hell going to be disguised. He might be able to spot them by the way they walk, the way they hold themselves. You know as well as I do that you can often identify a person from a distance by the way they move. O’Brien’s the only one who can do that.”

  “Yes, but you don’t even know this O’Brien’s background, Cole.”

  “Like I said, we’re running a check on him now. He claims to be a former SAS soldier who worked against the IRA in Northern Ireland. He’s as well trained as our Special Forces guys, and he’s worked undercover.”

  “But you said he’d been tortured, and shot,” said Mulholland.

  “He’s hurt, but not too badly,” replied Howard. “I’ve already spoken to his doctor. He says most of his injuries are superficial, and though he’ll be a bit weak for a few days, he’s in no danger.”

  “I’m not sure how close Bob Sanger will want him getting to the President.” It sounded to Howard as if Mulholland was looking around for reasons to say no.

  “I know it’s a long shot, but if it was explained to him in the right light . . .”

  Mulholland laughed. “Okay, Cole, I’ll run it by him. You let me know what Sullivan says. He’s going to check with London, right?”

  “Right. And we’re running the prints of the dead girl through the computer, too.”

  “You think she’s the third sniper, Dina Rashid?”

  “There’s a strong possibility, yes. And if one of the snipers is dead, that increases the possibility of them changing their plans and going for a close-in hit.” Clutesi stood in front of Howard, his cellular phone at his side, making a small waving motion with his free hand. “Wait one second, Ed,” said Howard. “What’s up?” he asked Clutesi.

  “Frank says the dead girl is Dina Rashid for sure,” Clutesi answered.

  “What about O’Brien?”

  “Nothing on our files, or Interpol’s. We’re checking with MI5 but, bearing in mind what happened to their man, they might not be especially helpful.”

  Howard nodded and spoke into his phone. “Ed, Frank says the girl in the basement is definitely Dina Rashid. He’s still checking out O’Brien’s story.”

  “Okay. Let me speak to Bob Sanger and then I’ll get back to you. Oh, I almost forgot, Jake Sheldon was on the phone from Phoenix. He wanted to know how Kelly Armstrong was getting on with our team here in Washington. He seems to think very highly of her.”

  “Yeah, she’s doing a great job,” said Howard, bitterly.

  “That’s what I told him,” said Mulholland. “Okay, Cole, talk to you soon.” The line went dead.

  “Everything okay?” asked Clutesi.

  “Peachy keen,” said Howard.

  Matthew Bailey took a cab from Bay Bridge airfield to the Marriott Hotel in Baltimore, and there he waited a full thirty minutes before catching another cab to the airfield where Farrell Aviation was based. He kept his baseball cap pulled down and had his dark glasses on, but he needn’t have bothered: neither driver even bothered to look at him. He had the taxi drop him at the airfield car park and he waited until he was sure that he hadn’t been followed before getting into his rental car. He drove back to the motel, eager to be with Mary Hennessy again, but knowing that he had to stick to the speed limit. He couldn’t understand why the Americans had chosen 55 mph; it was a snail’s pace compared with what he was used to in the United Kingdom. He tapped the wheel impatiently, then flicked through the channels on his car radio. There were advertisements on every one: for restaurants, repair shops, store sales, beer, supermarkets. It was as if the stations had banded together and co-ordinated their advertisement breaks so that there was no escape. He’d noticed the same phenomenon on American television. He switched the radio off and concentrated on the road ahead. He was no longer nervous about the forthcoming operation – he was looking forward to it, keen to show Mary what he could do. The anticipation was a hard knot in his stomach, and it made him feel more alive than he’d felt in a long time. Mary had been right, they’d talk about this day for a long, long time in the bars of Belfast. Songs would be sung and glasses would be raised and Matthew Bailey and Mary Hennessy would be remembered forever.

  He parked the car at the rear of the motel and rushed to the room, his heart pounding. He realised that he hadn’t taken the key with him and he knocked impatiently. His face fell when Mary opened the door and he saw that Carlos, Schoelen and Lovell were already there. Lovell was wearing a short-sleeved white shirt with the Farrell Aviation hawk and propeller logo on the back and on the breast pocket. Mary ushered Bailey inside and closed the door behind him. “Everything’s okay?” she asked.

  Bailey nodded. “The plane’s at Bay Bridge, fully fuelled. It’ll take half an hour to get there from the city; by the time we get to the field it’ll be deserted. There’s no tower there, and so long as we head south immediately, we won’t cut through the Baltimore TCA.”

  Carlos nodded and held out his hand, palm upward. “I’ll look after the keys, Matthew,” he said.

  Bailey looked over at Mary and she nodded agreement. Reluctantly, he handed them over.

  “I’ve been on the phone to Farrell, and everything’s fine at his end,” said Mary. “He hadn’t seen the television last night, and I didn’t enlighten him. Don’t bring it up when you see him, I don’t want him spooked.”

  “Sure,” said Bailey. He desperately wanted to get Mary on her own but there didn’t seem to be any way he could manage that: Lovell was lying on one of the beds, his arms behind his head, staring up at the ceiling, and Carlos had seated himself on the dressing table, swinging the keys to the Centurion around his index finger. Mary looked stunning. Bailey remembered how smooth and
firm she’d been in bed, how her legs had gripped him like she was riding a stallion, squeezing and holding him, and how good she’d smelled – musky, like an animal in heat. He felt himself growing hard and he shook his head.

  “Matthew, are you all right?” Mary asked.

  Bailey blushed. “I’m fine,” he said.

  “We’re going to do a final run through,” she said. “You give a wind reading, as if you were reading it off the computer. Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Schoelen was already taking his rifle out of its case. Carlos looked at Lovell. “Let’s get to it, Rich.”

  Lovell rolled off the bed and opened the case containing his Barrett rifle. Carlos took Dina’s rifle and checked it while Mary opened her suitcase and picked up five transceivers in black leather holsters, with earpieces and body microphones. She gave one to Bailey and he clipped it to his belt and inserted the earpiece. The microphone he attached to the neck of his shirt.

  The rest of the men set up their transceivers and Mary spoke to them one at a time, checking that they could receive and transmit. When she was satisfied that the equipment was working, the three snipers moved to different parts of the room, all facing the same direction, towards the door. Bailey stood by the bathroom door and Mary leant against the dressing table, her arms folded across her stomach. The snipers had their rifles to their shoulders, but their fingers were outside their trigger guards.

  Mary let them make themselves comfortable and waited until she could see that their breathing had steadied.

  “Check One,” she said.

  “Check One,” repeated Lovell.

  “Check Two,” said Mary.

  “Check Two,” said Schoelen.

  “Check Three,” said Mary.

  “Check Three,” said Carlos.

  “Check Wind,” she said.

  “Two One Five at Nine,” said Bailey. The imaginary wind was blowing from two hundred and fifteen degrees at nine knots. The snipers mentally calculated how they would adjust their aim.

  “Two One Five at Nine,” repeated Lovell.

  “Two One Five at Nine,” said Schoelen.

  “Two One Five at Nine,” said Carlos.

  “With you, One,” said Mary.

  Lovell pressed the scope to his eye. “Target sighted,” he said. “Countdown starting. Five, four, three, two, one.” He made a firing motion with the index finger of his right hand, and then continued to count in a steady, even voice. “One thousand and one, one thousand and two.” As he said ‘two’, Schoelen made a similar firing motion. Lovell’s count continued. “One thousand and three.” Carlos pretended to fire his rifle. “One thousand and four,” said Lovell. All three snipers lowered their rifles.

  Mary nodded enthusiastically. “Excellent,” she said. “If we can do that for real, all three bullets will arrive within half a second of each other. Any problems?”

  Everyone shook their heads. They’d practised the manoeuvre hundreds of times and it was now second nature to them all.

  Mary looked at her wristwatch. “Matthew, you and Rich had better go and meet Farrell.” Bailey frowned and began to protest, but Mary raised a warning eyebrow and he shut up. “I’ll see you at the airfield at eight o’clock,” she said. Lovell packed his rifle away and shouldered the case as Bailey changed into a short-sleeved white shirt like the one Lovell was wearing.

  Bailey desperately wanted some sort of physical contact with Mary, a hug or a kiss, but he realised that it was out of the question while the others were there. He’d have to wait. “Okay, Mary,” he said. He raised a fist in silent salute. “See you later.” He left the motel room, the knot in his stomach growing like a cancer. Rich Lovell followed him, winking at Schoelen on his way out. Mary picked up her handbag.

  “Are you going to see the Armstrong girl?” Carlos asked.

  “That’s right,” she replied. “She’s going to tell me how much the FBI know and she’s got details of the stadium security for me.”

  “I want to come with you.”

  “No,” said Mary, sharply.

  “I want to talk to her.”

  Mary caught Schoelen’s eye and with a shake of her head indicated that he should leave the room. Mary waited for him to close the door before rounding on Carlos. “Are you crazy?” she shouted. “Kelly might be prepared to help me, but what the hell do you think she’ll say if she knows you’re involved? Jesus, you’re Carlos the Jackal! I’m Irish, she has a reason for helping me. You, you’re a . . . a terrorist!”

  Carlos looked at her, astonished by her outburst. Then he smiled, and gradually the smile turned into a laugh. Mary realised what she’d said, and she laughed with him, her anger forgotten. “I’m sorry, Ilich,” she said.

  Carlos laughed all the louder, and wiped a tear from his eye with the back of his hand. “You’re right, of course. If she sees me, she might have a change of heart. You must go alone.” He regained his composure, but he was still clearly amused. “But be careful.”

  She leant forward and kissed him gently on the cheek. “I will,” she promised. “I’ll be back within the hour.”

  Carlos watched her go before picking up the telephone at the side of the bed. He tapped out a number and within seconds a man’s voice answered. “I’m calling in for the final time,” said Carlos.

  “You have problems, I understand,” said the voice.

  “You saw the television broadcast?”

  “I would think that most of America saw it,” said the voice. “You are still going ahead?”

  “The problems are not insurmountable,” said Carlos. “Security will be tighter but we now have a contact who is in a position to make it easier for us. Everything will continue as planned.”

  “I understand that Rashid is no longer a part of the team.”

  Carlos took a deep breath. “That is true.” The man on the other end of the line said nothing and Carlos knew that he was waiting for an explanation. “I will be taking her place.”

  “You can do that?” said the voice.

  “I can,” said Carlos.

  “I must see you first,” said the man.

  “Now?” said Carlos, surprised.

  “Now,” repeated the man.

  Carlos did not argue. He picked up a pen and scribbled down an address on a sheet of motel notepaper.

  Joker lay back in his hospital bed, his arms at his sides. The painkillers were wearing off and he was becoming aware of the injuries to his body: the bullet wound in his shoulder was a small point of pain surrounded by a dull ache, like a toothache; his wrists were sore and it felt as if his hands were barely connected to his arms, that the bones and cartilage had been stressed to their limit and that they would never heal; and his legs ached as if he’d run a marathon. Worse by far, though, was the wound on his chest, the deep hole where his right nipple had been hacked off. The hole felt as if it went right to his spine and was liquid inside, though the dressing was clean and dry.

  On balance, though, Joker considered that he’d been lucky. After his last encounter with Mary Hennessy he’d been in a hospital bed for three weeks and restricted to a liquid diet for months. As he tested and checked his various body parts, he realised that his bladder was full and that a visit to the bathroom was a pressing need.

  The uniformed cop was slouched in his chair, his cap tilted on the back of his head, reading the Baltimore Sun. “Can I go to the bathroom?” Joker asked.

  The cop looked at him with bleary eyes and put down the newspaper. “No,” he said. He returned his attention to the paper.

  “Ah, come on,” said Joker. “What do you expect me to do? Wet myself?”

  The cop shrugged. He kept his eyes on the paper and pointed to a glass bottle on the cupboard next to the bed. “Use that,” he said laconically.

  “What, from here?” said Joker, indicating the chain that bound him to the bed.

  The cop sighed mournfully, folded his newspaper and stood up. He kept his distance from the bed just in case
Joker decided to lunge for his gun. He picked up the bottle by its neck, handed it to Joker, and went back to his seat.

  Joker looked at the bottle in his hand, and back to the cop. “Is it too much to expect a little privacy?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said the cop, reading.

  “Terrific,” said Joker. He slipped the bottle under the covers and prepared to urinate into it. Just as he started, the door to his room opened and the two FBI agents stepped inside. Joker looked up. “Hell, if I’d known that my taking a piss was going to be this popular, I’d have sold tickets,” he said.

  “Don’t let us interrupt you,” said Howard. He turned to the uniformed cop and asked him if he wanted to get himself another cup of coffee. The cop cheerfully accepted and slipped out of the room. Clutesi closed the door behind him and stood next to it, his arms folded across his chest. The FBI agents waited while Joker finished filling the glass bottle. He slipped it out from under the bedcovers and made a half-hearted attempt to put it back on the bedside table. It was clear he couldn’t reach, and he looked expectantly at Howard. Howard looked at Clutesi.

  “Oh, come on,” protested Clutesi.

  “Someone’s got to do it, Don,” said Howard.

  “He can put it on the floor,” said Clutesi.

  “Can’t reach the floor,” said Joker. “Unless I drop it. But if I drop it, it’s going to splash everywhere.”

  “Shit,” said Clutesi. He held out his hand disdainfully and took the bottle over to the washbasin. He poured the contents down the sink and washed his hands.

  “Our Counter-Terrorism Division has never heard of a Damien O’Brien,” said Howard. “We’re checking your prints out with MI5 in London.” Joker’s grin abruptly vanished. Howard continued to look at him, gauging his reaction. “What do you think they’re going to tell us?” Howard asked. Clutesi dried his hands on a paper towel.

  Joker looked at the ink stains on his fingers, as if verifying that his prints had been taken. He looked up at Howard. There was more to this than a murder investigation. The FBI agents were obviously after Hennessy and Bailey, and the deaths of the girl and the MI5 agent seemed to be secondary to that. If Joker played his cards right, he might be able to find a way out of this mess that didn’t involve him spending a lifetime in a Federal penitentiary. If the FBI had sent his fingerprints to MI5, an identification would be forthcoming fairly soon. “My name’s Cramer,” he said slowly. “Mike Cramer.”