by Gregg Loomis
The rifle weighed over eighteen pounds. That and its distinctive bullpup configuration made it difficult to conceal from even the most casual baggage inspectors. Plus Levanto would not dare let the handpicked .30-caliber Winchester magnum ammunition out of his sight. An abrupt change in, temperature or humidity could cause alterations in the casing so minuscule as to be visible only under a microscope but big enough to make several yards' difference in accuracy. In Levanto's business there was no substitute or compromise. The bullet either hit the target in the exact place intended at a bone-shattering 800 mps or the shooter was just one more amateur who was better off hunting wild animals or other targets not likely to shoot back.
Levanto customarily stalked his targets, noting routines and schedules. That way he could choose the optimum time and place to do the job. Not on this assignment.
He had declined the offer of a private jet to Istanbul, preferring to make his own travel arrangements using one of the many passports from a library of documents he had accumulated. Caution was job one. He had then taken a late-night boat ride to what he had guessed was an island. The truly peculiar feature of the whole trip was the horse-and-buggy ride to a small cottage. Daylight revealed the house was between a copse of trees and a cliff with a view of the ocean. On the other side of the trees was what looked like a church. Whatever it was, there was an unobstructed view of the front entrance from the cottage's second-story window.
From the other side of the room, he could see the ocean. The two views were the most attractive part. The rest of the chamber consisted of a double bed and a few pine pieces. Against one wail was an iron staircase that, Levanto guessed, led those who wished to enjoy the sun in privacy of the flat roof.
Less than a kilometer to the church. Child's play. The only difficulty was the breeze from the water: it tended to shift abruptly. Even the slightest change in direction or velocity could affect accuracy. Fortunately, the distance from the upstairs window to the church's entrance was so short a slight variation in wind would present far less of a variable than a much longer shot.
A man would come to this church in the next few days, a man who could be recognized from several photographs showing him on a street, getting out of a cab, talking to a tall blonde woman. Levanto guessed the man had been unaware the snapshots were being taken.
Once the job was complete, Levanto was to simply walk out of the house to where a tethered horse would be already harnessed to a wagon. He would leave the rifle. It was both untraceable and replaceable. He was left alone to set the rifle's bipod and adjust the telescopic sight. There was nothing more to do than wait and Levanto was a master at waiting.
XVI.
Sea of Marmara
Two Hours Later
The earphones did only a modest job of filtering out the noise of the Sikorsky H-60K's rotors. Lang was uncertain if the helicopter was in its Black Hawk or Seahawk configuration, but he recognized the aircraft as the US military's workhorse medium transport chopper of the 1970s through the '90s. Its age showed. The metal bench seats that ran down both sides had been polished to a gloss by generations of rear ends. Although not a pilot, Lang recognized the avionics up front were long outdated. He didn't want to think about the hours on airframe, engine or rotor vanes. All in all, the craft exemplified the Marine Corps' frequent complaint that the equipment it received was that no longer wanted by the army or navy.
Below, the water was a cerulean blue, its surface marred only by creamy arrows, wakes of ferries shuttling between mainland and islands. Lang had trouble relaxing enough to sleep on airplanes. Helicopters frightened him. Things that flew were supposed to have wings, right? No one could convince him that the rotor blades served both as wing and propeller. It just wasn't natural.
His anxiety abated slightly as good, solid terra firma slipped beneath the aircraft.
Across from him, Gurt hardly noticed the slight turbulence caused by the difference in temperatures between land and sea. She didn't even look up from the week-old copy of USA Today she had found somewhere. Lang didn't need the cautionary instructions to fasten his seat belt that came through the headset that made onboard communications possible without screaming. He had never removed it. As the craft settled to the round, Lang was trying to squelch his envy. How could she be so serene in the face of the total disregard for the laws of nature shown by helicopters?
The crew were equally indifferent. The pilot and copilot, wearing visored helmets, had obviously become inured to this breach of the law of gravity. The courier, a marine sergeant with webbed gun belt and a battered briefcase chained to his arm, looked bored as did the similarly armed escort beside him.
The world's statesmen thought with Descartes-like logic: I am a diplomat; therefore my communications are important. Important enough to require four marines and a helicopter that probably gobbled a thousand or so dollars an hour of taxpayer money, all to deliver documents that likely had the same security needs as yesterday's comic pages.
And decidedly less amusement value.
Slightly less than a kilometer away, Levanto slipped behind the stationary rifle mounted on a table just inside the window. He could see the markings on the helicopter easily, but he peered through the scope to make sure.
United States Marines?
Nobody had mentioned a helicopter to him, much less one of a military nature. He had no intent of reneging on a deal made; it would be the end of his business. But he certainly would have increased his price had he known the job involved shooting at US Marines. He could only hope the first bullet would be the only one necessary and he would have time to escape amid the ensuing confusion.
He began to inhale deeply in preparation for that long instant during which he would hold his, breath, the moment he squeezed the big Walther's trigger.
Then he stopped in midbreath.
The helicopter was discharging its passenger or passengers, if that was what it was doing, from the side facing the church.
The side he couldn't see!
Raising his face from the scope, he looked around the church for some place of concealment from which he could fire. Years of practice made him calm. There was always an alternate possibility and only amateurs acted in haste. He had not survived in this business by letting changing circumstance lead to panic. It would take him at least five minutes or so to set up and stabilize his weapon and reset the telescopic sight even if he could find a suitably level surface. Any such location toward the church would increase the distance to where the horse and wagon were supposedly waiting. No matter: a contract was a contract and his reputation for fulfilling each would be irreparably damaged if he didn't perform this one.
But he couldn't shoot through the damnable aircraft even if he could see his target. And there were no topographically acceptable places to shoot from without time for serious readjustment of the sight. Even then, he had no guarantee his designated target was on board. He might well be risking exposing himself for nothing.
The rotors began to spool down. The helicopter was going to remain on the ground. At least for a few minutes.
That gave Levanto an idea.
Ducking by reflex to avoid the breeze created by the slowing blades, Lang and Gurt stepped to the door of the monastery, where a group of openmouthed monks stared as though they were watching a spaceship land. Behind them, Lang could see the patriarch.
"I welcome you to our home," the prelate said, raising his voice above the dying engine whine, "though I never expected such a, er, sensational arrival. If you will come with me ..."
They walked in the shadows seeping across the cloister and entered the building on the far side. Again, the whiff of roses. The patriarch opened an elaborately carved wooden
door and ushered them inside. They were standing in an office that could have been anywhere, another anachronism considering where they were.
The patriarch stepped behind a battered desk and handed Lang two sheaves of paper. "If you have a moment, I would like to explain."<
br />
"Please."
The churchman extended one of the packets. "There are two books of James. The first, of which parts of several copies exist, is called the Protoevangelium. It closely follows the gospels of Matthew and Luke. I suspect the early church fathers discarded it when they were compiling the New Testament simply because it added little beside the fact its author showed a surprising ignorance of Palestinian geography and Jewish customs. It is likely the creation of someone who was neither an eyewitness nor had access to reliable tradition. That is not what you gave me to translate."
Lang waited, trying not to show his impatience.
"The other, what you have, is known as the Apocryphon of James, a postresurrection conversation between Our Lord, James and Peter. It also exists in various fragments in several languages. Since at least the first part was supposedly written by James, the original would have been in Aramaic, later translated into Greek with perhaps a Hebrew version in between. The one you have is the first complete copy, certainly the only one I know of that contains formerly missing lines. I took the freedom, er, liberty of noting those for you." He handed over the second bunch of papers. "I fear there are those who might cause you trouble for what those lines contain."
Tell me about it.
Gurt started to say something and thought better of it, edging toward the door. "We have a hurry to get to..."
The patriarch smiled. "Americans are always in a hurry, perhaps so is the whole modern world."
Lang tucked the papers into his belt. "How much do we owe you for your time in translating these?"
The man seemed genuinely surprised. "Owe? As a debt? I owe you for allowing me to see a copy of such rare documents, so rare I suspect I will hear much about them soon." He paused a moment. "Of course, if you wish to make a donation to the monastery ..."
Levanto reached the top of the staircase and pushed gently against the trapdoor to the roof.
Stuck!
He shoved harder with the same result.
Cursing softly in Sicilian Italian, he scampered back down the stairs and glanced around the room for a tool. The butt of the Walther was the obvious choice, but to use it to batter the stubborn hinges of the door to the roof would be to risk damage to the delicate sight and firing mechanism.
His eyes fell on a pair of pine chairs with woven reed seats. In a step, he had one of them by a leg, smashing it against the floor. All but the leg he held splintered.
Mounting the staircase again, he jabbed the chair leg against the recalcitrant trapdoor. His effort was rewarded when one of the boards came loose, then another.
Lang and Gurt were crossing the cloister again, accompanied by the patriarch. Although every instinct told him to hurry, Lang could not have enunciated a rational reason to do so. The Gulfstream would be waiting in Ankara and they would be out of Turkey before Inspector Aziz knew they had left Istanbul. Experience, though, had taught him that not only was he who hesitated lost, he was usually terminally fucked as well.
Fidgeting, he consulted his watch as the kind old man explained the Bible story depicted in a panel of mosaics. The cleric was clearly taking delight in delivering a tour of the premises. Gurt was enjoying it, too, despite her earlier inclination to make haste. Lang's Southern rearing made him loath to appear rude by cutting the patriarch short. He still could not have given a reason for his urge to hurry other than a belief in the quote from a brilliant if semiliterate Confederate general that it was best to git while the gittin' was good.
Levanto used the chair leg to pry open the remaining parts of the trapdoor. He waited cautiously to make sure the noise had attracted no attention before he pulled himself up. A second later, he was on the roof. A pair of folding lounge chairs and a plastic table confirmed his guess the place was used to take in the sun. More important, he could now see over the helicopter and into the space between it and the church's entrance. When the passengers returned to depart, he would have a very brief gap in which they would be in view. The question now was whether it would be enough time to sight the rifle in time and confirm the chopper's passenger was the intended target.
It would be close but possible.
Gurt and the patriarch stood just inside the doorway as he explained something to her. Lang waited impatiently behind. The helicopter pilot, seeing them, turned over the starter and the rotor began a slow circle.
Gurt finished the conversation and preceded Lang outside as the rotor's blades blurred and the ship became light on its skids.
Through the scope, Levanto could see there were actually two passengers; a man and a woman. Avoiding the temptation to let his view linger a little longer on the woman, a tall and very shapely blonde, he switched to her male companion and smiled. There was no doubt: he was looking at the man in the photographs.
Obligingly, the target stopped long enough to say something to someone behind him, someone Levanto could not see. Levanto used perhaps a tenth of a second of the unexpected time to make a minor adjustment to the scope to compensate for the increased wind on the rooftop and estimate the prop wash from the blades. He inhaled deeply, exhaling and beginning a slow, gentle squeeze of the trigger.
Almost at exactly the same time as the Walthers recoil thumped against Levanto's shoulder, something whirled across the scope, something large and blurred. Without thought, he chambered another round.
Lang was never quite sure of the exact following sequence. Gurt climbed aboard with him a few feet behind. There was a clang of metal on metal, the unmistakable whip crack of a rifle and the whine of a ricocheting bullet that buzzed past Lang's head like a hungry mosquito. By reaction rather than plan, he lunged for the aircraft's open door, colliding with the marine escort who was fumbling with the holster on his webbed belt. Both men tumbled to the floor as the ship lifted off.
Lang struggled uncertainly to his feet. He was about to wonder if any damage had been done to injuries still healing when the pilot's head dissolved, splattering blood and brain tissue across the windscreen and cockpit.
It was unlikely Lang would forget any of what happened next, but what stood out was the calm assurance with which the copilot grasped the controls in front of him with one hand while wiping the gore from his helmet's visor with the other. Use of this ship as a messenger service might be wasting the taxpayers' money, but the man's piloting skill was worth every dime.
The Black Hawk/Seahawk was vibrating slightly as it banked sharply left and climbed. Holding on to a series of overhead straps that reminded him of a New York subway car, Lang made his way forward.
He had not had time to put on the headset. "What... ?" he screamed at the copilot's back.
The copilot's answer was to hold up a hand, signaling to stand by. Lang guessed he was on the radio, seeking instructions from the consulate.
When he had finished, he turned slightly in his seat, pushing the boom mike away to speak to Lang. "Dunno. Somebody took a shot through the rotors before shootin' the lieutenant." He pointed to a bank of incomprehensible dials and gauges. "Doesn't look like he hit a vein, the hydraulics that angle the blades so we can control the ship. He did take a nick outta one of the blades, though. That's what's causing the vibration. I'm gonna try to get the lieutenant to the nearest hospital."
Lang glanced at the blood-soaked corpse reclining in the pilot's seat. He caught himself before saying something to the effect the lieutenant was in no hurry. Instead, he waited for this thing to shake itself into pieces in midair.
Levanto cursed for the second time in less than thirty minutes. Unbelievable! His first shot had been deflected by the helicopter's rotor blades. By the time he had worked the rifle's bolt and recentered the sight, moves he had practiced hundreds of times, he knew he had less than a good chance of hitting the pilot as the ship lifted into the air. He had, though. And with a killing shot. Yet the helicopter had not spun out of control as he had anticipated. He had not seen a copilot but clearly someone had taken charge quickly despite what was possibly the best shot of L
evanto's career, a feat he suspected his client would not fully appreciate.
For an instant, he contemplated a third try, one for the helicopter's engine. His discipline overrode his anger. At this range, such an attempt would serve more to divulge his location than to bring the chopper down. Best he keep his rendezvous with the horse and wagon.
To Lang, the trip back seemed much shorter than the outbound leg. He did, however, have time to think. Perhaps too much time. Despite the parts of the radio conversation he could hear and the consensus of the three remaining marines, he was certain this was not a terrorist plot to kill the pilot in an attempt to intercept communications between the consulate in Istanbul and the embassy in Ankara. Muslim jihadists had bigger goats to fry, more important infidels to kill. Or just more important than a marine lieutenant. And there were certainly more significant messages to intercept and bigger things to blow up than a single helicopter. Like schools, churches and other places the innocent might gather.
All in the name of peace, Islam and their Prophet.
No, the bullet that had nicked the rotor blade had been meant for him.
The thought wasn't exactly self-flattery. Or comforting.
A glance forward showed splatters of red congealing into mud brown. That could just as easily have been his blood, his brains. Although this wasn't the first time such a thing had happened, he felt the sourness rising in his throat. Because the bullet had been meant for him or because it had found someone else, he could not have said.
In what seemed like seconds, the helicopter was dropping onto a pad on top of what Lang assumed was a hospital, an impression enforced by the crew of white-clad men surrounding a gurney. They removed the lieutenant under the cocked and ready weapons of the remaining crew. While everyone else was attending to the mortally wounded officer, Lang took Gurt's arm, leading her away from the group.