by Scott Blade
It had to be Cathery. The Rainmaker could only see the back of his head, because of the angle. Not that seeing his face would matter anyway, because they had never met. Only his protégé had seen Cathery’s face.
He took his good eye away from the scope and grabbed his cellphone, took out a Bluetooth earpiece. He synced it with the phone and dialed the first number in the call log and called his protégé.
He returned his good eye to the riflescope.
She answered and he said her name in Korean, then he asked, “Are you seeing what’s going on?”
“I saw it. Are we going to kill the cops?”
“No. We only need to take out the Irishman.”
“Okay.”
“From where you are, can you see his face yet?”
His protégé was quiet for a moment and then she said, “Yes.”
“Is it him?”
“Yes, but...”
The Rainmaker asked, “But what?”
“There’s someone else.”
“Who?”
“In their truck. There are two other men. And…”
His protégé went quiet.
“And? What?”
“One of them just punched the other one. Hard. And violent. I think he might’ve killed him.”
“What?”
“Wait. The other guy is getting out.”
The Rainmaker peered through the riflescope, readjusted and looked at the part of the Range Rover in his visible range.
He saw the same man whom he’d thought was the cop’s boyfriend earlier. The same walk. The same big stature.
In the back of his mind, he was thinking he should just kill Cathery and move on. But his curiosity kicked in and he watched.
His protégé said, “Should we kill them now?”
“No. Let’s wait. Standby.”
A hundred forty-five seconds later, the Rainmaker saw the big man’s face, recognized him, and wished he had pulled the trigger when he had the chance. He wished that he had never seen that man’s face again. Because the man he saw in his scope was the only man to ever escape him.
CHAPTER 33
WIDOW DECIDED TO GET OUT of the Range Rover and cut Cassidy and Gregor off at the pass, before they saw what he had done to Tiller.
Before he got out, he pulled Tiller’s seatbelt from behind, tight enough to pull the guy upright, then he laid Tiller’s head back on the headrest. He checked that Tiller was still breathing. Which he was.
Widow hadn’t intended to kill the guy. He also did not want to make a new mark on his face, so he hit him in the same eye, same side of the face.
Tiller was out cold.
Widow doubted that Tiller would have any memory of the encounter when he woke up. He’d wake up, dazed and confused, and with a splitting headache, but not much else. His face was already a little swollen from the punch he’d gotten ten hours earlier.
Maybe, he would piece it together, eventually, but what could he do about it?
In case Cassidy or Gregor got a little razzed by it, he thought it best to delay them from seeing Tiller for as long as possible.
After he confirmed that Tiller was alive and breathing, he got out of the Range Rover, pocketed Tiller’s smartphone, just in case. And he took the spare umbrella with him.
He approached them under it.
“What are you doing?” Cassidy asked.
Widow thought for a second and said, “I thought it best to talk out here.”
“Why?”
“Don’t want Tiller to hear what we hear first.”
Gregor nodded and said, “I agree. We can’t trust that guy.”
Cassidy nodded.
Widow handed the extra umbrella over to Gregor, who let go of Cathery’s cuffs and took the umbrella, grateful.
“Hey, what about me?” Cathery asked. “I’m getting soaked here.”
“You can stand a cleansing,” Gregor said.
Cassidy turned to Cathery, Widow stayed where he was, and Gregor moved to one side of Cathery.
Cassidy spoke first.
“Mr. Cathery. We want to know about one of your clients.”
“What clients? I run a successful pub.”
Gregor said, “We know you’re a weapons dealer.”
“ ‘Fraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Cassidy stepped closer to him, kept the umbrella just out of reach and out of range to cover him.
Cathery said, “Shouldn’t you guys cover me here?”
He started shivering, which could’ve been an act, Widow figured.
“Isn’t it a violation of my human rights or something?”
“Just answer our questions and you can go about your business,” Cassidy said. Gregor shot her a look, like he didn’t think they’d be letting Cathery go.
Cathery looked at her, like he too didn’t believe it.
“If I answer your questions, you’ll let me go?”
“Depends.”
“On what? If I admit to something illegal?”
“No. Depends on if you help us out.”
“What is this? You guys have been busting my balls for five years. Now you say if I answer some questions, you’ll let me go.”
Cassidy nodded.
“Even if I admit to illegal activities?”
Cassidy was quiet.
Gregor shook his head.
“We can’t do that. If he admits to something illegal, we gotta take him in.”
Cassidy nodded.
Widow said, “I can ask him.”
All three of them looked at him.
Cathery said, “Who are you?”
“Let me talk with him, just a few seconds. A couple of guys talking. No big deal.”
Cassidy nodded and stepped back, casually, nodding at Gregor to follow. Which he did. They took the umbrellas and stepped several feet away, just out of earshot because of the pounding rain.
“What the hell is this?”
“Mr. Cathery, I’m not police.”
“You’re an American.”
Widow nodded, even though it wasn’t a question. His cast was getting wet in the rain. He held it close, trying to keep it as dry as he could.
“What do you want?”
“I just want to know about a weapon you sold to someone not from around here.”
Cathery stared up at him. One of his eyes was being pelleted by the rain. He closed it. Then he looked down at the ground, started shaking his head.
“I knew I should’ve never sold to that Chinaman.”
“Chinaman?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you sell?”
Cathery kept staring at the ground.
Finally, he said, “Who did he kill?”
“A former member of the British Army. A war hero.”
“Was he Irish?”
“Yes. He was from here,” Widow lied.
Cathery shook his head.
“I never knew that.”
“You knew he wasn’t buying an illegal weapon for sport shooting.”
Cathery nodded.
“I knew he was trouble.”
“But he paid you, right?”
“He paid cash. Good money.”
“Help me catch him.”
“I can’t. I can’t be implicated in something like this. It’ll ruin me. Think anyone will buy from me after? Think the cops here will even let me go if I admit to selling guns?”
“Cathery, I’m not a cop.”
Cathery said nothing.
Widow said, “We’re not planning to arrest this guy.”
Cathery looked at him.
“What are you going to do to him?”
“This guy killed someone I knew once. I’m not planning an arrest here.”
Cathery looked into Widow’s eyes, hard. Then he nodded.
He said, “I didn’t sell him the weapons. So I never actually saw him.”
“How did you know he’s Chinese?”
“I don’t. I know
he’s Asian, is all.”
“How?”
“My guy, Malcolm, he dealt with him. I use guys like a sales force. I never deal one on one.”
“Where’s Malcolm now?”
Cathery shrugged, said, “Home. Probably. I haven’t seen him for a while.”
“You haven’t seen him?”
“Or heard from him. He’s not answering my calls.”
“That unusual?”
Cathery shrugged.
“It’s not normal. But the Chinaman probably gave him a bonus. He might’ve taken off. You know to somewhere with a lot of drink and girls.”
“You don’t seem too upset.”
“He’ll be back. They always come back. He’ll need money.”
Widow nodded.
“So, you never met the client, but you know the gun?”
Cathery nodded.
“Of course. They were very hard to get.”
Widow looked at him. The rain beat down on Widow’s head. The constant pounding on his skull and on the cobblestones around him was irritating his concussion. He could feel his head beginning to pound in unison with the rain. All together it was starting to sound like drums in his head.
“You okay?” Cathery asked.
“I’m fine. What do you mean they?”
“What’s that?”
“Just now, you said they were very hard to get. Why they?”
Cathery said, “The Asian guy ordered two rifles. Very special. They’re called Valkyries.”
CHAPTER 34
THE WOMAN FROM BEIJING and Lu drove up in the rain to a place that they had already been. They were on the street leading up to Cathery’s Pub.
Lu stopped the Lexus and stared ahead. The windshield wipers swiped rain droplets off the glass, creating a monotone rhythm. Calming in the conditions in front of them.
“Looks like something’s going down.”
The woman from Beijing leaned forward and watched. She saw four people. Two holding umbrellas, standing off to the side, a man and a woman, and clearly law enforcement. She had been all over the world, and she knew cops when she saw them.
“Who are they?”
“Those two are Gardaí.”
“Inspectors?”
“That’s my guess.”
“And the other two guys?”
She leaned closer, unfastening her seatbelt.
“One’s Cathery. But…”
“But what?”
“The other man. I’ve seen him before.”
Lu said, “Want me to intervene?”
“No. Let it play out. The Rainmaker is here.”
“How come he hasn’t killed Cathery yet?”
She didn’t answer that.
“Let it play out.”
CHAPTER 35
WIDOW LOOKED TO HIS RIGHT. He saw a black Lexus SUV stopped at the end of the street, at an intersection, watching them. Passersby, maybe, he thought.
He looked over at Cassidy who was also looking.
She mouthed him a question.
“The Rainmaker?”
He shook his head.
Then he looked back at Cathery.
The Rainmaker would make a move to kill Cathery, they had figured. Would this be the move? Would a lone sniper use a guy in a car? Maybe.
Widow felt a shift in the wind. The rain got colder. The pounding rain continued. The pounding in his head continued too, but it all seemed to make a combination of steady sounds, like ambience, like percussion. Which allowed other, newer sounds to stick out to him. He heard the distant beat of the windshield wipers on the Lexus. And there was something else. A foreign sound that didn’t belong, but he knew it.
Suddenly, right there, Cathery’s head blew apart.
At the same moment, in the back of Widow’s brain, he knew the sound was a sound suppressor.
The front of Cathery’s face blew out of his head and skull and flesh and half an eyeball and blood sprayed all over Widow’s face and chest.
The dead body flung forward. He caught it in his arms. No real choice.
Widow held the body for a split second and dropped it. It flopped over, twitching like a chicken with its head cut off.
Widow looked over at Cassidy, who saw it happen.
He shouted.
“Sniper!”
She moved, Gregor moved, taking cover in a doorway.
Widow turned, looked back and up. Then he saw a flicker of something, just a quick sparkle, like diamonds in the night. It shimmered in the darkness of an open window above an old, Irish bed-and-breakfast, down the street from Cathery’s Pub.
Then Widow saw the shimmer again, the Rainmaker’s scope, staring right at him.
He was next.
Suddenly, a horn blared, loud like a ship in the fog. It cut through the night, through the rain, and saved Widow’s life.
At the same time, he saw a flash from the Rainmaker’s rifle muzzle. Instinctively, he dove right, and rolled on the hard cobblestone, just as a rock exploded from the stones a yard to his right.
He landed on his broken arm. He felt the bones. He felt pain. He pushed it down deep, ignored it.
Not now, he thought.
He came up, on the balls of his feet. The Lexus driver had blared the horn, unexpected to everyone, including the Rainmaker. His jarred a fraction of an inch and fired the rifle and missed.
No one outruns or dodges bullets; that was all movie make believe, nonsense. Widow knew the only reason that his face didn’t look just like Cathery’s was because of the Lexus driver.
He did not wait to give the Rainmaker another shot. He stayed crouched and ducked and weaved and zagged and rolled again until he was down the alley with the Range Rover. The Extra Strength Tylenol bottle that had been in his pocket rolled and bounced and pills spilled out of the top all over the cobblestones.
Shit, he thought. It reminded him that his head was still pounding and getting worse.
“Widow!” he heard Cassidy shout.
“Widow! Are you hit?”
He checked his body with his hands, involuntarily. His hands checked to make sure all the vitals were still intact. Everything was still there.
“I’m okay. What about you?”
“Yeah. We’re not hit.”
Widow looked out on the street at the dead body and bloody mess. Blood was bubbling and pooling near the head from the rain.
“Cathery’s not going to make any statements.”
He yelled it and then felt a little guilty after. Bad timing. Bad joke.
“Who’s in the car?”
Widow edged to the corner, staying out of sight of the Rainmaker. He pushed his back into the wall.
“I don’t know.”
“Is it Tiller’s guys?”
No way, he thought. They wouldn’t be helping him.
He took a quick peek at Tiller. He was still out cold and safe out of the sniper’s line of sight.
“I don’t think so.”
“Stay put. We’re calling in backup,” Cassidy shouted.
He stayed quiet and took out Tiller’s phone. He thought that maybe he could get Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on the line and get them to help. But it was no use. The phone was passcode protected and Tiller hadn’t given him the passcode. The phone must’ve had a preset to switch it off after so many minutes passed without being used. It was useless.
He slipped back and went to the Range Rover. He popped open Tiller’s door and tossed the smartphone onto his lap. No point in keeping it.
Then he patted Tiller down, looking for a gun, which he doubted he’d find.
He looked at the ignition switch. No keys.
Gregor was holding them.
He searched the console, the glove box, under the front seats, and the inside door pockets. He found nothing of use.
Then he ran back to the cargo door, opened it and found one thing that could help.
He scooped up a bulletproof Kevlar vest, which wouldn’t stop a Magnum sniper round, but he wasn
’t sure what the Rainmaker was using. From what he read about the Valkyrie rifle, it had function capabilities for multiple calibers.
Although he probably was firing the same rounds he’d used with Lenny. Why change them now?
He slid off his bomber jacket and suited the vest up and put the jacket back on over it.
Better safe than sorry.
Widow found nothing else of interest.
He closed the cargo door and returned to the end of the alley, stayed out of sight.
Cassidy called out to him.
“Widow?”
“Yeah?”
“Backup’s coming.”
“How long?” he shouted back.
“I don’t know.”
Which Widow took to mean five minutes or longer.
They’d be dead in five minutes. Or the Rainmaker would get away.
A thought occurred to him.
He called out to Cassidy.
“Cathery said something.”
“What?”
“He said that there were two Valkyrie rifles.”
Two, he thought.
He leaned out as far as he dared. He saw Cassidy and half of Gregor from where they were perched. They were crammed into a doorway like sardines in a can.
“What does that mean?”
Two, he thought again.
Widow shouted, “Cassidy, there’s two of them!”
CHAPTER 36
WIDOW’S HEAD POUNDED. It was getting worse and louder and harder. It pounded like a warning bell shoved into his skull. It pounded like someone was inside his head, shooting cannons off a US destroyer.
He shouted out to Cassidy over the cannon-like pounding in his head, over the rain, over his own thoughts. He warned her that there were two.
Just then he heard that sound again, the sound suppressor. Only this time, he saw it. It came from a rooftop south of him. He saw the flash of a sniper rifle, the second one.
He saw the direction the second sniper was aiming. It was down toward the doorway at Cassidy and Gregor.
He saw Gregor take a bullet to the chest. He flew back like leaves under a leaf blower. His body dumped back into the door and he toppled forward, falling completely out of cover.
“Cassidy!” Widow shouted.