The sun is large and intense. Heat devils dance and writhe and hover over the barren landscape.
“And the terrain?” Jed asked.
“I won’t lie to you; it’s not an easy shot. Partially over open water with variable winds. We’ll monitor the conditions as best we can and relay the information to you in real time.”
“And what about my equipment?”
Murphy clasped his hands on the table. “When you get to the location, you’ll have everything you need waiting for you. The weapon, ammunition, scopes, maps. Everything. And Karen will never leave your side.” He put on that sinister grin again. “We want you comfortable and ready to go tomorrow.”
He’s hidden himself well in a crevice on the other side of the town. An insurgent sniper.
“You see him?” Jed says to Habit, his spotter.
“I got him.”
“How far?”
Habit holds the scope to his eye for a long time. “Sixteen hundred meters.”
Just under a mile.
“Wind?” Jed can feel a gentle breeze against his cheek.
“Quarter from your nine.”
Jed dials in the distance and wind on his scope and puts the crosshairs on the dark form of the sniper. All that is visible are his head and shoulders, an area of no more than two hundred square inches.
He’ll get only one shot. In the open, from this distance, a target would never hear the concussion of the shot and would never notice a round whizzing by. But the way the sniper was tucked into the crevice, surrounded by rock, any missed shot would surely be detected as the round impacted the rock. This had to be perfect. Shoot and kill.
“What’s the weapon?”
Murphy’s grin widened. “Your weapon. The one you used in Afghanistan. We saved it.”
Jed watches the sniper for a minute, studying his movements, the direction, the speed, the intent behind them. Finally the man lifts his rifle and rests it on a rocky formation in front of him. He peers into his scope.
Jed has to take the shot now.
“Wind.”
Habit answers, “Unchanged. Take it.”
Jed exhaled. It was an incredibly long shot. Fortunately the conditions were almost perfect or it would be impossible.
“Take it now,” Habit says.
Jed pauses his breathing. Adrenaline surges through his veins, but he subdues the effect on his muscles. He squeezes the trigger. The rifle pops and kicks, and seconds later the sniper’s head snaps back and he disappears behind the rock.
Simple.
Jed’s mind churned with possibilities, scenarios, calculations . . . memories. He was surprised by the spark of excitement he felt. Whether it was nervousness or adrenaline or a combination of the two, with other unknown ingredients tossed in, he didn’t know. But it was the same feeling he’d get right before a mission in the Afghan desert. He remembered that.
THIRTY-THREE
• • •
The next morning Tiffany stood by the glass door that led to a back deck overlooking the Warwick River. The water moved lazily toward the bigger Choptank, where it would eventually empty into the Chesapeake. A couple of mallards paddled along the far bank, where a lone great blue heron fished for its breakfast. Across the river an abandoned home sat quietly, the grass around it at least knee-high. A light breeze bent the grass at a subtle angle. The sky was clear and growing lighter shades of blue by the minute.
Jack entered the living room and sat on the sofa. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
Tiffany turned. “I could live here. It’s so peaceful and feels so secluded. You fish?”
“Nah. Not anymore. I used to, many years ago. Even had a small boat I’d take out on the lake. Fishing is such a metaphor for life. I’d spend hours out there, just sitting and waiting, thinking, being patient, praying.”
“Praying?” Tiffany knew Jack was religious—her dad had talked about it—but for some reason she just couldn’t see Jack Calloway praying.
“Yeah. You ever talk to God?”
“Is that what you call it?”
“That’s what it is.”
“I always thought of praying as something priests do, something done at the front of fancy churches.” She looked out the door again. The heron was gone and the mallards had moved farther upriver.
Jack tilted his head to one side and eyed Tiffany like a professor would a curious student. “You can talk to God anywhere and at any time. His ears are always open.”
Tiffany watched the ducks paddle upstream and all but the very tail end of them disappear beneath the glassy surface of the river. “Well, I guess if I ever have anything to say to him, it’s nice to know he’s listening, huh? That’s more than I can say for a lot of the guys I’ve known.”
“He’s not like anyone you’ve known before. He wants you to talk to him. He cares about what’s going on in your life.”
She turned away and sat in an overstuffed chair that faced the door. She pulled her knees to her chest. “Does he? ’Cause there’s some pretty wild stuff going on right now.”
“He knows.” Jack stood and walked to the glass door. He stared at the river for a long time, hands in his pockets, shoulders relaxed, eyes following the movements of the waterfowl. He turned his head slightly toward Tiffany. “He knows you better than you know yourself. That’s a scary thought if you think about it.” He paused and chewed the inside of his cheek. “And comforting in a way, don’t you think?”
Across the river, in the tall grass, a flash of light caught Tiffany’s eye. “Jack—”
Jack turned even as the glass door popped and shards sprayed like they were hit with a baseball bat. He spun to his left and hit the floor hard next to the sofa.
Immediately Jack’s shirt turned deep red around the right side of his chest and shoulder. He winced and rolled to the wall.
Tiffany froze, unable to move her legs. She saw what had just happened, but it had yet to fully register in her brain. Jack had been shot. Jack. Had. Been. Shot.
“Tiffany!” Jack hollered in a strained voice. “Get out of here.” He reached behind his back with his left hand and pulled out a pistol.
She dropped to her knees. “I can’t leave you. Not like this.”
“Go. Take the truck and get out of here. Get my laptop and take it with you.”
Her chest tightened; her arms began to shake. A lump the size of a grapefruit had lodged itself in her throat. “No. I can’t.”
Sweat beaded on Jack’s forehead, cheeks, and chin. His breaths were short and labored. The color had drained from his face and his lips had already turned an odd shade of blue. The hand in which he held the gun shivered. He wheezed when he spoke. “You have to. Stop Patrick. That’s it. Stop him.”
She didn’t want to leave him, but she knew it was the only way.
“I’ll be okay,” he said, but she knew he wouldn’t be. He needed to go to a hospital. Jack winced again. “Listen.” His voice was calm now, clear. “I’ve been shot before. I know how this goes. This isn’t going to kill me. I’ll get help from a neighbor, get to a hospital. Okay? I’ll be all right. You need to get out of here before the cops show up.” He pulled up his pant leg and retrieved another handgun from an ankle holster. Handing it to her, he said, “Take this. And use it if you have to.”
She took the gun. She still had her own in her backpack, but when being chased by trained assassins, one can never have too many handguns. She kissed his forehead and ran for the front door, grabbing Jack’s computer bag and her backpack on the way. She’d go to Kill Devil Hills by herself and stop Jedidiah Patrick from assassinating the vice president. How, she had no idea. She had no plan. She had two guns, a laptop, and a location. That was it.
• • •
Tiffany Stockton was a good driver, even a great driver. She’d never gotten into an accident, was never cited for a traffic violation of any kind, never received even so much as a parking ticket. She was generally courteous and cautious on the road and normally dro
ve within the posted speed limit.
But now Tiffany was not that driver. Behind the wheel of the Ford F-250, she had the pedal to the floorboard, had already blown through two stop signs, cut off an elderly woman in a Buick, and demolished every speed limit.
And still the Volvo trailed her.
After exiting the condo, she’d hopped into the truck, thrown the laptop bag and her backpack onto the passenger seat, and laid down rubber getting out of the small parking lot. But as soon as she hit the main street going through Secretary, a Volvo SUV appeared in her rearview mirror. They had to have been waiting for her. She’d hit a couple side roads and made a U-turn to head south, hoping that within the confines of the small town she could lose her pursuer, but whoever was behind the wheel proved to be a more competent and patient driver than she’d wished for.
Going seventy in a forty-five, she glanced in the mirror again. The Volvo hung back at a safe distance. It was a newer model, expensive and fast, and could have caught her minutes ago, but it seemed content to just follow. She slowed and the Volvo slowed. Her hands were sweaty on the wheel; her heart thudded in her chest. She weaved through the other traffic on the road, still surpassing the speed limit by fifteen miles per hour. She had to keep heading south, keep the sun to her left; she had to get to North Carolina.
Ten miles later the Volvo made a move. The driver must have grown impatient and tired of following. It quickly closed the gap between the two vehicles and tailed her by only a few feet. It flashed its lights as if it wanted Tiffany to pull over. Tiffany ignored the lights and depressed the gas pedal. The truck’s engine whined louder and the speedometer climbed to seventy-five again. Tiffany glanced in the mirror often but kept an eye on the road, not only for other travelers but for police cruisers as well. The last thing she needed was for the state police to join the chase. She didn’t know who the guys in the Volvo were or for whom they worked. They could be FBI or DHS, capable of convincing any local cop that she was a fugitive and under their jurisdiction. They would arrest her, take her to their lair, and torture information out of her.
Instinctively she slowed a little; the speedometer dipped below seventy, then sixty-five, then to sixty. The speed limit was fifty along this stretch, so no cop would tag her for doing just ten over that.
In response, the Volvo also slowed. Its front bumper was just inches from the rear of the Ford, though. The windshield of the Volvo was tinted, so Tiffany couldn’t see the driver or passengers, if there were any. She couldn’t be sure if it was a lone pursuer or a car full of armed men.
Her question was answered when a man dressed in a black long-sleeved T-shirt poked his head out of the passenger side window, then his arms. He held a pistol of some kind, big and black. He steadied himself against the window’s frame, pointed the gun at the truck so steadily that Tiffany could see the hole at the end of the barrel. Suddenly the rear window of the truck popped just to Tiffany’s right, over her shoulder. She flinched and screamed, and the truck swerved so severely she almost lost control of it.
After righting the truck on the road, she checked the mirror. The Volvo had dropped back to about twenty feet but quickly closed the gap again. There were no other vehicles along this stretch of road. On either side was marshland as far as she could see. Flat terrain, tall grass, standing water. She hit the gas and the truck accelerated to seventy-five again, but the Volvo wasn’t deterred at all; it maintained its close distance.
The man appeared again, his head, shoulders, arms sticking out of the passenger side. Gun in hand. Tiffany swerved on the road, right to left and back again. A moving target was always harder to hit. She accelerated faster, too, pushing the truck to eighty miles per hour.
Another shot was fired and this one hit the window frame above the rear window. She had to do something different. Her pursuer was not going to give up until he’d hit his mark and she was limp behind the wheel and the truck was in the marsh up to its running boards in mud.
She had an idea that just might work. It was a long shot, but maybe her only shot. She lifted her foot from the accelerator and allowed the truck to slow to seventy, keeping it centered in her lane. As soon as the man emerged from the window, she accelerated again. The Volvo reacted and also accelerated.
When the front bumper of the Volvo was so close she could no longer see it in the rearview mirror, she yanked the wheel to the left, pulling the truck into the left lane. A moment later she hit the brake. The Ford slowed and the Volvo, unable to react quickly enough, appeared beside her. Quickly Tiffany stomped on the gas and jerked the wheel to the right.
The F-250 had the Volvo by at least a thousand pounds. The vehicles collided with an awful clash and scrape of metal. Tiffany leaned against the wheel as the truck pushed the Volvo to the road’s shoulder and then to the marshy land beyond.
Just before her own tires sank into the muck, Tiffany broke away, swerving a bit until she found the road again. She looked in the mirror and saw the Volvo halfway up its tires in water and mud. She let out a scream and hit the steering wheel. Her hands shook uncontrollably; her heart was in her throat. She slowed the truck to fifty-five and drew in a deep, shuddered breath.
Now to find a different vehicle.
THIRTY-FOUR
• • •
The nest was located in an RV park on an elevated plot of ground overlooking Colington Creek. It was a fifth wheel–style motor home, nice but certainly not audacious. Murphy and his team had taken care to make sure it blended in with the style and value of other RVs at the campground. The interior was clean and appeared untouched. The other couple that had been occupying the space for the past few weeks were gone and left not a trace of their presence.
Jed and Karen had been given a truck, the same truck the former couple had driven, and instructed to casually enter the RV, Jed first, then Karen, without saying a word to each other. No smiles, no conversation, no looks. Get out of the truck, enter the RV. Simple. Jed didn’t know why those instructions were so important other than the fact that the former occupants had been given the same instructions, and for continuity’s sake the Patricks had to comply. Lilly, of course, had been kept out of their sight. There was never an explicit threat, but Lilly’s well-being loomed over them every time they were ordered to follow instructions precisely. If they tried to flee, they would never see Lilly again. If they tried to contact anyone other than Murphy, they would never see Lilly again.
If Jed failed to make the shot, Lilly would disappear forever.
Jed walked the length of the RV in silence, Karen close behind him. On the right side of the trailer a slideout contained a table with bench seating around it. On the wall of the slideout was a window facing east, looking out over the creek and, in the distance, a very small mound. The monument. Jed found his equipment on the table: .300 Win Mag rifle and bipod, spotting scope, box of ammunition, mobile phone. Jed stared at the rifle for a long time. He hadn’t seen it since he came home from Afghanistan. He’d sold it to a guy from Oklahoma, or so he thought. Apparently he’d sold it to someone in the government. He reached out and touched it, ran his fingers lightly over the stock, the barrel. The last time he’d used it . . .
Shafiq Kazmi was the mastermind behind a series of ambushes that took five American lives and three British. Intelligent, cunning, and ruthless, and he makes no excuses for his hatred of America and her allies. It’s about time somebody put an end to his reign.
Intelligence tracked him to this village at the foot of the Hindu Kush. The place isn’t much to speak of, typical of Afghan villages. The colors drab, the soil fruitless, the sky low and blue and blazing.
Jed has been watching Kazmi for hours as the warlord wandered the streets of the village, knocking on doors, chatting with the locals, laughing, hugging. A real local hero. Jed just needs word from HQ for the go-ahead to pull the trigger. The heat in the area has been building, radiating off the rocks that hid his position and baking him in the early evening twilight. Neither he nor Habit has sa
id more than five words to each other in the past three hours.
Finally, as the sun is just beginning to dip behind the mountains, the orders come in. Take him out.
Habit peers through his spotting scope. “Seven hundred meters. No wind.”
Perfect conditions. Jed adjusts his scope and puts the crosshairs on Kazmi’s chest. From his position a hundred feet above the village, he has an excellent angle on the target. He couldn’t miss.
Kazmi knocks on the door of a home and waits. He’s surrounded by four other men, all with black beards and wearing pakols and khet partugs. The door of the home opens and Kazmi rotates a quarter turn to his right. Jed has the shot.
“Take him,” Habit says.
Jed steadies his breathing, locks in on his pulse, and depresses the trigger.
But as he does, a kid steps out of the house and embraces Kazmi. He can’t be more than fifteen or sixteen. Tall and thin, with skin as smooth and clear as butter, not a trace of a beard yet, not even a few stray hairs on his chin. Just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It takes only a second or two, but he places himself there. Stupid kid.
The round enters the kid’s back near his spine, passes through the fullest part of his thin chest, and enters Kazmi’s heart, dropping them both.
Karen’s touch on Jed’s shoulder brought him out of his memory. “You okay?”
He nodded. “I didn’t think I’d ever use this again.” After that shot, part of him didn’t want to ever use it again.
“Just this one last time,” she said. “For your country. For me and Lilly.”
For his country, for his family. What better reasons could he have for picking up that rifle again? Jed lifted the spotting scope and put it to his eye. He pointed it east and found the monument sitting high on Kill Devil Hill. Seventeen hundred meters. Just a tad over a mile. He ran the scope over the terrain, noticing which way the leaves on the trees moved, which way the grasses bent. The wind was unpredictable and shifting. The bullet would travel over water and land and cover the distance in just a couple seconds. If Jed hit his mark, if he made every calculation correctly, gauged the wind right, timed his breathing perfectly, it would be over in the time it took him to exhale. Connelly would be dead or at least fatally wounded. The watching crowd would go into a panic. The surrounding area would be shut down. The nation would be grief-stricken and would mourn for someone they thought was a hero but in reality was a monster. A devil. Murphy had given specific instructions for them to leave as soon as the shot was fired. Neighbors would be glued to their televisions and wouldn’t notice them doing so. And if they did notice, their recollection later would be so distorted they wouldn’t be able to pinpoint the time of departure. The RV would be thoroughly cleaned, scrubbed, and later hauled away and destroyed. There wouldn’t be a trace of Jed and Karen’s presence at the campground.
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