“If you become older,” said Gold, “you will perhaps see the wisdom in moderation, mercy, and simple courtesy. The bold warrior archetype, so impressive to youth, will reveal himself to be psychotic, utterly corrupted by the flame of his hatred. It’s fine to have heroes of force, but you will learn that it is not fine to have heroes of evil.”
“No doubt you’re speaking from the heart, Mr. Gold, but one man’s evil is another man’s heroism. I’ll take what’s coming.”
“You poor kid,” said Chandler. “You’re shipping yourself to Hell.”
“Do they get Netflix there?” the boy asked but was unable to laugh at his own joke.
42
Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Wichita, Kansas
At precisely 1410, a black SUV pulled up. The first team, six of them, were dressed as priests—if priests were weight lifters, had MORIR EL CABRÓN!! tattoos in 48-point Bodoni Light Gothic showing under their clerical collars, and wore earphones with foam-encased mics. They were highly professional, all veterans of 1st Brigade, 2nd Special Forces Battalion, Mexican army. Many fights had they seen, many operations had they prevailed in, all over South America’s raw and violent regions, and many cartel members had died at their hands. Now they were on the other side, and that is why Menendez so treasured them, and so overpaid them. For their part, they got the bargain and had made friends with it: if you take El Patrón’s salt, you must obey his orders, unto death if need be. Actually, they liked to fight so much that the outcomes didn’t make that much difference to them. Everyone dies; their preference was to do it in battle.
Black-frocked and solemn, they found the exquisite interior of the domed cathedral largely deserted. They strode down the nave like Becket’s murderers, piously genuflected before the mounted cross when they passed in front of it in the chancel, for they had no urge or need to commit blasphemy, only murder. There was no need to be disrespectful. They strode quietly, for such big guys, amid the shafts of sun and the flickering of candles and the orangish old bulbs that had been burning since 1923, and began, as discreetly as possible, the process.
It didn’t take strong-arm stuff to control the building. Merely a brief opening of robes to display each fellow’s AK-74 Krink, the lighter-caliber, short-barreled version of the world’s most famous and prolific firearm. That made the point, and without sound or fuss the authentic clerics followed their captors’ instructions, gathered in the nave of the cathedral, where they were made to kneel, were flex-cuffed and ball-gagged.
The sergeant in charge spoke quickly in Spanish, then English.
“We mean you no harm. We are true believers ourselves, and ask the Lord Jesus Christ to bless our endeavor, for its outcome favors la raza over the usurpers and represents the reconquest. You will remain silent for another few minutes, and, presto, we are gone, and someone from the police will arrive to free you. Do not look carefully at our faces or attempt to commit details to memory. It could haunt you at some future time.”
That said, the perimeter established, a sign placed in front of the entrance reading NO ENTRANCE/NO ENTRADA, he spoke into the microphone held before his lips, giving the signal.
Another black SUV pulled up, and out of it climbed Unit 2, three more men in priest’s robes, a fellow said to be an expert on the workings of glass, a stout and dedicated load bearer, with a gun case wrapped in a bright Navajo textile and a tripod simply wrapped in brown paper, and Juba the Sniper.
“This way,” said the husky man. He was Special Forces as well, had reconned the site personally, and knew exactly where he was going. He led them into the structure.
The church held no magic for Juba. His mind was fixated on purpose. No sense of grand importance came to his mind, no urgency, no care, no anxiety. All that mattered was the shot; in the moment, faith would be a distraction. He didn’t notice the vaulted grace about him, the shafts of holy sunlight, the dust floating in the air. He didn’t observe the designed serenity of the place, made no comparisons between the busy beauty of Christian religious ambience and the severity and simplicity of his own faith.
He followed the man in front, who knew exactly where to lead him, which was down the leftmost aisle, around behind the altar, to a stone stairway rising into darkness, blocked by a chain and yet another sign reading NO ENTRANCE/NO ENTRADA. He stepped over the chain, following the route upward into the dome, spiraling up its circumference as he climbed. He reached a higher catwalk that circled the base of the dome, followed it as it curled around until a ladder availed itself to him. Since he was strong, he had no difficulty, though he worried about the glazier, who might not be up for such an ordeal. But the glazier was a monkey, the Special Forces trooper with the load now strapped to his back was a gorilla, and all made it without oxygen debt.
They were now in a land of spiderwebs and darkness, illuminated every sixth of the way by radiance pouring through ancient windows set into the stone a century before. It smelled of coldness, perhaps of the tomb or maybe just cellar stuff, both moist from the stone and dry from the dust. Esteban put a headlamp on to show the way and led them halfway around the dome.
“Here!” he said in English.
They had reached a particular window, and Juba peeked out, saw that it afforded, over another roof, a clear angle to target: the parking lot and steps into the rear entrance to the federal courthouse at 4th Street and Market.
“Señor?” asked the glazier—meaning, I am here, let me do my job. Juba moved down the catwalk a bit to make room while the soldier set out to open and deploy the tripod.
The glazier’s work was highly professional. First, he affixed a large suction cup to the pane, then he took a Dremel tool, battery-powered, and drilled a smallish hole in the old glass to achieve purchase on the window’s edge for what came next. That was a glass-cutting key, and with strong, deft strokes, he inscribed the border of the pane without difficulty. A second later, with a little scraping sound to add to the drama, he gently eased the pane out, removed it fully, and stepped back. The window was cleared of glass.
The soldier hustled into position, quickly erecting the tripod. He opened its legs as wide as possible, for maximum stability, de-telescoped the shaft to its highest position, and, with a snap, locked it solid. Skillfully, he screwed a small flanged platform to its apex, upon which could be mounted a camera or a rifle. Juba chose a rifle.
Like the surgeon he and other snipers were often compared to, he drew on close-fitting rubber gloves, while behind him the trooper tied a mask to the lower part of his face, slipped a surgical cap over his hair, and slipped a pair of Bausch & Lomb yellow shooting glasses over his eyes, hooking them over his ears. Now he was ready for the computations.
He recognized that what lay before him was a fairly simple hunting shot, but it was far enough away and precise enough that it couldn’t be sloppy. He’d been told the distance and height of tower, but he was still going to check. So, since the rifle had a Leupold scope on it, he had chosen and programmed a Leupold laser range finder, the new one designated RX-1600I TBR, the TBR standing for “true ballistic range.” He ran through the functions. The range finder’s inclinometer verified the angle at about forty-two degrees. This meant the actual straight-line distance to the target would be about twenty percent farther—call it three hundred and fifty-seven yards versus the sea-level distance of two hundred and ninety-seven; that would seem to make a big difference with a 6.5mm Creedmoor. But the counterintuitive reality was, the shot was still two hundred and ninety-seven yards, regardless of angle and distance. Gravity is picky; it doesn’t care about angle, it only cares about the sea-level distance. So, since he was zeroed at three hundred yards, his data was validated.
Now verified, he knew it was time for the instrument. He put the range finder in his pocket, bent over as the soldier opened the gun case and removed the rifle. It held four rounds of Hornady’s superb 140-grain Match ammunition. Sleek and gracefu
l, its proportions refined toward the sublime, it was, like any firearm, a weird blend of the charismatic and the mundane. It was tan through the stock, dappled with abstractions conceived to blend against someone’s idea of a desert landscape. The barrel, receiver, and trigger guard were all finished in a kind of dun, somewhere between gray and tan, as neutral and invisible as any color could be to the unsophisticated human eye. The scope was black, simply because most scopes were black, and there hadn’t been time or interest to find a Leupold 10 that matched the rifle.
He removed the suppressor from the case, put it to muzzle, and screwed it on. It just looked like a big black tube squashed onto the end of the smaller khaki tube of the barrel, extending its length by perhaps eight inches. It added but a few ounces weight, and although it could not by any means silence the sound of nearly 45 grains of smokeless powder igniting in a ten-thousandth of a second, it could diffuse it. If it registered at all, the noise would come from everywhere.
He hefted it, experiencing the ten pounds as just enough to be responsive yet at the same time just enough to be steady, slipped behind the tripod, and bedded the rifle forestock on a small sandbag that lay between it and the steel platform at the tip of the shaft. He fit himself to it, his eye coming to the scope and finding the right distance between scope and eye, and settled in.
The rifle was, of manufacturing necessity, generic in its dimensions and design. It was not adjusted to him, he adjusted to it. He knew exactly where to place his cheek to find dead center of the scope, he knew where exactly to place his hand on the comb to pull it stoutly to shoulder, he knew where he’d place his off hand—on top of his firing hand, just behind the thumb—for maximum control.
Meanwhile, behind him, the soldier slipped a radio to Juba’s belt, ran the wire to his head, and ensnared it in the earphone-mic crown. Juba heard crackling, some Spanish chatter, followed by the clear Arabic of Alberto:
“Guardian”—using the ludicrous code name that the Mexicans had insisted upon—“are you there?”
“I am,” he said into the microphone.
“Are you on target?”
“Yes, a few adjustments to make. What is the time situation?”
“Ah, they’re telling me it’s still six minutes until he’s due. We have spotters, and—”
“I know.”
“Yes, they will alert us when the vehicle is spotted, no matter from which direction.”
“Yes.”
“All right, now, they’re telling me he’s about two miles away, no traffic, ETA about four minutes.”
“I receive,” said Juba.
Now he was ready. He flicked the safety off, opened the bolt to reassure himself by a peek of brass that the cartridge still rested in the chamber—though, by no stretch of the imagination, could it have been removed—locked the bolt down, and began a series of microshifts and -adjustments toward perfect comfort.
“Last check through,” said Alberto from wherever it was the operation was being run, presumably a nearby apartment.
“Everything is perfect,” said Juba.
“Yes.”
“And the distraction detonation?”
“He is on the circuit. When you say go, he will blow up a garbage can down the block. Lots of smoke and noise.”
“Good.”
Another voice came on.
“All units now, radio silence for the shooter. May God be with us.”
* * *
• • •
The Marshals’ Dodge SUV led the way, behind which was the FBI party in a nondescript Bureau Ford, and, behind them, in honor of local participation, a Wichita city police squad car, holding two sergeants, seven doughnuts, and two cups of heavily sugared-up-and-creamed coffee.
“At least it ain’t a circus,” said Bob.
“Their plan is discretion, not a show of force,” said Nick. “Chandler, how are you doing back there? Okay?” She was alone in the backseat.
“I’m fine,” she said. “No State cops are asking me out for a drink.”
Around this tiny convoy, the mild and pleasant streets of the Kansas city passed, and Bob for some reason kept his scan running hard, his concentration cranked up to eleven. Of course he had no firearm, so what good would it have done if he’d spotted anything anyway?
“Okay?” asked Nick. “We’ll catch him after testimony. He’ll have thought about it. He’ll see what being a stand-up guy will cost him and he’ll come home to us.”
“Hope you’re right,” said Bob, eyes catching on the sudden spurt of a Dodge Charger, but it signaled, then turned left, as it passed the Marshals’ vehicle.
“He’s a kid,” said Chandler. “Behind the bravado, he’s scared and fragile. Plus, he misses his mom. He’ll see the light.”
The courthouse was a New Deal monolith, all vertical lines and right angles, art moderne by way of a let’s-build-shit-to-get-the-economy-going zeitgeist. It was built to withstand tornados and angry peasants with pitchforks and torches. The Marshals’ SUV pulled through the gate, obediently opened by a guard, eased into the lot, and pulled up to the curb, which accessed the six broad stairs, which, in turn, accessed the double-wide brass doors. Two more Marshals stood at the doorway, like sentinels. So much drama.
Nick parked in a precleared nearby space, and the cop car closed the gap on the SUV, nudging up to it, fender to fender.
As he exited, Bob scanned for threat. Nothing, no movement, no parked cars on the street, no suspicious traffic on 4th Street. Just America: trees, sunlight, a bit of a breeze, a few folks across the street, meandering their way through errands and visits, nobody paying any attention to anybody’s business but their own. Swagger did notice one tall structure on the horizon, the dome of a church or some kind of sacred structure, off to the northwest, three hundred or so yards away. He marked it, but it was too far for his eyes to pick out details. It occurred to him that he should have had binoculars, but he also should have had a pistol, earphones, and a link to the ’Net, body armor and more comfortable shoes, and been twenty years younger.
The FBI folks reached the SUV, which had remained closed until they got there. Now the front door opened, a large man in a blazer emerged, miced and phoned up, Sig bulging over his right kidney, regulation-issue crew cut, and, like Bob, did his own threat scan. Satisfied, he nodded, and the back door opened.
Scrawny Jared got out, the puppy at the center of all this arranging. He was dressed as if for his English class at Princeton, in jeans, sneaks, and a sweater, sleeves rolled up. No cuffs, no shackles, since for this part of the operation he was a cooperating witness, not a felon. He had a pair of wire-rimmed glasses on, and he seemed like a feral beatnik cat next to the two Marshals, who quickly fell in beside him. In comparison to his boho insouciance, they were like Kansas football coaches. He did not look at, nor did he receive any acknowledgment from, the FBI party that waited for him to walk up the stairs and fell in behind him.
The stairs were gentle in incline, low in height, broad in depth, and ceremonial in execution. Everybody covered them easily, and up the party of six went.
* * *
• • •
Okay, on Fourth Street,” said Alberto. “You should have them any second.”
Juba gave the focus ring of the Leupold a last tweak, and it brought the scene into startling clarity, much bigger, because he was so used to tiny dot-like targets at over a mile through the Schmidt & Bender 25×. Now it seemed like a movie, blazing with color, crisp to the edges of the frame, and he saw the steps, the terrace up top, the two Marshals flanking the doors, the ornate bas-relief pictographs of Labor and the Eternal Prairie etched lovingly into the building’s walls seventy-odd years ago.
“Okay, on-site,” said Alberto. “Do you have them?”
“I do. Now, shut up,” commanded Juba. “Wait for my command.”
He didn’t care to track t
hem, preferring to let them rise as they ascended the steps into his crosshairs.
At the bottom of the perfect circle that was his field of vision, he could see motion: heads, as the party assembled itself outside the black vehicle. It seemed to take some time, as if it were a parade being set up, not a mere trudge to an appointment. But finally they arranged themselves as they preferred and they began the climb.
Three in front, three in back, the target obviously in the middle of the first rank. They moved without hurry or ceremony, totally unaware they were being observed by the predator from afar, not even in step or cadence, just an unruly batch of people heading inside.
“Now!” said Juba.
Somewhere someone pushed something—phone key, TV remote button, professional wireless detonator, whatever—and half a block down the street a KEEP WICHITA CLEAN garbage can, placed a foot off the sidewalk in a gilded frame, exploded. It was not a destructive blast—perhaps two ounces of Semtex or C-4 crushed into a Dixie cup, with detonator and signal receiver, as the point wasn’t to destroy but to stun. The can, plastic, shattered as it rose upward, propelled by a plume of energy and oxygenation, and for however tiny amount of damage the detonation did, it indeed produced the sound of a world ending, in one one-thousandth of a second.
And it stunned totally. All six principals froze, as their human brains, being hardwired and acculturated to the noise of any blast, reacted as threat messages overcame all mental processes.
The Marshal on the left and one of the three trailers had begun to recover already, but Juba, without tremble, tremor, doubt, or reluctance, had his crosshairs square on the right-hand edge of the Marshal’s haircut as his target, but, by the incomprehensible unpredictability of spontaneous movement, the Marshal had shifted slightly to the right at the noise, and his head was now obscured.
Game of Snipers Page 24