by Zoe Sharp
Besides, if Parker had been inclined to come after me, he would be here already.
We drove for maybe ten minutes without speaking. Schade was slumped down in his seat, seemingly deep in thought. Then, finally, he said. “Just around the next bend, there’s a turn on the left. You’ll see a little shrine just before it.”
I slowed, as instructed, and saw a gap between two open fields of a tall crop that might have been corn. On the corner was an intricate iron cross atop a stone pedestal. I took the turn. The road became single-track, the surface pot-holed and pitted, more gravel than asphalt.
We proceeded at a cautious pace, turned left again onto an even rougher track. Eventually, we reached the end of the road—quite literally. A gate blocked the way, hung with a sign in French that warned trespassers would be shot first and thrown off the land afterwards. Not in exactly those words, but that was certainly the gist.
We lugged our gear out of the car and humped it over the locked gate.
“This is all part of de Bourdillon’s estate?” I asked as we struck out across a gently sloping field.
“Yeah, he tells some story about one of his forebears doing some king a big favour and being offered ownership of all the land he could ride around in one day, sun-up to sundown. Seems the wily old bastard kept a stable of fast horses. He lined ’em up in relays, like something outta the Pony Express, and ended up with one of the biggest estates in the whole of France.”
“I bet that pleased His Majesty.”
“I seem to recall him saying the next Duc—or Marquis or whatever he was—lost a whole heap of it, along with his head.”
“De Bourdillon has a title?”
Schade shrugged. “Kinda goes with the territory, don’t you think?”
He stopped about halfway down the field, well out of sight of the road, and turned a slow circle. There were no signs of human habitation for as far as the eye could see.
“I’m guessing there aren’t any public footpaths nearby, then?” I said.
“Private land for miles all around,” Schade said. “Trust me. I’ve done a whole heap of live-fire practice here.”
He loaded half a dozen ten-round magazines from the ammo box while I broke out the spotting scope and set it up. The best lie of the land was at ninety degrees to the lane we’d driven down on our way in. Ahead of us, the field dipped out of sight, then rose again. I used the laser range-finder component of the scope to note various features of the landscape and the distances.
“The F2 goes out to about eight hundred metres,” I said. “Where do you want to start?”
He looked up, his hands continuing to thread rounds into the magazine by touch alone. “How long since you did any serious shooting?”
“With long guns? A while.”
“We’ll start at three hundred and play it by ear from there.”
We left the ammo and the scope, but kept the rifles bagged and slung over our shoulders as we carried a pair of sturdy metal frames down range. The frames were free-standing, designed so paper targets would fold around the top and bottom, and clip on behind. The targets themselves were fairly standard, showing the black silhouette of a human head and torso with different zones marked out on a white background. I’d fired countless rounds into similar targets over the years.
The only difference here was that Schade had taped a rectangle of card onto each target. The card was roughly the dimensions of a paperback book, with the topmost long edge about level with where the collarbones of the silhouette would be. I didn’t need to ask Schade what they were for. We were ignoring the usual scoring system and concentrating on that area at the top of the chest where a successful shot would immediately incapacitate an opponent, if not kill them outright.
We set our first target position at the distance agreed, three hundred metres. Side-by-side, about two metres apart. Schade didn’t make small talk on the way out or back. I was aware of a prickle of nervous tension as we unsheathed the weapons, checked the sights hadn’t been knocked out of alignment, and readied ourselves.
“You want me to spot for you?” I asked.
“Uh-uh. Ladies first.”
I had a feeling he’d been going to say that. I suppressed a sigh, rolled my shoulders and sprawled behind the gun, keeping my arms loose as I wrapped myself around it. I reached up slowly and worked the bolt to strip the first round out of the magazine and feed it into the chamber.
Then I took three long breaths, feeling the way my body melded into the warm earth beneath and the mass of air above formed a blanket that pressed down softly over the top. With my left eye, I watched a ripple of light breeze stirring the grass between me and the target. And could sense, without quite knowing how, the moment it would fade to stillness.
I exhaled. Smoothly, gently, I took up the slight play in the trigger, felt the resistance build, then squeezed through it and beyond.
The butt of the rifle kicked hard into my shoulder but I hardly felt it. After a second, I operated the bolt again to eject the spent cartridge and feed in the next round.
I repeated the sequence four more times, five shots in all, without altering my aiming point from the centre of the white card. Then I lifted my head and glanced over at Schade, sitting with his eye to the spotting scope.
He kept me waiting a moment, then said in a voice that was almost rueful, “Well, I’ll say this for you, Charlie—there ain’t a whole hell of a lot wrong with the way you shoot.”
“It’s not exactly difficult with something this straight and this clean.”
“Like I said, de Bourdillon is a connoisseur.” He jerked his head in the direction of down range. “You want to go again? Just to make sure?”
I put another five shots into the same target at three hundred metres, the grouping as tight as before. The gun had no quirks I needed to compensate for. Neither, it seemed, had I acquired any bad habits since the last time I’d watched a target through a magnified scope rather than over the iron sights of a pistol.
I took over spotting duties while Schade put his first five rounds into the other target at the same distance. His grouping was a little baggier, but not by much.
“You’re no slouch with a long gun yourself,” I said when he was done.
“Yeah, well, you got your training in the military. I learned on the job. It’s like the difference between going to college and having to compete for an internship, huh?”
I tried not to be offended by the implied snub. “I suppose you could look at it that way.” When he didn’t respond, I added, “Want to finish off that magazine and we’ll move things out to four hundred?”
He nodded. I nestled behind the eyepiece of the spotting scope again, aware of an itch between my shoulder blades. Did he really think things had been so easy for me?
Maybe the remark affected his concentration as much as my own. As he fired the first of his next grouping, the rifle seemed to bounce in his grip and the shot went high and left. It missed the silhouette altogether and hit the top of the frame holding the target, skewing it sideways.
Schade swore under his breath.
“What happened there?”
“Dunno. Think maybe I didn’t have the butt all the way into my shoulder. Dammit.”
“D’you want to use my target to finish off that clip?”
He frowned, as if still annoyed by the mistake. “I’d rather stick with my own.” He let out an annoyed huff and put both hands flat on the ground, ready to lever to his feet.
“No, stay put—I’ll go,” I offered. “Then you don’t have to let your breath steady before you can shoot again.”
He smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling behind the wire-rimmed glasses. “Cool. Thanks.”
I left my rifle and the spotting scope, and jogged down the long slope of the field towards our targets.
I started having second thoughts long before I got there.
53
As soon as I reckoned I’d disappeared from Schade’s view into the natural
dip of the landscape, I ducked left and ran.
After maybe fifty metres, I dropped and low-crawled back uphill, now far enough outside his peripheral vision not to alert him—I hoped. As I reached the top of the crest I slowed, inching forwards on my belly, using the toes of my boots for purchase in the soft, dry soil.
The grass wasn’t particularly long but it provided enough cover for me to get eyes on Schade without attracting his attention. He was lying prone behind his F2, face to the eyepiece of the scope. I could see from the way he was curled around the gun that he’d lifted the stock off the ground, pivoting the weapon downwards on its bipod legs. His aim was now on the area ahead of where we’d set out the two targets.
And I knew he was waiting for me to walk into his sights. Waiting for my back to present itself as the perfect target.
I knew then, too, that I owed my life to pride.
Not mine—his.
If Schade had ‘missed’ with his first round, I might not have suspected anything. Yes, there was an indoor range at the Kincaids’ farm in New Jersey, but my practice session there had not coincided with Schade’s. I had no real idea of just how well the man could shoot. Bodyguards are not usually called upon to act as snipers, after all.
It would not have been too difficult to believe that his first cold shot through an unfamiliar weapon might have gone slightly astray.
But he hadn’t quite been able to bring himself to appear inferior in front of me. Not when I’d just given him a demonstration of my own skills. And not when his intention, clearly, was that I should not live to realise my mistake.
True, he hadn’t given those first five rounds his best shot—in either sense. But then he’d pulled off the most skilful one of all. Hitting the narrow metal frame of the target, in exactly the right place to send it skittering out of alignment, was an impressive piece of marksmanship.
One day, I might even be able to appreciate it.
Right now, I was cursing both of us.
I glanced over towards the gate where we’d entered the field. It was maybe a hundred and fifty metres away, slightly uphill. The contours of the land meant I would remain hidden from view until I was perhaps fifty metres from it.
I slithered backwards through the grass, keeping it very slow and steady until I was well below his eye line. Then I scrambled to my feet, still bent low, and ran for my exit point.
By now, Schade would know something had gone awry with his plan. I should have popped up seconds ago—a nice fat unsuspecting target, filling the reticle of his scope. I was even wearing a black shirt that replicated the silhouette design, for heaven’s sake! It was tempting to reach round, just to see if he’d taped one of those rectangles of white card to my back when I wasn’t looking.
As I reached the final fifty metres of No Man’s Land, I kicked down a gear and flat-out sprinted. I knew I was more likely to catch his attention by doing so—the human eye is attuned to movement—but it was a risk I couldn’t afford not to take. I was just praying that by the time he did spot me, rose, twisted, lifted the F2 and re-aimed, it would be too late.
Too late for him, that is, rather than for me.
I was less than five metres from the gate when the first shot cracked out. I heard the high-pitched zip and whine of a high-velocity round passing way too close for comfort. Instinct made me want to duck my head, shy away, but I knew that was a pointless gesture. A hit just about anywhere was going to bring me down.
I’d been intending to vault the gate, had even visualised putting both hands on the top rail, springing up, swinging my legs over. Schade’s second shot made me change my mind.
The round sliced into the ground barely in front of my feet, sending up a flutter of scythed grass and a divot of earth as it buried itself deep.
I took one last long stride and launched my body head-first over the top of the gate with my arms stretched over my head like a diver.
I didn’t clear it as cleanly as I hoped, clattering my left knee on the top rail. Then I was rolling through the impact on the other side and up on my feet without missing a step.
The keys to the Merc were still in the pocket of my jeans. I fumbled for them, stabbed my thumb on the fob to unlock the doors, and hurled myself inside.
The engine fired at once. I jammed the gear lever into reverse and my foot down hard on the accelerator, both at the same time. The tyres scrabbled momentarily for grip on the loose surface, then the traction control system took over. Engine and transmission howling, I shot backwards up the narrow lane, eyes flicking between the gateway and my door mirrors as I fought to keep the car straight.
There had been a field gateway about a hundred or so metres back, I recalled. It wasn’t exactly spacious, but wide enough for what I had in mind. Probably.
I shifted my hands ready, lifted off the gas, spun the wheel, and yanked the lever out of reverse, straight into drive.
The car dropped into gear with a clunk that would have made any Mercedes technician blench, but when I stamped on the gas again, the car leapt forwards.
I risked a quick look in the rear-view mirror. Schade must have been quick on his feet because I recognised his unmistakable figure standing in the centre of the gateway.
The rifle was still in his arms.
My heart rate shot up. The lane was dead straight at this point. He could have fired into the rear of the car as fast as he could work the action and there was nothing I could have done about it.
But he didn’t.
As I stared in the mirror, transfixed now, he simply stood there. He had the butt of the rifle balanced on his hip, making no effort to aim or fire. I was too far away, and the car was rattling about too much, for me to see anything of his expression but his stance was almost relaxed as he watched me make good my escape.
And, just for a second, I wondered if his near-misses at me were just as skilful as his shot at the frame of the target had been.
54
That evening, I lay in the trees about three hundred metres to the south of the Chateau de Bourdillon itself, inside the grounds. It did not escape me that I was roughly the same distance out from my target as I’d been earlier that day. Only, this time, I was not lying behind a sniper’s rifle. Neither was I keeping watch through a telescopic sight.
Under me were the floor mats from the Mercedes, to provide a little protection from creepy crawlies and damp. On top of me was the boot carpet, which I’d strewn with leaf clutter, earth and foliage as a makeshift hide. If and when the car was ever returned to the rental company, they were going to hit Parker with extra cleaning charges, no doubt about it.
After evading Schade that morning, I’d headed for the chateau, wanting to get back there before he raised the alarm. I avoided the main gate. Dumping the car behind a barn in a derelict farmyard nearby, I scaled the wall and hiked into the woods that ringed the chateau on the southern and eastern sides.
From my position in the trees, I was able to observe Schade finally arriving back after his failed attempt to get rid of me. I assume he’d been intending to use the Merc for the return journey. As it was, Lopez collected him in one of de Bourdillon’s old Land Rovers. As they pulled up near the moat and climbed out, they were met by Orosco and Eric Kincaid, who crossed the drawbridge and stood waiting for them.
It was hard to tell much of their conversation with the naked eye. I wished I could have got closer, but there was no safe cover to do so. Almost as soon as the four men came together, Orosco began gesturing wildly, arms all over the place. Kincaid, by contrast, was so still he might have been auditioning for one of those living statues I’d seen in Battery Park in New York in the summer. It made it hard to get an accurate read on either of them.
What I could tell was that Schade was highly pissed off. His body language was so laid back he was almost horizontal, which I’d come to realise was a sign of his fury. About what, though, was another matter.
My own take on what just happened was a swirling mass of disparate facts overla
id by emotion.
Schade had taken a shot at me—several shots, in fact—and he’d missed.
I didn’t know for sure if that was by accident or design.
What I also didn’t know, from the reactions Schade received on his return, was if Orosco and Kincaid were angry because he’d tried to kill me, or because he’d failed.
I needed a second opinion. Not easy to obtain when I was hiding out in a wood in the French countryside and the locals had declared open season on me.
I pulled out my phone, searched for a number in my Contacts, and hesitated. Then, annoyed by my own cowardice, I stabbed a thumb on the Call button.
The phone line seemed to take an age to connect. It rang out long enough for my initial hope to turn sour. I was just about to admit defeat when it was finally answered.
He didn’t even say hello.
“Give me one reason why I should speak with you, Charlie.” His voice was tired rather than angry. On balance, I would have preferred angry.
“Parker. I know, but… Please, don’t hang up.”
“Who said anything about hanging up? You took my car and disappeared. You think I’m going to hang up until I know if I’m ever going to see it again?”
I felt my face heat. Blood rushing outward from my core to aid the fight-or-flight response. I felt the quiver of it through my limbs, was glad I was lying down.
Parker apparently misread my silence. “Oh, please, tell me the thing isn’t wrecked…”
“It’s just a hire car, not your personal property,” I hedged. “What does it matter?”
“I signed for it. And I take my…responsibilities very seriously.”
“I…there’s no reason for you to feel responsible. This is on me. I’ll try not to break…anything.”
“Who was it who said ‘do or do not—there is no try’?”