The missus seemed to know everyone, and she worked the terrace before taking a seat at the empty fourth table with her right shoulder to the heater and in full profile.
Potter instinctively didn’t like her in that position and had to ponder why before he understood that her husband was likely to sit to her left, facing the full view of the valley, obstructed by his wife.
Potter’s target, who was five six in his hunting boots, ambled onto the terrace and greeted the eight folks already drinking coffee and giving their breakfast orders to the waiter. Potter had his crosshairs on the man from the second he appeared and he kept them there as he moved across the terrace to shake the hand of Mary’s target. The crosshairs stayed with him even as he went over to his wife, kissed her forehead, and took the exact wrong seat.
The missus was so tall and broad-shouldered that her husband was all but blocked. Depending on the angle at which she faced him, Potter could only find small parts of the man’s body to aim at, none of them lethal.
“Red,” he said.
“Change angle?” Mary said.
“Wait.”
He deliberately tensed and relaxed his shoulders, calmly watching through the scope as the waiter brought espresso to his target’s table. The wife took a sip and sat back, crossing her legs and exposing the left side of her husband’s body and head.
“Green,” he said. He reached forward and flipped the switch on the jamming device.
Mary said, “Same.”
Potter adjusted his upper body and the gun. The crosshairs of his scope found the bridge of the man’s nose and settled there.
He pushed forward the three-position safety on the rifle to fire and brought the pad of his right index finger to the curl of the trigger. No pressure. Not yet.
“Green,” he said, and they both went into a pattern of thinking and action that had been pounded into them.
“Breathe,” Mary said.
Potter took a deep breath and let a quarter of it out, saying, “Relax.” He dropped all tension in his body. “Aim.” His crosshairs were exactly where he wanted them.
“Sight picture,” Mary said.
Potter’s attention leaped from his target to his target’s wife and behind them. He was about to say Squeeze when the missus leaned forward for her espresso, blocking the shot.
“Red,” he said, and he exhaled.
“Still green,” Mary said.
Potter said nothing until the wife reclined in the chair again, though not quite as far. Still, he had a clear look at the target’s frontal bone just above his left eye.
“Green,” he said.
They went back into that sequence again, both of them in sync: breathe, relax, aim, sight picture…
“Squeeze,” Potter said.
Their triggers broke crisply. Their bullets made thudding noises leaving the suppressors at the same instant the wife sat forward. Seeing the vapor trails of both their projectiles rip over the fields and the treetops, Potter knew even before impact that Mary’s shot was true, and that he had screwed up big-time.
The 127-grain bullet smashed into his target’s wife’s lower right cheek. Her head and torso whipped around left and seized up. Beyond her, Potter’s target was half on, half off the chair. There was blood on his right chest wall, but he was very much alive and looking dumbly around.
People were screaming and shouting. Their voices carried to the assassins.
But Potter paid them no mind. He cycled the bolt on his rifle, thinking that the bullet must have gone through the wife’s mouth, ricocheted, exited, and slammed into her husband’s chest.
Those thoughts vanished when he found his target’s sternum in his crosshairs, skipped shooting protocol, and tapped the trigger. The Creedmoor cracked. He stayed on the scope, watching the vapor trail all the way to the center of his target’s chest.
“Dead man,” Mary said.
Potter came off the gun, took his spent cartridge, pocketed it, then grabbed the gun, pack, and camo netting. He scooted backward, still hearing faint shouts, dragging his rifle, pack, and netting with him. Mary was already out of sight of the hacienda and pulling a spray bottle full of bleach from her pack.
After stuffing the camo net in the pack, she took the bottle, crouched, and duck-walked forward right in her tracks. She got to where she’d lain for the shots and sprayed pure bleach on the Ozonics device, which she left running in place to keep destroying scent after they left. Then she retreated, spraying the whole time.
Potter took his Ozonics but left the signal jammer to keep all communications with the ranch cut off as long as possible. He sprayed the jammer and where he’d lain and all along his exit path, sweeping his gloved hand back and forth through the loose dirt, mixing it with the bleach.
Back over the side of the mesa, they shouldered their packs and guns before scrambling down and to the arroyo. They swept their way up the dry riverbed, jumped on the horses, and kicked them up hard.
They rode northeast toward the truck and trailer as fast as they could go, their jobs done, and already thinking of home.
It was 7:32 a.m. mountain time.