Manhattan offered a dozen possible sites from which Carl could kill Assim Feroz while he dined on the Waldorf-Astoria’s tenth floor, but after only short consideration, he’d agreed that shooting from a hotel room would best facilitate the objective. There were numerous advantages to the protection offered by a room, chief among them silence and isolation. The room would absorb much of the sound, critical because a sound suppressor would affect the bullet’s path and therefore would not be used.
There were as many disadvantages, perhaps the greatest being that most hotel rooms weren’t conveniently positioned to offer a shot into the Waldorf. As far as Carl could see, there were only seven possible rooms, four of which were aligned vertically in the hotel in which he now prepared himself.
Seven hotel rooms, seven different shots, seven escape routes. But of these seven, only one was available—the one he now occupied. Regardless, it was an excellent choice. An obvious choice. Obvious because it was far too obvious to be taken seriously by even well-trained security personnel.
Carl sat cross-legged on the bed, staring at the round oak table next to the window. His rifle rested on its bipod, pointed at the pulled curtain less than a foot beyond the muzzle. He would wait until the three-minute mark to pull the curtain and prepare the window for the shot. He kept his eyes on the rifle and his mind in his tunnel.
Strange and wonderful and frightening emotions swam in the blackness beyond the pinprick of light that was his mission, but he held them all at bay easily enough. He didn’t have to control fear, because there was none. He hadn’t expected any. Instead, there was excitement, an emotion that could easily affect his pulse and by extension his accuracy.
And there was some empathy, an emotion he’d expected even less than fear. He was about to send a bullet toward a man who had done nothing to harm him. Kelly had told him what a danger this man was to the world, but none of her words mattered. Carl was simply a killer who would kill whomever she told him to kill. He needed no other motivation to please her.
Yet now, just a few minutes from doing precisely that, he was aware of this strange empathy lingering beyond his tunnel. He dismissed it and kept his mind on the light ahead.
Carl stared at the barrel of his rifle, allowing peripheral elements to stream into his vision without distraction. A four-inch LED monitor on the table captured the high-bandwidth video images transmitted from a small camera he’d positioned under the room’s front door, peering into the hall. In the event his location was compromised, he would see any approach in enough time to make a quick exit into the adjoining room.
The room was warm. He’d turned off the air conditioner when he first entered in order to equalize the pressure between this room and the air outside. A part of him wished he could turn the heat up to better simulate his pit when it was hot.
He missed his pit.
But he’d left the safe world of that pit to fulfill his purpose. As soon as he’d reached the light at the end of this tunnel, he would be allowed to return to Hungary.
The light. That circle of white now beckoned him. Excitement tried to enter his tunnel again, but he deflected it without conscious thought and stared at the light.
He would kill the Iranian defense minister while the man ate his dinner on the tenth floor of the Waldorf, and he would do it with a bullet that came from the tenth floor of the Crowne Plaza on Broadway, roughly twelve hundred yards away. It would be a two-shot kill.
His first bullet would leave the hotel room Kelly had reserved for him, cross over one of the busiest streets in Manhattan, and travel down Forty-ninth Street for five blocks before crashing into a thick window. The bullet’s soft, hollow point would allow the projectile to spread at first impact and blow the window inward.
His second bullet would follow on the heels of the first, free to fly unobstructed through the broken window, through an open doorway, and into a second room, where Assim Feroz would be seated.
The second shot had to be fired within two seconds of the first so that it would reach the target before the sound created by the exploding window elicited any reaction.
The strings that Kalman had pulled to give Carl a line of sight into the kill zone could have been pulled only by very influential people. Being sure that Feroz was seated at one of three tables facing the doors, for example. Making sure the doors were open. The drapes pulled. But none of that concerned Carl.
His task was to place the bullet in the target’s chest at 9:45 p.m.
Kelly’s soft voice spoke through his radio headset. “Four minutes.” The frequency was scrambled on both ends, allowing them untraceable communication.
“Four minutes,” he repeated.
He didn’t need a spotter at this range, so Kelly coordinated the mission from the Dragon in Chinatown. Her contact inside the Waldorf had two tasks. The first was to raise the blinds on the window. The second was to make sure the double doors that led into the dining room were opened at 9:45 p.m., a far more difficult task in this security- rich environment than in any other. The server was being paid $100,000 in U.S. currency, a good payday, Kelly said.
A thousand men could hit a target at twelve hundred yards. But very few could shoot a bullet into a window, chamber a second cartridge even as the glass fell, acquire a target seated next to twenty other dignitaries through a narrow doorway, and place a bullet in the target’s chest in the space of two seconds.
This was the light at the end of Carl’s tunnel.
“Three minutes.”
Two minutes and fifty-nine seconds by the clock on the table.
“Three minutes,” he repeated.
Carl waited a beat. He unfolded his legs and stood. The only emotion that now threatened him was excitement, and he blocked it out forcefully.
He stepped up to the window, pulled the heavy curtains a foot to each side. A sea of lights filled his view. Times Square was two blocks south, Central Park a half mile north. A hundred feet below him, heavy traffic ran along Broadway, refusing to sleep just as the brochure Carl had studied claimed.
Two minutes and thirty-five seconds.
He lifted a black cutting tool from the table, pressed five suction cups against the glass, and ran the glass cutter’s diamond bit in a two-inch circle. Three full turns and a gentle tug. The glass popped softly.
He set the glass cutout on the table and lowered the bit so that it rested on the window’s outer pane.
A soft gust of air blew through the two-inch opening as he pulled the second circle of glass free. No wind in Manhattan, as forecasted. Wind had been Carl’s greatest concern during the planning, but no more.
One minute and thirty-two seconds.
He eased into the chair, took the rifle gently in his hands, leaned over the table, and aligned the barrel with the hole. The weapon’s smooth, cool barrel and familiar trigger brought him comfort, and he accepted it.
He peered through the light-gathering scope, quickly found the corner window that he would punch through in just over one minute, and let the air seep from his lungs.
The hot gases blown forward by the .308 cartridge would create both sound and light. The first would be absorbed in part by the room, baffled by the glass, and then muffled by the heavy traffic below. The fire would be dimmed by the flash suppressor affixed to the end of his barrel. Unless someone was peering directly at this window, the shots would likely go unnoticed.
He would escape easily enough either way.
“One minute.”
“One minute,” he repeated.
A stray thought penetrated his consciousness. Is this just another test? And then another thought. It doesn’t matter.
Carl let his mind go where it now begged to go, into the scope. Into the tunnel. Through the dark passage toward that light. He walked his bullet’s trajectory as he had a thousand times before.
“Thirty seconds.” Kelly’s voice sounded distant.
As agreed, he did not reply now, but he wanted to. He wanted to say, “I’m in, Kelly. I’m going to kill Assim Feroz for you.”
Carl went deeper. His breathing slowed. His heart slogged through a gentle beat. Absolute peace. If called upon to do so, he thought he might be able to walk the bullet into a quarter at two thousand yards. Yes, he could do that, couldn’t he?
“Abort.”
The shade was up, but the window was still dark. At any moment the doors would swing open and reveal the dining . . .
“Carl, do you hear me? Abort the current shot. There’s been a change. There’s a new target.”
Only now did her first word penetrate his dark place. Abort.
No. No, he couldn’t have heard it correctly.
I’m inside, Kelly. I will kill Assim Feroz for you. Please let me do this one thing for you. For us.
“Carl, acknowledge! You can’t kill Assim Feroz. Do you hear me?” The urgency in her voice made his vision swim for a brief moment. “Acknowledged,” he said.
“There is a new target. Acknowledge.”
He could hear his breathing now, not a good thing. “Acknowledged.” “Your new target is the president of the United States, Robert Stenton. Acknowledge.”
Light suddenly filled the open window five blocks away. He could see through the window, through the open doorway into the dining room now. Several dozen men and women, most in dark suits, seated at round tables.
Assim Feroz sat on the right, precisely where he’d been told to sit. But this wasn’t the man Carl would kill. There was another. He hadn’t known the president would be in the room. Where was this new target of his?
“Acknowledge, Carl.”
“Where is he?” Carl asked.
“Third from the right at the long head table.”
Carl eased his aim up and over. Third from the right. The president’s torso filled the scope. Dark suit—too far for any other details. This is where he would send his bullet.
“Do you have him?”
“Yes.”
He raised the crosshairs above the man’s head, allowing for the drop of the bullet.
“Take the shot,” Kelly said.
The president leaned to Carl’s right. He was listening to the boy who sat on his left. This was his son, the one who’d purchased binoculars from the toy shop on the main floor.
Do I know this boy?
Jamie. Do I know Jamie?
Jamie looked as if he was laughing with his father.
The image froze in Carl’s mind. He stared at father and son, mesmerized by the strange and wonderful display of affection.
“Take the shot, Carl.”
His tunnel wavered, and he knew he couldn’t take the shot without reacquiring perfect peace. The first shot would be easy; it was the second that concerned him. Under no circumstances could he jeopardize the mission by compromising the second shot. Any failed attempt would result in the target’s immediate evacuation.
Carl dismissed the unique tension that had come from seeing father and son together. His body obeyed him.
He would take the shot now.
Why had they changed targets? Had they changed their minds? No. They’d known all along that the president was the target.
Then why hadn’t they told him earlier?
Because they are afraid I won’t kill the president of the United States. It was the only answer that made any sense.
“What’s going on, Carl? Do you have a shot?”
Fear spread through Carl’s body. Something about the father and son shut his muscles down. An instinctive impulse that screamed out of his dark past.
He would take the shot now. He had a clear shot. Less than an ounce of pressure and the president would be dead.
But this wasn’t just the president of the United States. This was the boy’s father. How could he possibly kill Jamie’s father?
“Listen to me, Carl.” Kelly’s voice came gently, calming his confusion. “Whatever’s going through your mind right now, let it go and send your bullets. For me. For us. They won’t allow us to live if you fail.”
She was right. He had to shoot.
“My heart is pounding, Kelly,” he said. The realization that his tunnel was breaking down only made the matter worse. “I don’t know if I have the shot.”
She didn’t respond.
“Kelly?”
Silence in his headset.
Now the fear that he’d hurt Kelly joined his confusion and sent a visible tremble through his fingers.
I’m breaking down!
For the first time in many months, Carl began to panic.
“Kelly!”
“Shh. Shh . . .” Her voice fell over him, milky soft.
“What’s happening to me, Kelly?”
“It’s okay, Carl.”
But it wasn’t okay, he knew that. The doors had been open for more than a minute already—at any moment the lapse in security would be identified and the opportunity for his shot would be closed.
Who is your father, Carl? You can’t shoot this father.
A figure stepped into the doorway, peered out, then crossed to the window and pulled the shade closed.
Carl closed his eyes.
“They’ve pulled the shade,” he said.
There was no response.
A terrible remorse swallowed him. He held his rifle tightly, feeling the familiar surfaces on his cheek and shoulder and in his hands. This gave him some comfort. He could have taken the shot. He could have killed the president for Kelly.
You can’t shoot this father.
“Come home, Carl.”
Her voice was like an angel’s to him, calling him from the valley of death.
“Repair the glass, scrub the room, and come home. I’m here for you.”