10

The Eye, London

Clancy entertained no doubt that the London Eye was a fancy bit of bullshit. He’d waited in line for forty-five minutes for his chance to board the 443-foot-tall Ferris wheel. He had to admit that whoever’d invested in its creation back in 2000 had been a genius. Rolling in the money now. For about thirty-five bucks you got a molasses-slow trip around a circle. Not a treat for anybody except snipers.

For snipers, it was ideal.

You couldn’t shoot from up here. The pods that turtled you around were glass-enclosed. You could get the lay of the land, however, and you wouldn’t look one bit suspicious if you slapped a pair of binoculars to your face and peered first at Tower Bridge and second at Parliament, measuring the angles and sightlines, catching a glimpse of the president of the United States.

The first time Clancy’d been tasked to kill Gina Hayes, back at Alcatraz the day before the election, he’d been the third line of defense. By all rights he never should have had to step up to the plate, but Jason had fumbled, and then Geppetto dropped the ball, and that left Clancy, who would have succeeded if not for Isabel Odegaard.

As far as Clancy was concerned, the former Chicago cop had paid a fair price for ruining his shot. Wheelchair girl must have been an excellent police officer. You couldn’t teach courage like that. You were either born a warrior or you weren’t.

The problem with the Alcatraz plan was that it had been too complicated. This time wouldn’t be. Simple point and shoot on September 23rd, using the Order’s specially manufactured sniper rifle and their private room above Tower Bridge as his home base.

The Order had sniper towers ferreted around all major cities. Locate the top of the highest building, guess that the Order owned a few rooms up there and had access to upmarket rifles that could shoot twice as straight and three times as far as military Issue, and you’d be right. No better angle in London than Tower Bridge, he’d already checked that out, and riding on the Eye was just to get a second perspective.

He wouldn’t mess up the hit this time.

He took no pride in that thought. Gina Hayes and her vice president weren’t as bad as the news would have a person believe. They never were—he’d learned that and plenty more in his four decades at the FBI. This assassination was not personal. Hayes was a woman and she threatened the Order. That was all.

He’d kill her and the vice president, and then he’d disappear forever.

That was the deal.

He imagined what his life would be after the assassination. The details sometimes changed, but he knew one thing: it was time to hit up one of those unnamed Caribbean islands and become the eccentric old guy who lived in a straw shack out on a secluded beach and only tramped to the one-store town to pick up rum, eggs, milk, and bread every other week.

He’d fish all day, read some good spy novels before bed. Hell, maybe he’d write his own book. He’d certainly seen enough in his life to fill fifty novels. Yeah, that sat right; that vision of him clacking away on a typewriter, Hemingway-esque, a half-empty bottle of rum and a full ashtray within reach.

Maybe he’d even get a cat.

“You’ve been standing there the whole ride.”

Clancy dropped his binoculars and swiveled his head slowly—everything moved slowly on this tourist trap—toward the unmistakably American voice. The man was half Clancy’s age, round and soft in the middle, and quivering with the need to usurp Clancy’s unobstructed view of London. Clancy fought the urge to punch the guy. People in Rome had been rude, almost as an art form, but it was never personal. Americans, on the other hand, insisted on shaming a person. Clancy hadn’t missed that when he’d fled the country.

He made a note to put this guy in the book he was gonna write.

“Count on that not changing,” Clancy grumbled, smacking the binoculars back to his face. He would never get back on this ride if he could help it, which meant tracking all possible angles and escapes on this single trip.

He scanned the countryside. They were at the apex of the ride, and if he wasn’t mistaken, he could spot Windsor Castle 25 miles to the west. Impressive. He focused back on Parliament. The weather for the next week was supposed to be cloudy and cool. In other words, London. There was a bit of luck in that no wind was forecasted. If that held, he’d have the clearest of shots.

The president was now being herded inside Parliament.

He wondered if she was meeting with Lucan Stone, who Clancy has spied entering the building just a few minutes earlier.

Lucan and Clancy had been partners before the Alcatraz goat rope of an assassination attempt. Stone had exploded through the FBI ranks, but he didn’t have that hotshot air most wunderkinds did, and Clancy had worked with more than his share of young guns. Stone was quiet, and he did his job. Clancy Johnson had liked him better than fine as a partner, but it had always been a mystery whose side he was on. Was he a NOC—a nonofficial covered officer, the agency’s most clandestine operative—or was he simply running a one-off assignment?

Didn’t really matter anymore.

It was interesting that the FBI was so openly active in London, though. They were primarily domestic. If they needed to second-layer the Secret Service in Europe, that ought to be CIA territory. Clancy made a note to ask his connection at Five Eyes what he knew. It’d give him something to do with his free head time now that he’d decided exactly what his retirement would entail.

“Some people would share their space,” the American whined, under his breath, but not really. “If they had the best seat in the pod, I mean. If they could see stuff that no one else could.”

Passive-aggressive was another trait Americans excelled at. Clancy considered giving the man a piece of his mind but thought better. Someone who wasn’t embarrassed to be ignorant wasn’t going to listen to Clancy. He did toss the guy a second glance to make sure his face hadn’t changed, though—a recent habit since his meeting with Jason in Rome.

A shudder tickled his neck. He didn’t know if the man was even human. It was a waste of talent, the Order treating him like a gopher.

Thinking of Jason brought to mind Salem Wiley, who’d driven up to Parliament just as Clancy’s Eye pod had cleared the building’s roofline. She must be cracking codes for the FBI now, though her companion looked more MI5.

Clancy smiled. That kid. Too bad she was on the Order’s radar.

He’d heard the Grimalkin was assigned her—or, if the rumors were true, had demanded her. The smile turned into a grimace. That meant she wasn’t long for this world. He hoped for her sake that the Grimalkin was as efficient as the rumors suggested.

None of this—Lucan Stone being on site, Salem Wiley being in town—changed his instructions. Vit Linder had been specific: Clancy was to assassinate the president and the vice president. Normally they did not travel together, but there would be a single, very public photograph taken on the 23rd featuring President Gina Hayes and Vice President Richard Cambridge on the front lawn of Parliament just moments after the signing of the accord. The event was being staged purely for optics, a risky but photogenic illustration of the United States’ commitment to a new globally responsible environmental policy.

Both of them cut down at that moment would send a clear message.

Vit Linder had been shifty, unctuous on the phone. Clancy knew the type. Rich dad and a staggeringly dumbfuck certainty that he’d earned it all himself. The good news was that Clancy didn’t particularly care what sort of man Linder was, or even that his voice had slid sideways when he’d mentioned the double assassination. The guy was uncomfortable with some part of it, but Linder was what men like Clancy called a soft hand. Probably didn’t want blood on them. No, all that mattered to Clancy were these ten words, whispered by Linder toward the end of their conversation:

Once they’re dead, you’ll be free of the Order.

The details were straightforward. The president would exit Parliament at the same time the vice president was driven there. They would meet for a highly orchestrated handshake at which time Clancy would shoot them both from the Order’s Tower Bridge penthouse. He would then be driven to the airport.

Linder had said a Muslim group would be framed for the killings.

That told Clancy that this assassination was being marketed for Americans. “A Muslim group.” That’s all the Rust Belters and Bible Thumpers would need to know. He’d be toes-deep in the sand before the American intelligence community discovered it wasn’t Muslims.

If they ever did.

He felt a twinge in his gut as the pod started its descent. He realized he cared about his country, at least for a second. The president and vice president both dying would plunge the United States, and maybe the world, into chaos.

The twinge passed.

He thought about fishing and writing that book, a golden sun turning him brown as a nut, his rum at his side. He swung his binoculars to the east and glanced at his watch. He would be staring through the spyglasses in full view of multiple witnesses when the bomb went off.

Exactly as planned.