A Walk Across the Sun (52 page)

The mobile command post arrived at the property ten minutes after Klein cut off the call. Pritchett had turned into a bear, growling into his mouthpiece. Thomas watched the transformation with a deep sense of foreboding. Pritchett's discomfort meant only one thing—Dietrich Klein had the upper hand.

“Michaels,” Pritchett shouted to a female technician on the far side of the vehicle. “What's the status on the plane?”

“There's a Gulfstream IV at Hartsfield-Jackson,” she replied. “It's a corporate jet. Biotech company. We're trying to contact the owner. A pilot is standing by.”

“Who's the pilot? Can we trust him?”

“Her, actually,” Michaels corrected. “She used to fly in the Air Force; now flies business charters. She was in the hangar when I called.”

Pritchett nodded. “Get the police over there. If you don't get through to the owner in two minutes, put me through to the chief. I'll take the heat for commandeering the plane.”

Pritchett spoke into his mouthpiece again. “Trudeau, where is Kowalski?”

“He's moving into position now,” Trudeau replied.

“Tell him to move faster,” Pritchett said. “We're running out of time.”

On the other side of the Klein property, Special Agent Kowalski listened as Trudeau gave the order.

“A few more feet,” he whispered into his mouthpiece. “I can see the window, but I don't have an angle.”

He slithered his way along the limb of an oak tree, measuring his progress in inches. The ground was twenty-five feet below him—a long way to fall, especially with a rifle strapped to his back. The tree was the tallest on the property, with a clear line of sight to the upperstory windows of the guesthouse, but the house was two hundred feet away.

It took him four minutes to reach the perch he had scoped out from below. Halfway between the trunk and the end of the limb was a place where the exterior branches twisted away, leaving a hole open to the sky. If he had any chance of making this shot, his line of fire had to be unobscured.

He bent his knees and planted his feet firmly on a couple of branches. Then he lifted his rifle over his head and set it down on the limb in front of him. He attached a tripod to the forestock of the gun and placed it on the limb. After chambering a round, he looked through the thermal imaging scope. He swung the butt of the rifle until he could see the upper story of the guesthouse.

He saw them immediately.

Four heat sources.

The first was compact and appeared to be hovering above the floor.
Perhaps the girl's sitting on the bed,
he inferred. The second and third were stretched out on the ground, but the heat signatures were different. One was normal; the other was waning. Kowalski cursed. DeFoe was down, just as Klein had said.
Who's the other TKO?
he wondered. The fourth body looked to be sitting on a chair.

“Gotcha, you bastard,” he said out loud and then finished the thought in his mind.
Now we just have to find a way to get you to the window
.

The radio squawked. “Kowalski's in place,” Trudeau said. “He sees them. But Klein isn't in front of the window.”

Pritchett checked his watch. “We have twenty-five minutes until the deadline. The plane is being fueled. The owner consented. We're working on clearing the airspace, but flight time is ten minutes to touchdown.”

“How long until the plane is on the runway?” Trudeau asked through static.

“The pilot says she needs ten minutes to max out the tanks. It's five minutes to taxi.”

“That doesn't give us much to work with.”

“Tell me something I don't know. Who's closest to the window?”

Trudeau came back on the line a few seconds later. “Striker.”

“Tell Striker to find a rock and get his derriere under the eaves.”

Inside the house, the minutes passed with agonizing slowness. Sita sat on the bed, staring at the floral print sheets and trying not to cry. The adrenaline high she'd felt earlier had passed. She thought of all the death she had seen. Her parents drowned by the waves. Her grandmother in the living room. Jaya in the kitchen, not fast enough to escape. The fallen hero on the floor in front of her, bullets in his chest. The world made no sense.

“Fifteen minutes,” Klein said, looking at her and trailing his fingers across the gun. “Do you think they'll make it?”

Sita shrugged and hugged herself. The hibiscus fell from her hair and landed on the bed. At the sudden appearance of the flower, her tears came unbidden, and she did nothing to wipe them away. She remembered the day when Ambini had picked a hibiscus from the garden and put it in Ahalya's hair. It was her sister's sixteenth birthday, and the placing of the flower had symbolized her blossoming womanhood. “Many boys will call on you,” Ambini had said. “But you will have only one husband. Wait for him. And the day will come when you will wear red and dance the saptapadi.” Ahalya had believed Ambini. Both of them had believed. Now Ahalya was a beshya in Bombay, and she was on the far side of the world, sitting across the room from a man with a gun.

Pritchett glanced at his watch and cursed again. “Ten minutes until the deadline,” he raged, “and the plane isn't in the air. What the hell is taking so long?”

Michaels answered: “It's on the tarmac. The pilot had to use an alternate taxiway because the main taxiway is full.”

“Goddamnit!” Pritchett spoke to Trudeau. “Is Striker in place?”

“Roger that. He found a few stones from a gravel path behind the house.”

“Is Kowalski clear?”

“Kowalski is a go.”

“Time for Plan B. Tell Striker to make just enough noise to get Klein interested. And tell Kowalski the order is weapons free. Take the shot. But make it count.”

Sita blinked when she heard the sound the first time. She listened intently and heard it again—a strange rattling. She saw Dietrich Klein turn toward the window and pick up his gun. He waited until the sound came a third time and then stood up slowly.

Klein glanced at her, and she stared back at him. He looked puzzled, but his confidence was unbroken. He moved across the room, stepping carefully, focusing on the window. She heard the sound a fourth time, this time as a rap instead of a rattle. Klein stood in place, thinking. Then he moved closer to the window, holding the gun.

Kowalski watched through the thermal scope as Klein stood from the chair and crossed the room. The path from the chair to the window was oblique, so he would not have a shot until Klein was standing directly in front of the glass. Kowalski gauged the wind and recalculated the drop across two hundred feet. It was minuscule, but so was the margin of error.

At once Klein stood still. “Come on,” Kowalski said in frustration.
“Come on!”

Then Klein started moving again.

Kowalski tightened his finger on the trigger. “Two more feet …”

His voice trailed off and his eyes locked onto Klein's body. Suddenly he was there, standing before the glass, his body on edge to the line of fire, his arms out in front of him, as if holding a weapon. A chest shot wouldn't work. A head shot was the only option. Kowalski placed the centerpoint of the crosshairs directly over the hottest part of Klein's head.

And then he pulled the trigger.