Target Response (9 page)

His thoughts were focused only on carrying out his self-appointed task.

He mounted a telescopic sight on the sniper rifle’s top rail, adjusted the optics, sighting it in. From here he had a clear sight line looking down across the long palace grounds to the courtyard and the third-floor conference room.

The .50 rounds were each as long and as thick as his index finger. He loaded one and assumed the prone firing position, unconsciously controlling his heart rate and breathing.

The scope’s crosshairs were aimed at the rear of Tayambo’s limo.

A great, intent stillness came over Kilroy, the aura of total concentration. With the gentlest of pressures, almost a caress, his finger squeezed the trigger.

Firing an armor-piercing, high-explosive round into the car’s gas tank.

The high-velocity round punched through armor plate and blew up inside the gas tank. The ensuing havoc and destruction was spectacularly satisfactory.

Kilroy reloaded, waiting for a break in the roiling smoke clouds that temporarily obscured the courtyard. When the gap showed, the rifle was pointed at the glassed-in French doors of the palace’s third-floor conference room.

Defense Minister Derek Tayambo stood there with his face pressed to a glass pane, staring incredulously down into the courtyard at the blazing ruin of his imperial automobile.

As Kilroy knew he would be. It was a matter of basic human psychology.

No mistaking Tayambo for anyone else, not with his signature leopard-skin fez topping his shiny head.

Kilroy centered the crosshairs on Tayambo’s head above the eyebrows and fired a high-velocity round through it.

The target exploded in a halo of pink mist, sure proof that the round had struck its target and vaporized brain material.

Tayambo wasn’t the only one who knew something about head-hunting.

Kilroy did, too.

“So this is Crestfield!” Steve Ireland said.

“Yes. What do you think of it?” Skye Moray asked, her face alive with interest and excitement.

Steve thought about it for a moment before answering. “Nice place for a murder,” he said.

“You’re teasing me,” Skye said, frowning. Then she laughed. Her laughter was musical.

The two of them sat their horses on a rise overlooking the Crestfield manor and grounds. It was three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon in mid-March.

Crestfield was a rich and spacious estate sited on the flat-topped summit of a high Hessian Hill in Rampart County in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. The property occupied several square miles of fields and woods.

Its centerpiece was several acres of cleared grounds and the manor house that sat amid them, dominating the scene. A broad expanse of rolling fields was dotted by occasional lone trees and isolated stands of timber. Short, tufted yellow-brown grass was hard-packed against the ground. The turf showed the signs of having endured a long, hard winter. It lay dormant, awaiting the quickening of spring.

At the center of the fields was the manor house. A massive pile of stones and timber, it fronted north, its long axis running east–west. The stones were the color of milk chocolate and the timbers dark chocolate. It had wings, additions, turrets, gables, dormer windows, and buttresses. The roof was covered with gray slate tiles.

A paved driveway rose up from out of a stretch of woods, curving in front of the house. It split into branches connected to a multicar garage and a stable. Steve’s dark green Chevy Suburban was parked to one side of the main drive along with several other vehicles.

Steve Ireland, thirty, was tall, long-limbed, athletic. He had short jet-black hair, dark blue eyes, and a rawboned clean-shaven face. The black hair and blue eyes were a genetic heritage from his forebears, who were genuine Black Irish. His strong features were not unattractive in a grim, hard-bitten way.

He wore a blue winter jacket, black sweater, faded blue jeans, and dark brown hiking boots. He was mounted on a pale gray mare with an English-style saddle.

Skye Moray was in her early twenties. She had it all: youth, beauty, health, and riches. She had a fine-featured vixenish face, shoulder-length auburn hair, yellow eyes, and a ripe, red-lipped mouth. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail. Her slender physique was full-breasted and long-legged.

She wore a tobacco-colored three-quarter-length cloth coat with black velour collar and cuffs, a cream-colored scarf, a heather turtleneck sweater, and tight gray-tan twill riding breeches tucked into knee-high dark brown leather riding boots. Hands fitted into thin, tight, wrist-length dark brown leather gloves gripped the reins of her mount, a chestnut gelding.

It was a raw, blustery day. A heavy gray sky hung low, pressing down on the landscape. Occasional chill winds blew from the northwest. It had rained earlier; from the look of things it could rain again, or maybe snow. The air was heavy, moisture-laden. The temperature was about forty degrees Fahrenheit but felt colder due to the damp, bone-chilling cold and thinner air here high atop the hill.

It was a dark day. Lights showed in various rooms of the house; electric lamps blazed over the front entrance.

The manor house’s south face gave onto a flagged terrace overlooking a wide, sprawling patch of turf. Southwest of the main building was the stable, a shoebox-shaped structure with a low peaked roof. Not far from it stood the garage, a minimansion by itself, with living quarters above the multivehicle bays of the ground floor.

“So what do you think of our little domicile?” Skye prompted.

“It looks like a haunted house,” Steve said, indicating the mansion.

“It was built at the end of the nineteenth century in the Gothic Revival style. I admit it’s more Gothic than Revival,” Skye said. “So you don’t like the Moray family’s latest acquisition?”

“I said it looks like a haunted house; I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”

“Do you like it?” she pressed.

“I haven’t made up my mind yet. I’ll let you know later,” Steve said.

“It’s not exactly what you’d call cozy, but at least it’s got plenty of room. That’s important when you come from a big family like mine. At least in a big place like this we’re not always tripping over each other,” Skye said. “I envy you,” she went on. “You live alone. You’re not surrounded day and night by aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters.”

“Don’t you like them?” Steve asked.

Strong white front teeth nibbled a luscious lower lip as Skye thought it over. “I suppose I do. Some more than others. It’s not something I give a lot of thought to. They’re just there all the time and they’ve always been there.”

“If it’s privacy you want, why don’t you get a place of your own? From the looks of this spread, I guess you could afford it.”

Skye’s yellow-gold eyes widened, her mouth forming a smooth O. “Live alone? I could never do that. Ours is a very close-knit family. I couldn’t imagine not having them around.”

“There you are, then. Or, rather, here you are.”

“Do you like living alone, Steve?”

“Yes,” he said flatly. Not that he was averse to occasional female companionship, he told himself. Especially when the female was as young, provocative, and vibrant as Skye Moray.

She laughed. “A confirmed bachelor, eh?”

“I travel a lot,” Steve said. “I’m out of the country for a good part of the year.”

“Oh yes, the international courier service you work for. Sounds exotic.”

“It’s not. I’m a glorified deliveryman, really.”

“Is that government work?”

“For the government and private industry; whoever needs sensitive documents and/or parcels delivered somewhere way the hell out of the way,” Steve said. Which was true, as far as it went. It was part of his cover story.

Not that he was undercover now. He was on his downtime between missions, enjoying a few weeks of rest and recreation before his next assignment. His leisure time might well prove enjoyable indeed, he thought, if spent in the company of his attractive new neighbor.

When Steve or Skye spoke, their breath showed as pale white wreaths of mist, due to the cold. The horses’ exhalations, too, came as steamy puffs.

Skye rose in her saddle, standing in the stirrups as she surveyed the splendid view of the eastern slope laid out below.

“Hard to believe we’re only ninety minutes away from Washington. The mountains, the woods, and countryside. Quite lovely, really,” she said.

“It’s nice,” Steve agreed. He liked the scenery well enough but he was generally a man of few words—an asset in the peculiar trade he followed.

Skye lowered into the saddle. “Sorry I couldn’t give you better weather for riding. But you said you like to ride.”

“I do. Any weather I can ride in is fine with me. I don’t get many opportunities these days to go horseback riding, so this is a treat.”

“You ride very well, Steve. I’d say you’ve spent a lot of time in the saddle.”

Steve glanced at her, unsure whether or not her words held a double meaning. Skye’s expression was innocent, guileless.

“When I was a boy I spent most of my spare time on a horse. I grew up on a ranch,” he said.

“How interesting! Where was it?” she asked.

“Out west,” he said, answering vaguely, as his professional aversion to supplying information about his background and past history kicked in. “I’m happy to be here. Thanks for the invite, Skye. As I said, it’s an unexpected treat.”

“Sometimes those are the best kind,” she said, laughing. “You say you like to ride, so…let’s ride!”

Yellow eyes flashing, Skye turned her horse’s head to the right and gave it a touch of her boot heels, urging it forward. The animal broke into a run.

Steve swung his horse around, following, quickly drawing abreast of her. The two rode north, galloping across a straightaway. The property featured plenty of open acreage for the horses to run in free and unconstrained.

Skye rode well, thought Steve. So did he. He preferred the traditional Western-style saddle but the English saddle gave him no trouble.

It was exhilarating, the pure physical pleasure of horseback riding: the headlong wind and speed, the animal coursing beneath him in swift forward motion, hoofs pounding the turf.

A quarter mile and the straightaway ended where woods bordered the fields on the north. Skye and Steve reined in, slowing the horses to a halt.

After the run, red spots of color glowed in Skye’s creamy cheeks, while her yellow eyes glittered. Her rounded bosom rose and fell from her hard breathing,

“That warmed me up,” Steve said.

“So will this,” said Skye, taking from a side pocket of her riding coat a silver flask. Or was it platinum? Steve wondered. She unscrewed a cap linked to the flask by a slim shiny chain and offered the flask to Steve.

“Brandy,” Skye said.

“Ladies first,” Steve countered.

“Who says I’m a lady?” she challenged. “But since you insist…” Skye held the flask to her lips, tilted it upward, and took a long pull from it. “Ah.”

She held it out to Steve, and this time he accepted it. He sniffed the contents. Rich and potent. He took several mouthfuls, gulping them down.

The liquor drew a line of fire down his throat, detonating in a blossom of welcome heat in the pit of his belly. Its warmth raced through his veins.

“Much obliged,” he said, returning the flask to her. She capped and pocketed it.

“I know a place I want to show you. This way,” Skye Moray said.

A trail mouth opened in the trees, the dirt path winding back into the depths of the forest. Skye rode into it, Steve joining her. The trail was wide enough so the two of them could ride abreast.

An old fire trail rutted by twin tire tracks of off-road vehicles, it took them deeper into the forest. It was bordered on both sides by a profusion of bare gray trees; patches of mulched brown dead leaves mottled black-brown earth. Patches of snow showed under the trees and on their north sides. The trees acted as a barrier against gusty winds, which shook their tops.

The trail meandered, following the lay of the land, rising, falling, curving one way and then another. The open grounds and manor house were soon lost from view.

The woods were classic Atlantic Seaboard second growth. Groves of furry evergreens, dark, shaggy, and aromatic with resin, even in winter. Bare trees—oaks, maples, elms—shot through with rock outcroppings and threaded with silvery streams.

A quarter hour later, Skye slowed her mount, her eyes scanning the right side of the dirt road. A secondary path branched off from it. She rode into it. It was narrow, so Skye and Steve had to go in file.

Another ten minutes’ ride and the trees on either side of the trail fanned out, opening into a secluded glade. The circular enclosure, about twenty feet in diameter, was bordered by a stand of pine trees. In its center stood a gray granite boulder the size of a shuttle bus. Near it lay a fallen tree weathered silvery gray.

Skye reined to a halt, stepped down from the saddle. “We’ll stop here for a while.”

“All right,” Steve said, dismounting.

Skye fastened the reins of her horse to the trunk of a short, squat shrub, securing the animal. Steve did the same, tethering his horse nearby.

“I found this place the first day I went out riding at Crestfield,” Skye said. “Wherever I go, the first thing I do is find some place off the beaten path that I can make my own. A place no one else in my family knows about, so I can have some privacy. My private place, a place I can share with my special friends.”

Skye reached behind her, freeing the band that held her hair in a ponytail. She gave her head a toss, causing the hair to come loose and spill across her slim shoulders in a glossy reddish-brown curtain.

“Won’t you be my special friend, Steve?” she asked.

“Sure. I’m a friendly guy myself.”

“Prove it.”

Steve embraced her.

“Kiss me,” Skye said, leaning into him.

Her riding coat was open, and through her sweater her breasts nuzzled his chest. She tilted her hips, grinding her pelvis against his. Her head tilted back, eyes closed, mouth open, available and waiting.

Steve covered her mouth with his. Skye’s full lips were naturally, ripely red. She tasted warm and sweet, meeting him with fierce energy.

Steve kissed her with his eyes open. He caressed her breasts, hips, thighs. He worked his hands under her sweater. She wore no bra; her flesh was warm, firm, smooth.

He was hard, the crotch of his jeans tented out. Skye rubbed him through his pants. Steve unbuckled her belt, opened the top button of her pants. He slid his hand inside, down the front of them. Her pants were very tight. His fingers stole inside her panties, probing inside her. She was hot, wet, and juicy.

Skye’s mouth broke away from his, and she eased out of his embrace.

“Do me here,” she breathed. “Now.”

That’s just what Steve intended.

Skye turned her back to him, facing the fallen tree. She looked over her shoulder at him, eyes shining, lips moist and parted. She pulled her pants the rest of the way down. They were tight, forcing her to sway her hips and shake her rounded rear as she worked them down. Pants and delicate, wispy panties were bunched up at her knees, leaving her bare up to the hem of her sweater.

Skye spread her booted feet apart and leaned forward, bending from the waist, shoving her succulent heart-shaped ass toward him. Her naked flesh was pink and shining. Her palms pressed against the top of the tree trunk, bracing her.

“Hurry,” she breathed, looking back at him again. Her hair fell across her face, partially veiling it. A glittering yellow eye peered out from between silky auburn strands.

Steve opened his pants and pulled them and his shorts down. Cold air tingled against his bare flesh. He took a condom out of his inside jacket pocket, tore open the packet, and fitted the condom on.

“You lied,” Skye said. “You said this was an unexpected treat.” She sounded short of breath.

“It is. I just like to be prepared,” Steve said, his voice husky.