Thriller (64 page)

one wall of the living room; he could see its pink tiles, a plastic

grocery bag of something lying like a disemboweled stomach on

the counter, an open bag of bread. And now this.

He drew a bead on the man’s head. He was going for a clean

kill, one that would short-circuit even the death spasm that

could cause the hostage-taker’s finger to twitch on the trigger and

grant him one last victim. That meant severing the nervous system pathway, an inch wide, at the back of the skull—on a wildly

moving target. Between the rifle’s muzzle and the target were a

hundred and twenty yards of gusty winds and a pane of glass. If

the bullet managed to zing past the hostage’s head to find its

mark, a final barricade of tooth and bone would try to deflect it

away from the brain stem, so crucial to the hostages’ safety.

“Piece of cake,” Byron whispered as he aligned the crosshairs

on the man’s philtrum, the dimple between nose and upper lip.

His heart seemed to thump especially hard, causing Byron’s

aim to jerk away from the man’s head. He knew the spasm, imperceptible to anyone but him, was no involuntary physical tic—

the kind that ended the careers of surgeons and snipers. This one

came from deep within, from a bit of conscience that told him

the object in his sights was flesh and bone.

Perspiration tickled his scalp. The sweatband along the inside

edge of his cap would keep it from blinding him. He allowed his

eyes to close. For only a second, then two. Vision, again…and

the man’s head in the scope. Byron’s stomach cramped.

A creak of wood reminded him he was not alone. His spotter—the second half of every police sniper team—stood on a

chair behind him, watching the scene through powerful binoculars. Usually, the spotter gave periodic updates on wind velocity and direction, SWAT team movements, the position of

hostages. In this case, he would have confirmed the children’s

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whereabouts so the sniper’s attention could have stayed on the

target. But this spotter was different. He had been silent for the

nearly three hours the two had been in position.

Three hours. Sometimes an operation lasted only minutes.

More often, it was a waiting game.

Upon receiving a brief sketch of the situation, Byron had selected this building, and after rejecting three other locations, settled on this abandoned room. The fading ghost of something

rotting lingered in the air, but his nose had acclimated to it.

Carefully, he had cut the pane from the window, because raised

windows tended to draw suspicion, and shooting through glass

decreased accuracy. He’d hung cheesecloth over it like sheer curtains to hide behind, without affecting his tightly focused view

through the sniper-scope.

Then he’d made a platform to lie on from a door and two

chairs. His vantage point and stability were perfect.

Through it all, the spotter had quietly observed. And that was

okay; Byron preferred checking things out for himself.

For the first two hours, he’d waited for the word:
red
to stand

down,
green
to shoot. Some fifty minutes ago, he’d received the

go-ahead. Apparently, the creep had a long history of violence.

Earlier in the day, before taking the woman and two kids hostage,

he’d stabbed his former employer with a screwdriver. Somewhere, a tactical-unit leader had gathered intelligence from

sniper teams, police investigators, a psychologist, a hostage negotiator. He had determined there was sufficient cause to effectively sign the guy’s death warrant.

Byron wasn’t so sure. Against sniping wisdom, he never forgot that his targets were human, men (usually) who’d been boys

full of hope and wonder, who probably loved someone and was

loved back, who had somehow lost their way. Given the choice,

he’d rather see a peaceful resolution. But the choice wasn’t his.

It was in the hands of the guy on the other end of the scope. If

he continued to threaten others, if it looked as though he would

cause them serious harm, it was Byron’s duty to eliminate him.

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So for three hours, Byron had held his position, ready, vigilant.

“Shoot ’im, man,” his spotter whispered. He had grown impatient. “You got the green light.”

Byron ignored him.

In the scope, the man half turned from the window and

seemed to yell at the door. Byron adjusted his aim to a spot just

above his ear, where the side neural motor strip lay, another instant-incapacitation spot. He nestled the rifle stock more firmly

in the pocket of his shoulder. He had already adjusted the scope’s

Bullet Drop Compensator for distance and the difference in their

elevations. The wind was a concern. It was rising and dropping

like gusts through a valley. He had spotted a rag caught on a telephone wire. Its flapping gave him a sense of the wind speeds, and

he could see it without lifting his head from the scope by opening his other eye. He would move the crosshairs slightly to the

left to adjust for the wind at the time of the shot—a method of

compensation called Kentucky Windage.

The perp abruptly spun and fired two shots through the apartment door. The negotiations weren’t going well. Byron maintained his composure. He pressed the tip of his finger against the

trigger. He knew precisely how many ounces of pressure he was

applying to the trigger’s four-pound pull, and when it would slam

the firing pin into the bullet. His lips moved in silent prayer.

Riding a surge of adrenaline, the man threw the woman to the

floor below the window. Her mouth open in a scream Byron

could not hear, he raised the pistol toward her.

The rag was almost horizontal in a strong wind. Byron adjusted.

He took in three-quarters of a breath, held it—and pulled back on

the trigger. The rifle
cracked!
and kicked against his shoulder,

which was well muscled for just such times. He didn’t even feel it.

He was frozen in what marksmen call the follow-through: no movement for a full second after firing to prevent starting the after-shot

procedure a hair before the bullet left the barrel, causing it to miss

its mark. He saw the bullet impact and the target go down. He chambered another round, watching for movement through the scope.

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“Direct hit to the head,” he called to his spotter, who responded, “Suspect down.”

The spotter yelled into his mic, then yanked the earbud plug

from his radio handset, and a buzz of voices filled the room.

The door of the apartment across the street burst open.

Men and women streamed in. They gathered around the body,

some of them kneeling, pointing at the hole perfectly placed

below the suspect’s nose. A policewoman with short-cropped

hair inspected the bullet hole in the window. She looked up

toward Byron’s position, his “hide.” She smiled and waved. Behind her, a burly-looking cop with a mustache hoisted up the

body, holding it for Byron to see. Someone else gave him the

thumbs-up.

A chill skittered along his spine, and he shook it off.

After three hours of mentally filling in the gaps to make the

target as real as possible, it was a difficult task to start thinking of it again for what it was—an animatronic target mannequin, used for high-level training and top-flight competitions.

Puppeteers, situated safely away from the target, controlled

its movements. He peered once more through the scope at the

face of the pretend hostage-taker. The latex skin looked genuine enough. Even the eyes had rolled back, the mouth had

dropped open. It didn’t look so different from the real corpses

he had seen.

The woman cop was dragging the woman mannequin from

the room. He panned to the other window. The kids were huddled in place, now just looking like sad dolls. The illusion of

reality, so strong in Byron’s mind, was wearing off. When he

looked again, a photographer was trying to snap pictures of

the suspect-mannequin’s wound while someone else danced

with it.

He released his grip on the rifle. It rocked on its bipod and settled on the sandbag below its stock. Joints popped and muscles

protested as he rolled onto his side to look back at his “spotter”—

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actually, a fine marksman himself who’d volunteered to help

judge this contest.

“Jack, I’m getting too old for this,” he said.

Jack came around the side of the platform and extended his

hand. “My man, that was incredible.” His voice, deep and

smooth, made the words sound true. They squeezed each

other’s hands. For a second Byron thought Jack might try to

butt heads, or some such crap. Blowing the heads off things

had that effect on men. Instead, Jack pivoted and planted his

butt on the platform beside Byron. He fished a pack of cigarettes out of a breast pocket and tapped one out. He offered the

pack to Byron.

Byron stared without seeing. His mind had returned to the

shoot, the perp, the hostages. He rolled back to his scope.

Beside him, Jack said, “You got this thing bagged up, dude.”

A cloud of white smoke drifted into Byron’s periphery. “That idiot

Hanson took off the perp’s ear. Schumann, that prima donna acting like his farts don’t stink because he won National, and everyone said he’d take this one. Sorry cuss plugged a hostage.”

He kept rambling, a talker released from a three-hour vow of

silence, but his words became background static in Byron’s ears.

The kid-dolls reminded him of a time when it wasn’t makebelieve, when he hadn’t been so perfect with his aim, when the

perp had retained enough life force to empty his Glock.

One of the kids jerked his head to look directly at him. His

heart wedged into his throat.

The kid jumped out of view. Byron panned to see a cop dragging it by one leg toward the apartment door.

He closed his eyes and moaned internally. Could he ever do

this without investing so much of himself? He doubted it.

“Dude.” Jack elbowed his hip. He turned. “We gotta— What’s

with you?”

Byron pressed his fingers to his cheek. Wet.

“Bug or something flew in my eye…this
smoke
.” He waved his

hand, clearing away a thin tendril.

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Jack glared, suspicious. He stood. “Let’s get outta here, man.

Grub’s on, beer’s flowing.”

Byron nodded, and pushed up onto his knees. He looked out

through the cheesecloth. The windows into the kill zone were dark.

History, action, long-lost secrets, intricate conspiracies and

international settings—these are the main ingredients in a

Steve Berry thriller. His debut,
The Amber Room,
dealt with a

legendary Russian treasure, a room paneled entirely in amber,

stolen by the Nazis in 1941.
The Romanov Prophecy
answered

the question—What happened to the two children of Nicholas

II, the last tsar of Russia, whose remains have never been

found?
The Third Secret
revolved around the Catholic Church,

Marian visions and shocking divine messages.

In his fourth thriller,
The Templar Legacy
, Berry introduced

Cotton Malone, a lawyer/agent who worked with the Justice

Department for many years in a special unit known as the

Magellan Billet. Deciding the risks were too great, Malone

retires out early, moves to Copenhagen and opens an oldbooks shop. Unfortunately, trouble seems to follow Malone,

and
The Templar Legacy
is just the first of several adventures

Berry plans for Malone and the cast of supporting characters.

The Devils’ Due
is a tale from before Malone retired, when

he was still active with the Magellan Billet.

Another unique situation with far-reaching consequences.

Typical for Cotton Malone.

THE DEVILS’ DUE

Cotton Malone stood on the balcony and calmly watched the

books burn.

He was standing next to Yossef Sharma, president of a tiny central Asian nation nestled firmly between Afghanistan, China and

a host of other American enemies. Which was why Washington

had, for years, conveniently ignored Sharma’s excesses, including his audacious plan to burn nearly every book in his country.

“We’ve been collecting for the past month. The people have

brought them from every town and village.” Sharma spoke a mixture of Russian and Arabic unique to the region. “Tonight, there

are fires in every quarter of the nation. All to rid us of Western

influence.”

“I almost think you believe that crap,” Malone said, not taking his eyes off the spectacle.

“After tomorrow, possession of a single book, excepting the

Koran, will be punishable by imprisonment. And if my people

are anything, they’re obedient.”

Malone continued to watch as people, bundled in coats and

jackets, picked their way over slippery cobbles to heap more

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books onto the blaze. Clatter from flutes and tambourines added

to the surreal spectacle.

“That crazy obedience,” Malone said, “more than anything

else, explains your current predicament. The world believes this

place is another Afghanistan, and you know what that led to.”

“Lucky for me, and this country,
you
know that to be false.”